Sleeping Cat, by Guzel Min, 2021
The folks in DC are still arguing about whether the U.S. government should pay its bills or not. Republicans think it’s much more important to make poor, disabled, and elderly Americans, as well as federal employees–including the military–suffer than to simply write those checks and then sit down and work on the next budget. If Congress doesn’t get its act together, millions of people in those categories will be unable to pay their rent and bills and buy food. I suppose this will go down to the wire and then be worked out, but I think the whole mess is getting dangerous.
Here’s what’s happening as of this morning.
NBC News: The U.S. now has until June 5 to act on the debt ceiling, Yellen says.
The United States has a few more days than expected before it runs out of money, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a letter Friday afternoon.
The new deadline to act or risk breaching the debt ceiling is June 5, Yellen said, setting a hard deadline for the first time. She had previously been less specific, saying the breach could occur “potentially as early as June 1.”
The Treasury Department hit the statutory borrowing limit in January and has since been using “extraordinary measures” to pay the country’s bills.
“Based on the most recent available data, we now estimate that Treasury will have insufficient resources to satisfy the government’s obligations if Congress has not raised or suspended the debt limit by June 5,” Yellen wrote to congressional leaders.
This is just about paying the bills that we’ve already run up, but Republicans want hold the funds hostage so they can punish people who need help from the government.
The two parties have been sorting through their differences on spending levels. But a major hangup is the Republican demand to impose tougher work requirements for Americans to receive federal benefits like SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, two sources familiar with the talks said.
Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, who is leading negotiations for House Republicans, said it’s “totally appropriate” for an older group of able-bodied Americans without dependents to be subject to work requirements in order to get federal aid….
Democrats say work requirements already exist for federal programs and argue that stricter policies would create more red tape and throw eligible Americans who don’t complete the paperwork correctly off the rolls, and that work requirements have little impact on unemployment.
Painting by Quint Bucholz
Republicans know they’d never win this argument without holding the full faith and credit of our country hostage, so that is what they are doing. If only Democrats had listened to Yellen when they still held a majority in both houses for a brief time after the midterms, this wouldn’t be happening now.
The New York Times: Yellen’s Debt Limit Warnings Went Unheeded, Leaving Her to Face Fallout.
In the days after November’s midterm elections, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen was feeling upbeat about the fact that Democrats had performed better than expected and maintained control of the Senate.
But as she traveled to the Group of 20 leaders summit in Indonesia that month, she said Republicans taking control of the House posed a new threat to the U.S. economy.
“I always worry about the debt ceiling,” Ms. Yellen told The New York Times in an interview on her flight from New Delhi to Bali, Indonesia, in which she urged Democrats to use their remaining time in control of Washington to lift the debt limit beyond the 2024 elections. “Any way that Congress can find to get it done, I’m all for.”
Democrats did not heed Ms. Yellen’s advice. Instead, the United States has spent most of this year inching toward the brink of default as Republicans refused to raise or suspend the nation’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit without capping spending and rolling back parts of President Biden’s agenda.
So what will Yellen do in the worst case scenario?
Ms. Yellen has held her contingency plans close to the vest but signaled this week that she had been thinking about how to prepare for the worst. Speaking at a WSJ CEO Council event, the Treasury secretary laid out the difficult decisions she would face if the Treasury was forced to choose which bills to prioritize.
Most market watchers expect that the Treasury Department would opt to make interest and principal payments to bondholders before paying other bills, yet Ms. Yellen would say only that she would face “very tough choices.”
White House officials have refused to say if any contingency planning is underway. Early this year, Biden administration officials said they were not planning for how to prioritize payments. As the U.S. edges closer to default, the Treasury Department declined to say whether that has changed.
Yet former Treasury and Federal Reserve officials said it was nearly certain that emergency plans were being devised.
Read more at the NYT.
Cat on a windowsill, artist unknown
My eyes bugged out when I read this one at Axios: Scoop: Sinema enters debt ceiling negotiations. Just what we don’t need.
Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.) has inserted herself into the debt ceiling negotiations, working with both sides to try to bridge differences on permitting reform, according to people familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: Her late entrance is a sign that negotiators are willing to explore new avenues to resolve thorny issues before June 5, the new deadline from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen for when the U.S. government will run out of money.
— Permitting reform — a catch-all category that includes both Republican and Democratic plans to improve energy production and transmission — is emerging as a tough-to-resolve disagreement between the White House and congressional negotiators.
— Republicans want to change the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) with the goal of cutting red tape for oil and gas companies when they develop new projects. Democrats want to make it easier for solar and wind farms to access transmission lines.
Negotiators also are at an impasse on a demand from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to add new work requirements to welfare benefits, according to Biden administration officials.
— But the two sides are making progress on overall spending levels, with the goal of capping spending for two years at lower levels. In exchange, the debt ceiling would be raised past the 2024 elections.
Ugh!
Here’s a bit of dark humor on the debt ceiling crisis by Dana Millbank at The Washington Post: Save the world economy or his own job? McCarthy can’t decide.
After a debt limit negotiating session at the White House this week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy returned to the Capitol and offered reporters an update.
Filippo Corelli, Cat in a Doorway, early 20th century
This might be the most worrying aspect of the default standoff: The full faith and credit of the United States hangs in the balance, and the man sitting across the negotiating table from the president seems to be genuinely off-kilter.
Whipsawed by public pressure from the far-right House Freedom Caucus and from former president Donald Trump, McCarthy has at one moment praised the “honesty” and “professionalism” of White House negotiators and the next moment attacked the other side as “socialist.” He gives daily (sometimes hourly) updates packed with fake statistics, nonsense anecdotes and malapropisms. His negotiators have walked out of talks only to resume them hours later. This week, at a meeting of the House Republican Conference during the height of negotiations, he decided it was the right moment to auction off a stick of his used lip balm as a fundraiser for House Republicans’ political campaigns. (Rep. Marjorie Taylor “Jewish Space Lasers” Greene won the bidding at $100,000.)
The speaker’s erraticism has an obvious origin. As usual, he isn’t leading. He’s being buffeted by crosscurrents. If he bends too much in talks, he’ll lose his GOP hardliners and could therefore lose his job. If he pleases the hardliners, he keeps his job but throws the country and perhaps the world into economic calamity. His job security or the world economy? McCarthy just can’t decide.
Read the rest at the WaPo.
Moving on to other topics….
CBS has a tidbit about the criminal case against Trump in Manhattan: Prosecutors in Trump’s criminal case say they have recording of Trump and a witness.
Prosecutors in former President Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal case have released to his attorneys a recording of Trump and a witness, whose identity was not disclosed, according to a document the office made public Friday.
The document, called an automatic discovery form, describes the nature of the charges against a defendant and a broad overview of the evidence that prosecutors will present at Trump’s preliminary hearing or at trial. Trump’s attorneys and media organizations, including CBS News, had repeatedly requested that such a form be made public in the weeks since Trump’s arrest on April 4….
The document lists the dates of 34 instances between Feb. 14, 2017 and Dec. 5, 2017 when he allegedly falsified records.
In a section devoted to electronic evidence that will be turned over, a prosecutor for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office indicated they have disclosed to the defense a “recording of a conversation between defendant and a witness.”
The section also indicates prosecutors intend to disclose recordings of calls between witnesses and others.
That could be interesting.
Three Cats, by Ann Hewson
“National experts” are responding to the treatment of Indiana doctor Caitlin Bernard who treated a 10-year-old Ohio girl who had been impregnated through rape. Indy Star: ‘Chilling effect’: National experts decry decision against abortion doctor Caitlin Bernard.
Dressed in white coats, Drs. Tracey Wilkinson and Caroline Rouse were among the first to arrive at Caitlin Bernard’s Thursday hearing in front of the Indiana medical licensing board. When the hearing ended nearly 15 hours later, they were among the last to leave.
Six months after Indiana’s Republican attorney general filed a complaint against the Indianapolis obstetrician-gynecologist, the board voted to reprimand and fine Bernard on Thursday, finding that she violated privacy laws in giving a reporter information about a 10-year-old rape victim.
But representatives of the medical community nationwide – from individual doctors to the American Medical Association to an author of HIPAA – don’t think Bernard did anything wrong. Further, they say, the decision will have a chilling effect on those involved with patient care.
“This sends a message to all doctors everywhere that political persecution can be happening to you next for providing health care to your patients,” Wilkinson said.
“It’s terrible,” Rouse said. They’d just spent hours “listening to our friend and our colleague be put on trial for taking care of her patient and providing evidence-based health care, and that is incredibly demoralizing as a physician.”
Guess what? Republicans don’t care.
Ron DeSantis has been announcing some of the things he would do if he were elected president in 2024.
The Hill: DeSantis says he’ll consider pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, including Trump.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday that if elected president, he will consider pardoning all the Jan. 6 defendants — including former President Trump — on his first day in office.
“On day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive in issuing pardons,” DeSantis said on “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show” podcast when asked about whether he will consider pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, including Trump, who is currently facing a federal investigation over his role on Jan. 6.
Nineteenth Century cat in doorway, Boston School, artist unknown
“I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics, or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big,” he added.
DeSantis also accused the Justice Department and the FBI of weaponizing its authority by pursuing ongoing investigations into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The Justice Department said earlier this month that 1,033 arrests have been made in connection to the Capitol attacks and about 485 people have been sentenced due to criminal activity conducted that day.
DeSantis also claimed that the FBI is targeting anti-abortion groups, as well as parents who want to attend school board meetings. He said that if elected, his administration would determine on a “case-by-case” basis if the government was weaponized against certain groups.
“We’re going to find examples where the government’s been weaponized against disfavored groups, and we will apply relief as appropriate, but it will be done on a case-by-case basis,” he said.
Also from The Hill: DeSantis says he would push to repeal Trump criminal justice reform if elected.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Friday that if elected president, he would call on Congress to repeal the criminal justice reform bill signed into law by then-President Trump, his latest attack on Trump from the right.
DeSantis, appearing on “The Ben Shapiro Show,” criticized the First Step Act, a bipartisan bill passed in 2018 that reduced mandatory minimum sentences, expanded credits for well-behaved prisoners looking for shorter sentences and aimed to reduce recidivism.
The Florida governor, who officially entered the 2024 White House race on Wednesday, called the legislation “basically a jailbreak bill.”
“So one of the things I would want to do as president is go to Congress and seek the repeal of the First Step Act,” he said. “If you are in jail, you should serve your time. And the idea that they’re releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early, so that they can prey on people in our society is a huge, huge mistake.”
DeSantis voted for the initial House version of the bill while serving as a congressman in 2018, something Trump’s team has highlighted.
If you didn’t already know that DeSantis is corrupt, there’s this from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: GOP officials: Top aides in governor’s office asked lawmakers to endorse DeSantis.
Top aides to Gov. Ron DeSantis were involved in rounding up endorsements for his presidential campaign from members of the Florida Legislature during a time when lawmaker’s bills and budget priorities were at the mercy of the governor’s office, according to three GOP sources with knowledge of the conversations.
A Republican lawmaker says DeSantis’ top budget official called earlier this month to discuss the lawmaker endorsing DeSantis’ presidential campaign.
The lawmaker and a GOP consultant who was told about the endorsement conversation with DeSantis’ budget chief Chris Spencer immediately after it happened said the call was inappropriate and raised ethical questions.
Blinking in the Sun, by Ralph Hedley, 1881
Having state employees in the governor’s office, instead of staff on the governor’s political team, asking for endorsements raises concerns about whether the governor’s staff was improperly leveraging state resources to help his campaign.
That includes using taxpayer-funded employees for political purposes, which is allowed if it’s not during work hours but still inappropriate in this circumstance in the mind of the lawmaker contacted by Spencer. It also relates to what some saw as an implied threat that lawmakers’ bills and state budget items could be vetoed if they didn’t back DeSantis.
The lawmaker who spoke to Spencer said budget priorities didn’t come up during the call, but the fact that DeSantis’ budget director was calling about an endorsement implicitly tied the budget items to the political ask….
Another top DeSantis aide — legislative affairs director Stephanie Kopelousos — did discuss budget items during calls with multiple lawmakers that included Kopelousos asking them to endorse DeSantis, according to the GOP lawmaker who spoke with Spencer.
That lawmaker later spoke with at least five legislators who were asked by Kopelousos to endorse DeSantis. Another prominent GOP leader in Florida said he spoke to a lawmaker who relayed that he repeatedly was contacted by Kopelousos about endorsing DeSantis.
This guy should never get anywhere near the presidency.
That’s it for me today. What stories have captured your interest lately?
Frederick Childe Hassam, ‘The Breakfast Room’
I’m filling in for Dakinikat this morning, because she’s working down to the wire to get her final grades turned in today. Biden and McCarthy are still haggling over the debt ceiling, Ron DeSantis will soon announce his candidacy for president, and we’re still waiting for the next Trump indictment to drop. But I’m going to begin with stories marking the anniversary of the Uvalde school shooting which will be on Wednesday, May 24.
From Raw Story:
UVALDE — At 7 a.m. on a Monday in February, Jessica Treviño, with squinty eyes, goes into her sons’ bedroom and in a low, raspy voice tells them to wake up. Eleven-year-old David James rolls out of bed, but 9-year-old Austin, the youngest of the four Treviño children, doesn’t move from the lower bunk bed.
The siblings get ready for school. David James grabs the car keys and starts the family’s black Ram 1500 truck for his mother.
Austin, who is still in bed covered by a blanket, tells his mother he doesn’t want to go to school.
“I can’t leave you by yourself,” Jessica, 40, tells him, leaning over his body as their fat bulldog, Chubs, tries to jump on the bed. “You have to go to school.”
Austin doesn’t move. The night before, the sound of police sirens woke him.
“It’s ’cause there were cop sounds last night so he’s kinda scared,” David James tells his mother.
It’s not the first time one of the children won’t go to school because something spooked them. And Jessica knows it won’t be the last.
These kids survived the Uvalde mass shooting.
Three of the four Treviño children were students at Robb Elementary on May 24, 2022, and were on campus for an awards ceremony as an 18-year-old with an AR-15 rifle approached the school.
That day, Jessica picked up David James, Austin and her now 12-year-old daughter, Illiaña, from the school about 11:30 a.m.
Jessica later found out that as she was driving off, the shooter had just walked into a classroom, killing two teachers and 19 students — including Illiaña’s best friend, a 10-year-old student in room 112, who was Illiaña’s defender when other children made fun of her.
A few days after the shooting, Jessica took Illiaña, whom she calls Nana, to Uvalde’s plaza to leave a teddy bear and flowers at a memorial for her friend. Suddenly, Illiaña’s heart began to race and she had trouble breathing. Jessica took her to the local hospital, which transferred her to an intensive care unit in San Antonio. The doctor there told Jessica that Illiaña was suffering cardiac arrest and her body shut down from acute stress. She was released after a week.
That’s severe PTSD. Read the rest and see photos at the Raw Story link.
Claude Monet – Anémones en pot 1885
Khloie Torres was the 10-year-old who repeatedly called 911 on the day of the Uvalde mass shooting. “Please hurry. There is a lot of dead bodies,” she told the dispatcher.
She took blood from some of the other students and smeared it all over herself to make it seem like she was already dead.
CNN reporter Shimon Prokupecz spoke to Khloie’s mother who told him, “Knowing the police didn’t do anything, it’s just crazy. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Does she ever ask you why the police took so long?” Prokupecz asked.
“She does. She’s like, Mom, why did it take police so long to come in here? I don’t even know what to say to her. She don’t (sic) trust any police now,” the mom, Jamie Torres, explained. “They let everybody in those conjoined rooms down. The families have changed forever because they were too weak to go in the room, but my 10-year-old sitting across the door was offering to open it. And they still didn’t want to go in.”
The mother told CNN to show the body camera footage of her daughter. The police are shown leading Khloie out, and the next footage shows her on the bus covered in blood. She’s trying to speak through tears. Sitting in the seat in front of her is her best friend, 9-year-old Kendall Olivarez, who was losing consciousness. She was shot twice, once in the left shoulder and in her back. In the video, first responders were shouting at her to stay with them. A wailing cry is then heard.
“Please help! I don’t want to die,” Khloie cried to the 911 dispatcher.
“It’s definitely stressed her out,” Jamie Torres explained. “PTSD, all of that. She has all of that. You know, she can’t walk into a restaurant or any kind of building without counting every exit of the door.”
“She counts exits?” Prokupecz asked.
“Yes, if we go to McDonald’s, she sits closest to the door that she can,” the mother said.
NBC News: An Uvalde victim’s family feels betrayed by officials withholding details from that day.
UVALDE, Texas — Javier Cazares is haunted by the 30 minutes or so that passed after his 9-year-old daughter, Jacklyn, was shot and before law enforcement officers finally confronted the gunman firing an AR-15 inside Robb Elementary School.
By Marc Chagall
“She wasn’t shot in the very beginning. She was shot somewhere in the middle. If they had gone in 30 minutes, 40 minutes” earlier, he said in an interview, “maybe she could still have been alive.”
A total of 73 minutes passed before law enforcement stopped the 18-year-old armed with an assault rifle.
The loss has been worsened, according to Cazares, by the refusal of people in power to take responsibility for their failures, to fill in the details for the grieving parents who need to know more about what happened each minute of that deadly day, to own up to fateful mistakes and remove those who made them, to make sure the families get the support they need when they need it, and to change gun laws.
“The first couple months, you know, it still seemed unreal,” he said. “And now, it’s like betrayal.”
A new CNN special on Sunday by Shimon Prokupecz revealed new video footage not previously made public of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting.
After an hour of doing nothing, the shooter was finally dead, and police moved in.
The show opens with the sound of gunfire from the shooter and from the police. The next scene is a group of officers finally entering the classroom. What follows is a collection of body camera footage showing officers vomiting outside. Others were sobbing and holding each other. A different video showed an officer shaking while trying to clean blood off their hands.
Before that, the video that was released showed the police standing around, trying to figure out what to do.
Sorry, but the blood is still on their hands, and they’ll never be able to wash it off.
The footage that CNN showed was approved by the parents to reveal to the public. Prokupecz explained to viewers that the families hope that showing the footage in the special will help create more motivation to do something more to help stop the mass shootings.
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin told Prokupecz that they’ve fought for the information previously blocked from the public. In some cases, it’s only because of the media that any parents can access information about what happened that day.
Other News
Biden and McCarthy are meeting again today about the debt limit. The New York Times:
President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed on Sunday to meet on Monday afternoon to try to jump-start talks aimed at averting a default on the nation’s debt, capping a tumultuous stretch of negotiations that faltered over the weekend as the two sides clashed over Republicans’ demands to cut spending in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Henri Matisse – Femme lisant en Robe violette 1898
Mr. McCarthy announced the meeting — his third with Mr. Biden this month, scheduled for after the president’s return from the Group of 7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan — after he concluded a call with the president on Sunday sounding more sanguine than before about the prospects for a deal.
The speaker said House G.O.P. and White House negotiators would continue talks at the Capitol on Sunday to lay the groundwork. White House negotiators left the Capitol on Sunday night after a two-and-a-half-hour bargaining session with their Republican counterparts but said they intended to keep working before Monday’s session.
Mr. Biden “walked through some of the things that he’s still looking at, he’s hearing from his members; I walked through things I’m looking at,” Mr. McCarthy said. “I felt that part was productive. But look — there’s no agreement. We’re still apart.”
I sure hope that Biden isn’t going to back down like Obama did in 2011.
On Ukraine, The New York Times reports: Biden Announces More Aid for Ukraine as Group of 7 Powers Meet in Japan.
HIROSHIMA, Japan — President Biden and other leaders of the world’s major industrial democracies rallied around Ukraine on Sunday with vows of resolute support and promises of further weapons shipments even as Russian forces claimed to have seized full control of a bitterly contested city.
Mr. Biden and his counterparts figuratively and, in some cases, literally wrapped their arms around President Volodomyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who made an audacious journey halfway around the world from his ravaged homeland to Hiroshima, Japan, to solicit aid for the first time in person from the Group of 7 powers at their annual summit.
“Together with the entire G7, we have Ukraine’s back, and I promise we’re not going anywhere,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Zelensky while announcing another $375 million in artillery, ammunition and other arms for Ukraine. At a later news conference, Mr. Biden voiced defiance of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
“I once more shared and assured President Zelensky, together with all G7 members and our allies and partners around the world, that we will not waver,” he said. “Putin will not break our resolve, as he thought he could.”
Zelensky got what he has long asked for.
Mr. Zelensky won the major prize he sought a day before arriving in Hiroshima when Mr. Biden reversed himself and agreed to make it possible for Ukraine to obtain F-16 warplanes. Mr. Biden on Sunday defended his long reluctance to allow such jets to be sent to Ukraine by saying the time had not yet been right and arguing that they would not have stopped Russia from taking Bakhmut in months of grinding ground combat.
“F-16s would not have helped in that regard at all,” he told reporters. “It was unnecessary. For example, let’s take just Bakhmut, for example. It would not have any additional added consequence.”
In authorizing the F-16 training now, Mr. Biden said he was preparing Ukraine for the day down the road when it would need to deter further Russian aggression.
Lilacs, by Konstantin Alexeevich Korovin (1861-1939), Russia
A new story from Hugh Lowell of The Guardian on the stolen Trump documents investigation: Trump was warned about retaining classified documents, notes reveal.
Federal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump was put on notice that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year, as they examine whether the subsequent failure to fully comply with the subpoena was a deliberate act of obstruction by the former president.
The previously unreported warning conveyed to Trump by his lawyer Evan Corcoran could be significant in the criminal investigation surrounding Trump’s handling of classified materials given it shows he knew about his subpoena obligations.
Last June, Corcoran found roughly 40 classified documents in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago and told the justice department that no further materials remained at the property. That was later shown to be untrue, after the FBI later returned with a warrant and seized 101 additional classified documents.
Biden advisers believe they can hold up what the GOP governor calls his “Florida blueprint” as a warning to the country about what would happen if DeSantis or any other Republican wins the White House in 2024 – a human embodiment, essentially, of Biden’s argument that “MAGA extremism” goes beyond Donald Trump.
And along the way, they believe the Florida governor’s record may give them a chance at the state’s 30 electoral votes.
The Biden campaign has quietly started putting campaign cash and efforts into Florida – and will decide in the coming months whether to put more – as it gauges the president’s chances of reversing the reddening of a state he lost by a wider-than-expected margin in 2020.
It’s an insurance policy strategy for a campaign that has so far almost exclusively focused on Biden as the alternative to Trump, who continues to lead Republican primary polls and whom DeSantis has already spent months trying to knock out of the way.
And it comes as Biden advisers push back on ongoing criticism from Florida Democrats that they flubbed their chance last year to damage DeSantis early by not investing much energy or money against him as he ran for reelection, racking up a whopping 19-point victory and tens of millions in campaign funds, likely now headed to a supportive super PAC.
“They’ve realized the outcome of their negligence. [DeSantis] now has a lot of resources that he can use,” said former Democratic Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who won a Miami-area House seat in the 2018 blue wave but lost it two years later as Trump carried the state. “You don’t want to lose your democracy? You want to stop fascism? Then do something about his reelection. We could have stopped [DeSantis] in 2022. No one did anything.”
That’s all I have for you today. This is an open thread–please feel free to discuss these stories or post your own suggested links on any topic.
Summer flowers, Evgeni Gordiets
Good Day Sky Dancers!
There’s a lot of news today. Some of it’s good, but still, a lot of it is awful. The best news is that we may see the Fulton County, Georgia Prosecutor start arresting Trump allies, and Trump himself, in August. The New York Times reports that “Georgia Prosecutor Signals August Timetable for Charges in Trump Inquiry. The Fulton County district attorney said most of her staff would work remotely at times, and asked judges not to schedule trials in the first half of August.”
The Georgia prosecutor leading an investigation into former President Donald J. Trump and his allies has taken the unusual step of announcing remote work days for most of her staff during the first three weeks of August, asking judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse not to schedule trials for part of that time as she prepares to bring charges in the inquiry.
The moves suggest that Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, is expecting a grand jury to unseal indictments during that time period. Ms. Willis outlined the remote work plan and made the request to judges in a letter sent on Thursday to 21 Fulton County officials, including the chief county judge, Ural Glanville, and the sheriff, Pat Labat.
“Thank you for your consideration and assistance in keeping the Fulton County Judicial Complex safe during this time,” wrote Ms. Willis, who has already asked the F.B.I. to help with security in and around the courthouse.
Ms. Willis had said in a previous letter that any charges related to the Trump investigation would come in the grand jury term that runs from July 11 to Sept. 1. Her letter on Thursday appears to offer more specificity on timing.
Afternoon. Calm
Evgeni Gordiets, United States, 2019
The bad news is that there seems no end to the damage done by Trump and McConnell with the appointment of three Justices to the Supreme Court. There are ongoing signals that the Christobans are lined up to do more damage. They have several allies in their religious crusade to end American Democracy and Religious freedom as it was written in the Bill of Rights and the Constituion.
My friend and neighbor put these two articles upon Twitter that I had just finished reading. I sobbed through these stories. The Supreme Court has invented a uniquely American form of Torturing Women with its ruling that ended Roe v. Wade. This is what happens when Doctors and Women don’t get to make decisions. Ron DeSantis appears to be uniquely positioned to torture Women, the GLBT community, immigrants, librarians, and any one that doesn’t conform to his radical social agenda. Florida is quickly becoming a failed state.
I discovered this wonderful artist, Evgeni Gordiets while trying to find flowers for baby Milo and his mother. His art is exquisite. I’d love to have his paintings all over my house. Baby Milo’s story is summarized in the Raw Story article below. The original story is in today’s Washington Post. “The short life of Baby Milo.”
Nobody expected Baby Milo to live for long. He arrived in the world with no kidneys, underdeveloped lungs and a life expectancy of between 20 minutes and a couple of hours. He lived for 99 minutes.
I’m not going to quote from this story because it is triggering, heart-wrenching, and worthy of a read and crying jag.
This second story in Raw Story shows us how having backwoods, religiously fanatical ignoramuses writing medical law is a very bad idea. It’s turning medical staff into accomplices to torture. It also sounds like the attempted murder of the mother.aQ7 This is also about providing abortions but it’s not about severe fetal abnormality like the family above experienced. It’s about medically necessary abortions to end ongoing miscarriages.
In the 11 months since the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, similar stories have been reported in the 14 states where abortion bans have gone into effect. In Texas, five women are suing the state for denial of care, including one who went into septic shock and almost died.
Now, the Biden administration is employing one of the few tactics it has available to try to hold hospitals accountable for denying pregnant patients abortion care for high-risk conditions.
In April, a first-of-its-kind federal investigation found two hospitals involved in Farmer’s care were violating a federal law that requires hospitals to treat patients in emergency situations. If the hospitals do not demonstrate they can provide appropriate care to patients in Farmer’s situation, they stand to lose future access to crucial Medicare and Medicaid funding. Physicians who fail to treat patients like Farmer could incur fines, and patients may be able to sue for monetary damages, Farmer’s attorney, Alison Tanner, said.
The investigation, conducted by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, documented that both Freeman Health System in Joplin, Missouri and the University of Kansas Health System breached their internal policies for complying with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, and that their protocols continue to place patients in “immediate jeopardy” of serious health risks, the highest level of violation.
Investigators concluded that future patients in similar situations could face “serious injury, harm, impairment or death.” The hospitals will remain under investigation while they come up with plans to ensure that patients in need of emergency abortion care are not turned away, federal officials said.
A “statement of deficiencies” from the investigation contains summaries of interviews with doctors, nurses and a risk manager involved in Farmer’s care. They reveal the extent to which health care providers went against their own medical judgment to comply with new state laws or political pressure. They also provide an on-the-ground view of how strict state abortion bans have altered care for patients with high-stakes pregnancy complications.
The agency did not disclose whether it is pursuing other investigations related to abortion denials. A spokesperson declined to share the number of complaints the agency has received related to denials of abortion care.
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra has sent letters to all hospitals that participate in Medicare, warning them that federal law supersedes state abortion bans. The Department of Justice has also sued and won a case in an Idaho federal district court, arguing the state’s abortion law violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
Summers Eve, Evgeni Gordiets
There seems no end to how far the Trump and DeSantis teams will go to attract the christobans. This first one is from Steven Beschloss’s Substack. “The Pursuit of Ignorance. Ron DeSantis proudly defunds diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida, part of his ongoing attacks on education and democracy as his official run for the presidency approaches.”
It’s not subtle. His intentions are not mysterious. It’s not like he’s advocating for the value of education and slipping in his ideological wishes while the majority is not paying attention. No, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, with the backing of the Florida legislature, is engaged in a frontal attack on education that tells us everything about his hostility to democracy and what kind of kind of citizenry DeSantis wants in his America. I’d call it his pursuit of ignorance.
Knowledgeable of American history, including the study of slavery and institutional racism? Nope. Knowledgeable and respectful of the rich diversity that defines and distinguishes America? Nope, not that either. Seeking academic freedom and the right of students and teachers alike to pursue a full buffet of ideas that can motivate and nourish their hunger for knowledge? You must be kidding.
In his latest initiative to undermine higher education in Florida and cause harm to students, teachers, staff and other Floridians, DeSantis signed into law this week the defunding of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in the state—claiming that such programs intensify racial conflict. As if the only perspectives that should be included in higher education are white-defined ones. As if it’s a danger to enable people of color and people from diverse backgrounds to be considered, and to feel and actually be safe and supported.
“If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination,” DeSantis said at a news conference at New College of Florida in Sarasota. “And that has no place in our public institutions. This bill says the whole experiment with DEI is coming to an end in the state of Florida.”
DeSantis made clear what he thinks of “niche subjects,” such as so-called critical race theory and gender studies. “Florida’s getting out of that game,” he said, his words brimming with culture war fervor. “If you want to do things like gender ideology, go to Berkeley.”
Small Island, Evgeni Gordiets
The Trump side of the Equation is equally crazy and ignorant. This is what the Republican Party offers these days. Dangerous, autocratic demigods looking for acolytes that will do anything. “Why top Trump allies like Roger Stone are using apocalyptic religious rhetoric. “My sense is [Stone] has recognized how important this sector of Christianity is for the ongoing radicalized Trump base,” says Christian scholar.” This is written by John Ward.
“I am a soldier in the army of the Lord,” Stone, who has said he converted to Christianity shortly after his 2019 conviction, announced last Friday at a meeting of Pastors for Trump at the former president’s Doral resort in Miami.
The meeting was organized by a failed U.S. Senate candidate from Oklahoma and a Missouri couple named David and Stacy Whited, who have a background in multi-level marketing and host a podcast called Flyover Conservatives.
The 2024 election, Stone said, will be “a fight between light and dark…a struggle between good and evil…an epic fight between the godly and the godless.”
Stone spoke alongside Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser, as well as Stacy Whited, who promised the crowd that Trump will be elected president again in 2024.
Like Flynn, Stone has been using more explicitly religious language over the past few years, especially when attending the Reawaken America tour events that mix evangelical church services with speeches promoting Qanon conspiracy theories and Trumpism.
The events combine a devotion to Trump with an apocalyptic religious view of politics. Flynn and Stone, over the past two years, have joined pastors and podcasters from a particular stream of American evangelicalism in calling their political opponents evil and even demonic.
“This is a war that we’re in, this is a big spiritual war,” Flynn said last year, with Stone standing behind him. “I mean people like Nancy Pelosi, she’s a demon.”
In The Garden, Evgeni Gordiets
We know these autocratic sorts have been hiding at the FBI, the military, and local police forces for years. BB covered the creeps in the FBI that were basically working against our country and for its overthrow. ABC reports this on a police lieutenant in the DC police aligned with the Proud Boys.
A D.C. police lieutenant was arrested and charged Friday with obstruction of justice and making false statements over allegations that he leaked information to then-Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy last month for his role in the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
The Justice Department announced Friday that Shane Lamond, 47, was indicted by a grand jury in D.C. with one count of obstruction of justice and three counts of making false statements.
Lamond was repeatedly mentioned throughout the course of the nearly four month seditious conspiracy trial over his ties to Tarrio.
The indictment unsealed Friday alleges he obstructed the government’s investigation into Tarrio for his burning of a Black Lives Matter flag in December 2020 by telling the Proud Boys leader law enforcement had a warrant out for his arrest.
Lamond is further alleged to have given confidential law enforcement information to Tarrio that in turn passed along to other Proud Boys members.
When Lamond was interviewed in June 2021 by law enforcement, he allegedly lied about his contacts with Tarrio multiple times, the indictment alleges.
Lamond’s alleged conduct is “not consistent of our values and our commitment to the community,” the Metropolitan Police Department said in a statement Friday.
A 24-year veteran of the department, Lamond was put on administrative leave in February 2022.
It’s tough to live in a country that follows the rule of law as laid out in the Constitution when an entire party, its elected officials, and those holding public positions in law enforcement or national security are out to overthrow it all. Is this the sort of country we want to live in and leave to our children?
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Portrait of Pablo Picasso, 1912 – Juan Gris
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Way back in 1964, Canadian communication theorist Marshall McLuhan titled the first chapter of his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, “The Medium is the Message.” You may read that chapter at the link with the pdf. Wiki has a good summary of the book’s theses, which might explain why I went down this rabbit hole. I read the book in my first high school journalism class, and it’s stuck with me on many levels. He discusses economics, Shakespeare, Cubism, and print and tv media, among other modern inventions, which sent me back to the book for a reread when I declared my economics major and had just finished my Shakespeare class in university. Here I am again, chasing the medium and the message for clues.
McLuhan argues that a “message” is, “the change of scale or pace or pattern” that a new invention or innovation “introduces into human affairs”.[10]
McLuhan understood “medium” as a medium of communication in the broadest sense. In Understanding Media he wrote: “The instance of the electric light may prove illuminating in this connection. The electric light is pure information. It is a medium without a message, as it were, unless it is used to spell out some verbal ad or name.”[11] The light bulb is a clear demonstration of the concept of “the medium is the message”: a light bulb does not have content in the way that a newspaper has articles or a television has programs, yet it is a medium that has a social effect; that is, a light bulb enables people to create spaces during nighttime that would otherwise be enveloped by darkness. He describes the light bulb as a medium without any content. McLuhan states that “a light bulb creates an environment by its mere presence”.[7] Likewise, the message of a newscast about a heinous crime may be less about the individual news story itself (the content), and more about the change in public attitude towards crime that the newscast engenders by the fact that such crimes are in effect being brought into the home to watch over dinner.[12]
In Understanding Media, McLuhan describes the “content” of a medium as a juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind.[11] This means that people tend to focus on the obvious, which is the content, to provide us valuable information, but in the process, we largely miss the structural changes in our affairs that are introduced subtly, or over long periods of time. As society’s values, norms, and ways of doing things change because of the technology, it is then we realize the social implications of the medium. These range from cultural or religious issues and historical precedents, through interplay with existing conditions, to the secondary or tertiary effects in a cascade of interactions that we are not aware of.[12]
Pablo Picasso, 1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier),Cubism. (2023, May 10). In Wikipedia.
So, I will spare you the Shakespeare but indulge in cubist art today as we consider two things that didn’t exist when the book was written or when I was in high school or University. Today, we have social media and constant streaming of news and news opinion in online newspapers, tv, and podcasts. The medium is a new form of news sharing, and the message, well, the message, can be pretty alarming. At the moment, it all seems overwhelming. I do, however, delight in sharing degenerate art.
Hold on to your coffee cup. I’m about to write about two people who I loathe and whose leadership and contributions to the US public square come through today’s modern media. First up, Elon Musk will be stepping down from Twitter, and his potential replacement is causing windows to rattle in right-wing buildings everywhere.
Reportedly, his replacement will be Linda Yaccarino. Brian Krasenstein introduces her thusly.
NBCUniversal’s Linda Yaccarino appears to be in talks with Musk and Twitter for the position as the company’s CEO. Currently Yaccarino works for NBCUniversal where she is responsible for monetizing the company’s industry-leading portfolio of linear networks, digital and streaming platforms, distribution and commerce partnerships, and client relationships. She also oversees all Global, National and Local Ad Sales, Partnerships, Marketing, Ad Tech, Data, Measurement, Commerce and Strategic Initiatives there.
Yaccarino worked for the WEF (World Economic Forum), one of the global institutions that frighten anyone on the right.
This is from Today’s Washington Post.
Musk had not publicly named Yaccarino but said Thursday that the new CEO will start in aboutsix weeks, after which he will transition to executive chair and chief technology officer.
The choice of Yaccarino, a longtime media industry insider, could signal a change at the ailing microblogging platform and prove a relief to advertisers, many of whom left Twitter after Musk took control. Twitter has laid off roughly three-quarters of its staff, and users have complained about outages and a shift in atmosphere amid sweeping Musk-led changes.
Whether Yaccarino will restore Twitter’s pre-Musk culture, double down on the tech executive’s approach or transform it into something else entirely will be a key question of her tenure — and users have wasted no time scraping her history to make predictions. Here’s what we know.
Yaccarino is chairman of global advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal, where she oversees 2,000 workers on a team that has generated more than $100 billion in ad sales, according to her profile on the company’s website. Her team has forged partnerships with Apple News, BuzzFeed, Snapchat and Twitter, among others. Word of her talks with Musk come at a potentially awkward time, as Yaccarino is scheduled to address major NBCUniversal clients on Monday at the company’s “upfront,” an event intended to attract advertisers.
Some Musk fans have zeroed in on Yaccarino’s work with the World Economic Forum, an organization of political power brokers and global business leadersthat Musk has criticized, as a sign that she will return Twitter to its old ways or tamp down on Musk’s free-speech initiatives. At the WEF,which promotes globalization and hosts the annual Davos forum,she serves as chairman on the Taskforce on the Future of Work and sits on a committee for media, entertainment and culture, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Responding to some of those concerns in a tweet, Musk said that the platform’s “commitment to open source transparency and accepting a wide range of viewpoints remains unchanged.”
Fernand Léger, The City, 1919, oil on canvas, 231.1 × 298.4 cm (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
This is a rapid about-face given the timeline of Musk’s Twitter acquisition. Musk began acquiring Twitter on April 14, 2022. The deal wrapped up on October 27, 2022. Musks started buying company shares in January 2022. He was the largest shareholder by April, with a 9.1 percent ownership stake.
Meanwhile, back in TVland, the Trump CNN Townhall continues to disgust. BB featured this yesterday, and the hoopla continues. This is from Hugo Lowell, writing for The Guardian. “Trump’s team revels in town hall victory as CNN staff rages at ‘spectacle of lies’ Questions also linger over what the network offered the ex-president in exchange for what some called a Trump infomercial.” Nothing says hostile work environment like putting a young woman in the position of being called “nasty” and listening to an accused Sexual Abuser and defamer give a repeat performance on prime time tv.
Donald Trump believes he got everything that he wanted from the controversial town hall hosted by CNN, according to multiple people close to him, even as it embarrassed the network and prompted a wave of outrage, including from many of its own staff who were upset that it gave Trump a platform to lie to a large audience.
The former president was interested in doing a town hall mainly because it would give the campaign material to clip for social media. He was interested in doing it on CNN because the campaign reached an understanding – which a spokesperson denied – that it would book more Trump surrogates.
Trump was not particularly concerned by whether the broadcast would get high ratings, though he told CNN’s chief executive, Chris Licht, backstage that he would boost their ratings, to which Licht nodded and said he should have “a good conversation and have fun”, two of the people said.
Trump’s advisers saw the town hall ultimately as a strategic win for the former president, who revelled in playing off the live audience of Republican and Republican-leaning voters in New Hampshire, which is hosting the first 2024 GOP presidential primary, and talked over the CNN moderator, Kaitlan Collins, as she tried to factcheck him in real time.
Man in a Hammock by Albert Gleizes
Nothing says Medium and Message more than this. “Licht nodded and said he should have “a good conversation and have fun,” two of the people said.” Yes, that’s precisely what a town hall for a criminal, racist, misogynist, insurrectionist presidential candidate should do. I particularly liked this headline and take by Dan Froomkin. “Lessons for Chris Licht’s successor at CNN.”
There is no evidence that CNN President Chris Licht is capable of learning anything. Nevertheless, his own journalists gave him a hell of a lesson during and after the totally predictable disaster that was the “town hall” with Donald Trump Wednesday night.
Licht has tried to make CNN neutral political territory, most notably by firing bold truth-tellers like Brian Stelter and John Harwood who minced no words when it came to calling out the tornado of lies spawned by Trump, Fox News, and the rest of the MAGA ecosystem.
Licht made it clear to the remaining CNN staffers that they should shove the contentious talk about Trump, in an attempt to appeal to more conservative voters; that they should not “take sides”.
What CNN journalists made clear in turn, on Wednesday night, is that in the Trump era, standing up for the truth absolutely requires you to engage in behavior that looks very much to one side like you’re taking the other. You simply cannot be a legitimate journalist and be neutral about Donald Trump.
Kaitlin Collins is no liberal – Tucker Carlson plucked her straight out of college to work at the Daily Caller — but Trump, blustering and blathering, cast her as a lefty patsy simply for trying to correct a tiny percentage of his flat-out lies. One MAGA publication called her a fool, rude, smug, arrogant, dismissive, boorish and ignorant.
Coming right out of the town hall, CNN’s star anchors completely refused to appear neutral – because to do so would have violated every jot and tittle of their journalistic principles.
And they didn’t only pan Trump, they expressed horror at the bizarre, ravening audience that Licht had pulled together.
Dancer in a café by Jean Metzinger
But then there’s my old friend from Katrina days, Anderson Cooper. “Anderson Cooper, company man .” This is from Finding Gravity and Jamison Foser.
Speaking of fundamentally dishonest, CNN host Anderson Cooper used his show to lash out at critics: 4
Now, many of you think CNN shouldn’t have given him any platform to speak. And I understand the anger about that. Giving him the audience, the time, I get that. But this is what I also get. The man you were so disturbed to see and hear from last night? That man is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for president. And according to polling, no other Republican is even close. That man you were so upset to hear from last night, he may be president of the United States in less than two years.
And that audience that upset you? That’s a sampling of about half the country. They are your family members, your neighbors, and they are voting. And many said they’re voting for him. Now, maybe you haven’t been paying attention to him since he left office. Maybe you’ve been enjoying not hearing from him, thinking ‘it can’t happen again. Some investigation is going to stop him.’ Well, it hasn’t so far.
So if last night showed anything, it showed it can happen again. It is happening again. He hasn’t changed, and he is running hard. You have every right to be outraged today and angry, and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?
This is just breathtakingly dishonest, condescending, and hypocritical.
I’ll take the last part first — the hypocrisy. Here is Anderson Cooper, a multimillionaire dozens of times over thanks to a hefty salary from the cable channel he is so piously defending, 5
ridiculing CNN critics for siloing themselves away so they don’t have to hear a word they disagree with — and he’s doing it as a monologue on the television show he hosts! Cooper could have invited a critic of the CNN/Trump rally on his show; could have given the critic a chance to counter his defense of CNN. But he chose instead to hide behind a monologue, siloed away, safe from counterpoint and disagreement. Like a coward, hoping those he disagrees with will simply go away if he ignores them long enough. He did exactly what he claimed CNN critics are doing. Pathetic cowardice and pathetic hypocrisy.
And of course CNN’s critics 6
aren’t siloed away, unaware of what Trump says. They can’t be — it’s virtually impossible to be unaware of the crap that oozes out of Donald Trump’s mouth; news companies like CNN constantly report the things he says and does. And critics aren’t saying CNN shouldn’t do that. They’re saying CNN should do it responsibly. They’re saying that there’s a difference between reporting on Trump and giving him a platform. They’re saying that CNN shouldn’t give him more than an hour of live airtime to lie and spread hatred in front of a hand-picked audience of adoring fans.
And speaking of that audience, the one Anderson Cooper so condescendingly insisted was a “sampling” of about half the country, as though anyone is unaware that Trump has fans, and as though broadcasting the audience was some kind of important piece of journalism? That audience was instructed that they could applaud but not boo. It was an orchestrated event, a fictionalization.
Think about how much contempt you have to have for your audience to behave the way Anderson Cooper did tonight. To condescendingly, and dishonestly, lecture your audience for not wanting to listen to a (carefully stage-managed) crowd cheer on a man who regularly incites violence as he mocks a woman he has already lost a civil judgement for defaming and sexually assaulting are nothing but snowflakes. To ridicule your audience for being afraid to hear disagreement — and doing it in a monologue instead of in conversation with a guest who might push back on your dishonest portrayal of critics.
Paysage Cubiste by Albert Gleizes
Well, that should harsh his mellow. And then there’s this: “CNN’s Trump town hall was a fascist ritual ” It’s written by Noah Berlatsky at Public Notice. That headline gets straight to the point about the medium and the message.
How can 74 million Trump supporters be fascists?
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was widely excoriated when she said in 2016 that half of Trump’s voters were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, and Islamophobic” — a “basket of deplorables,” as she memorably put it. In 2022, Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institute worried that “to say that tens of millions of supporters of the other party … are fascists, fascistic, or semi-fascistic is to use the language of national emergency.” That transforms the other party from “adversaries to enemies,” he argues, which makes it too easy “to justify taking extraordinary action to suppress the threat.”
Hamid is afraid of the effects of polarization. But the way he keeps incredulously insisting that tens of millions of Trump supporters can’t be fascists also suggests that he is just loath to believe that so many Americans — our fellow countrymen, our neighbors, our relatives — can be bad people. Fascism is evil. Americans aren’t evil. So how can Americans be fascists?
The CNN town hall was a 70 minute demonstration in the grim mechanics of how. Robert O. Paxton argues that a core characteristic of fascism is “an obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood” paired with “compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity.” Fascists claim that they, the pure bearers of the nation’s pride, are being assaulted, smeared, and debased (generally by marginalized people). They then use that as an excuse for extremes of violence in the name of revenge and purity.
You can read more about any of this analysis at the links.
So, I’ve gone way over my usual word count, so I’ll assume you’re mostly asleep by now. However, there’s just one more deplorable to mention. He’s been taking lessons on how to use the term ‘witch hunt’ from Donald Trump. He’s not quite up to the anger level yet.
This is from the New York Times. “What Comes Next for George Santos? The fraud and money laundering charges unsealed on Wednesday do not immediately restrict Mr. Santos from serving in Congress, but the consequences in the months ahead could be severe.” Perhaps a CNN townhall is in his future? The article is written by Rebecca Davis O’Brien.
The day after Representative George Santos was charged with wire fraud and money laundering as part of a 13-count federal indictment, he was free to go back to work as a freshman Republican congressman from Long Island. Mr. Santos, who pleaded not guilty, can still vote in the House, and he can still raise money to run for re-election.
In other words, there were few tangible, immediate consequences for Mr. Santos as a result of his indictment.
But that could change in the weeks to come.
First, Santos has little to do in Congress since he sits on no committees. His basic job is to vote the way McCarthy tells him to vote. He finally has his dream job. They’re not going to toss him out. He’ll just have to wait for the Federal Criminal Case.
Federal prosecutors on Wednesday indicated that their investigation was ongoing: The U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn is working alongside the Department of Justice’s public integrity section in Washington, the F.B.I., the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, and the criminal investigation arm of the Internal Revenue Service.
The grand jury that voted to charge Mr. Santos will continue to meet and hear witness testimony. Prosecutors could bring additional charges against him, and even charge other people, since there are still a lot of unanswered questions about his background and the financing of his 2022 campaign.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
CNN’s “town hall” with Donald Trump and a handpicked audience of his fans was–as everyone but CNN boss Chris Licht predicted–a complete disaster. No one at CNN was happy (except Chris Licht), and the rest of the media world is stunned and horrified. I actually turned the program on for a few seconds, but I just couldn’t stomach watching Trump. Anyway, the reviews are in.
For a good summary of the reactions, you can read this Morning Shots post by Charlie Sykes at the Bulwark: The Moment That You Knew. What CNN’s disastrous town hall showed us.
Critics had worried that giving the indicted, twice-impeached, coup-plotting, chronically lying sexual predator an unedited, live television forum might turn out badly.
The reality, however, was far ghastlier: a sh*tshow for the ages, and a moment that captured the thorough degradation of both our politics and the media. “It was a f**king nightmare,” remarked one savvy observer, “and it was programmed to BE a f**king nightmare.”
Trump was, of course, thrilled.
For her part, Kaitlan Collins was poised, prepared, and determined, but she never stood a chance. She raised all of the key questions and tried (not always successfully) to ask followups.
But Trump just rolled over her with a torrent of invective, jibes, and bullsh*t. The fact-checkers were reduced to asterisks. “He declared war on the truth,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper said afterward. “And I’m not sure that he didn’t win.”
Where to start?
- Trump called a black law enforcement officer a “thug.”
- He repeated baseless conspiracy theories about 2020.
- He lied about losing the 2020 election. (CNN’s Oliver Darcy tweeted: “I’ve lost count of how many times Trump has lied about the election. Collins keeps fact-checking him, but he keeps lying.”)
- He lied about calling for “terminating” the Constitution so he could be returned to power.
- He lied about his role on January 6th.
- He suggested that he would pardon many of the January 6th insurrectionists.
- He insisted again that Mike Pence should have overturned the election.
- He endorsed letting the country default on its debt, even if it would bring on an economic cataclysm.
- He claimed that residents of the Chinatown neighborhood in Washington, D.C., “did not speak English as part of an allegation that Biden stored boxes there after his vice presidency because he had nefarious ties to Beijing.”
- He refused to back Ukraine against Russia.
- He lashed out at Collins as “nasty woman” — and the audience CHEERED.
But this was hardly the worst of it. Actually, not even close.
The day after a federal jury found that the ex-president had sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, Trump turned the episode into a joke, mocking and insulting his victim.
Sykes then offers excerpts of some of the media reactions.
More reactions:
Rex Huppke at USA Today: CNN town hall audience laughs at sexual assault as Trump reminds us how awful he is.
Donald Trump took full advantage of CNN’s willingness to give him a platform Wednesday night, spouting lies faster than a sprinkler on a cocaine bender and giving Americans a reminder — as if they needed one — of how deplorable he and his supporters can be.
Sexual abuse, like the kind a jury just found Trump liable of? That’s a laugh line for these folks. Literally. They laughed during CNN’s town hall as Trump continued to likely defame E. Jean Carroll, the woman he was just found liable of defaming.
The Jan. 6 domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol? Trump said he’ll swiftly pardon most of the now-imprisoned attackers, possibly even some of the Proud Boys who were convicted of seditious conspiracy, because they’re “great people.” And that brought applause from the crowd.
A rat-a-tat-tat string of lies about the “rigged election”? The crowd chuckled.
A lie about “finishing” the border wall he barely started? You know, the one Mexico didn’t pay for. The crowd applauded.
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie. Laugh, applaud, chuckle, clap, cheer.
CNN effectively gave America a primetime Trump rally with fewer people selling offensive T-shirts outside. And for anyone who grew weary of Trump’s reflexive dishonesty and bullheaded cruelty while he was president, Wednesday night brought back nauseating memories, as well as a preview of how little has changed.
Legal experts believe that former President Donald Trump’s CNN town hall at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire gave fresh evidence to every one of the three ongoing criminal cases against him, reported Salon on Thursday.
The ongoing criminal cases against Trump — not including the bookkeeping fraud case over the Stormy Daniels hush payment, which has already been charged by Manhattan prosecutors — are the election interference probe in Georgia, the federal January 6 investigation, and the federal investigation of classified documents stashed at Mar-a-Lago — all of which came up during the town hall under the questioning of moderator and CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins.
“Trump repeatedly lied during the town hall that the election was ‘rigged,’ that Georgia ‘owed’ him votes, that he had the right to take classified documents to Mar-a-Lago and that he does not know E. Jean Carroll — the writer who was awarded $5 million a day earlier after it found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation,” reported Igor Derysh. “‘All three ongoing criminal cases got new evidence tonight against Trump,’ tweeted national security attorney Bradley Moss. ‘He is confessing on live television.'”
“Former FBI agent Pete Strzok called the comment [that he didn’t “really” share the classified documents with anyone] a ‘tacit admission of unauthorized disclosure of classified information,'” said the report. “During another exchange, Collins asked Trump about his call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, demanding he ‘find’ enough votes to swing the state’s election. Trump said he believed it was a ‘rigged election’ and said he told Raffensperger ‘you owe me votes because the election was rigged.’ ‘File this clip under new evidence for Fani Willis,’ tweeted Anthony Michael Kreis, a Georgia State University law professor. ‘This sure sounds like an admission of corrupt intent to me.'”
As for the January 6 probe, Trump agreed with Collins that the people who stormed the Capitol “listen to [him] like no one else” — which former federal prosecutor Elie Honig told Mediaite it was “the most important clip of the night” because the essential element of proving the crime is that Trump knew he had an influence on the rioters and “I’ve never heard him so clearly admit that. Everything Donald Trump says is out there. It’s fair game. It can be used.”
Not to mention that E. Jean Carroll could sue him again for defamation.
Abigail Weinberg at Mother Jones: Trump Mocked E. Jean Carroll Live on CNN. The Audience Laughed.
Yesterday, a federal jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. As soon as journalist Kaitlan Collins mentioned the verdict during this evening’s CNN town hall with the former president, the audience of Republican-leaning New Hampshire voters started to laugh.
“I never met this woman. I never saw this woman,” Trump said, before launching into a mocking retelling of Carroll’s allegations about what Trump did to her in a New York department store. “What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room?”
Trump swore “on my children” that the alleged attack never happened, despite a jury of nine people unanimously finding otherwise. He also repeated an insult he has frequently lobbed at Carroll, calling her a “wack-job,” to rapturous laughter from the audience.
Ryan Bort, Diana Falzone, and Aswin Suebsaeng at Rolling Stone: ‘F–king Disgrace’: CNN Gifts Trump Primetime Campaign Rally.
CNN INVITED DONALD Trump to lie on its airwaves for over an hour on Wednesday night. The evening was billed as a town hall, but played more like a campaign rally for the former president, who steamrolled and repeatedly mocked moderator Kaitlan Collins, pushing a torrent of misinformation about the 2020 election, the multiple investigations into his conduct, and pretty much everything else he commented on.
One CNN insider who spoke to Rolling Stone called the evening “appalling,” lamenting that the network gave Trump “a huge platform to spew his lies.”
Collins tried her best to correct Trump as he spoke. And immediately after Trump went off-air, CNN anchor Jake Tapper led a parade of pundits and fact-checkers to counter his dissembling and pan his performance….
Nevertheless, the town hall was “a fucking disgrace,” in the words of another network insider. “1000 percent a mistake [to host Trump]. No one [at CNN] is happy.”
“Just brutal,” added one of the network’s primetime producers.
Chris Licht was okay with what happened though.
Chris Licht
CEO Chris Licht acknowledged “that there has been people with opinions and backlash” during an editorial call Thursday morning — but he stood by the decision. “I absolutely unequivocally believe America was served very well by what we did last night,” he said. CNN’s own media reporter, Oliver Darcy, didn’t seem to agree. “It’s hard to see how America was served by the spectacle of lies that aired on CNN Wednesday evening,” he wrote in his newsletter the previous night.
CNN is finished if this moron stays in charge.
Wajat Ali at The Daily Beast: CNN Failed America With Its Train Wreck of a Trump Town Hall.
With its Republican presidential town hall on Wednesday, CNN failed journalism, the American public, and its own employees by deciding to invite an arsonist who has spent the past seven years trying to burn down their house.
We should remember that Trump regularly refers to CNN as “fake news,” and has trained his cult to see all media that is critical of him as the “enemy of the people.” As a result, CNN had to evacuate its NYC headquarters in 2018 due to a bomb threat. The next year, Cesar Sayoc, who sent functional pipe bombs to Trump’s critics, including CNN, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In turn, CNN decided to reward Trump for his reckless and dangerous behavior by giving him a 70-minute Festivus to air his grievances and lies in front of a fawning cult of 400 sycophants in New Hampshire, which reflected the full spectrum of whiteness and cruelty.
According to NPR, CNN’s current CEO Chris Licht “told his staff they are re-establishing the channel’s original identity.” After witnessing this embarrassing town hall, one could not be faulted for assuming Licht believes that identity is one of masochism and self-immolation. These are apparently the character traits that are needed to gain ratings, money, and access to GOP power. When CNN anchor and moderator Kaitlin Collins attempted to interject with actual facts, Trump simply doubled down on his bullshit and gave red meat in the form of rage, lies, and conspiracies, which the audience and his MAGA base heartily ate up. An hour into the circus, Trump called Collins a “nasty person”—simply because she stood her ground and asked follow-up questions.
The MAGA audience loved it.
David Zaslav, the CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery, defended the town hall on CNBC last week and said that “all voices should be heard on CNN.” This apparently includes the voices of white nationalists, antisemites, conspiracy theorists, and misogynists. He added, “This is a new CNN.”
There’s more at the link.
I can’t believe I thought we would be rid of Trump after he lost the 2020 election and then led a failed coup against the U.S. government. Boy was I ever wrong! This monster is going to be with us a long as he’s still breathing, and the media is going to help him.
That’s it for me today; I’m already exhausted. Please feel free to discuss this or any other topics in the comment thread.
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
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