Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: March 16, 2024 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: 2024 Elections, 2024 presidential Campaign, cat art, Cats, caturday, Donald Trump | Tags: "absolute immunity", Alvin Bragg, Benjamin Netanyahu, Chuck Schumer, E. Jean Carroll, Elon Musk, Fani Willis, Gaza, israel, Jared Kushner, Judge Scott McAfee, Letitia James, Mike Pence, SpaceX, Stormy Daniels, Supreme Court, Tommy Tuberville | 2 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Walter Chandoha plays with one of his subjects at his home studio in 1955.

Today I’m featuring cat photos by Walter Chandoha. Chandoha was a famous photographer of animals–mostly cats. You can read about him and see more photos in this 2019 New York Times obituary by Richard Sandomir: Walter Chandoha, Photographer Whose Specialty Was Cats, Dies at 98.

Taking pictures of cats soon began to look like a more fulfilling career path than the one in advertising that Mr. Chandoha had planned while attending New York University, after serving in World War II. So, after graduating, he turned to freelance photography for a living — and, by the mid-1950s, he had begun a long period as the dominant commercial cat photographer of his era.

“Walter Chandoha’s cat models, shown on this page, must be alert, graceful and beautiful,” read a newspaper ad in 1956 for a cat food brand that featured his photos. “To keep them that way, Mr. Chandoha feeds them Puss ‘n Boots because Puss ‘n Boots is good nutrition.”

On a winter’s evening in 1949, Walter Chandoha was walking to his three-room apartment in Astoria, Queens, when he spotted an abandoned gray kitten shivering in the snow. He put it in a pocket of his Army coat and brought it home to his wife, Maria.

The kitten’s antics — racing through the apartment each night as if possessed, shadowboxing with his image in a mirror — inspired the couple to name him Loco. Mr. Chandoha (pronounced shan-DOE-uh) was moved to photograph Loco and quickly sold the pictures to newspapers and magazines around the world.

By the time he died, on Jan. 11, Mr. Chandoha had taken some 90,000 cat photos, nearly all before cats had become viral darlings of social media. He was 98.

Now, on to the day’s news:

It’s becoming very clear that the courts are not going to protect us from a possible Trump dictatorship. Thank goodness for E. Jean Carroll and NY AG Letitia James. At least two New York courts have hit Trump where it hurts–his finances. But the two federal cases seem stalled and the Georgia case just took a bit hit. Those three prosecutions of Trump are unlikely to take place before the election now. We are going to have to defeat him at the ballot box.

At The New Republic, Michael Tomasky writes: We Have to Beat Donald Trump. Clearly, the Broken Legal System Won’t.

Judge Scott McAfee has ruled that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis can stay on the case against Donald Trump in that jurisdiction, provided that Nathan Wade, the prosecutor on the case with whom she had a relationship, withdraws. I guess we count that a win, although to be honest, Willis has so damaged herself by her colossally terrible judgment that it probably would have been better if she were out of the picture.

Cats play together in 1962.

The other problem with Willis’s scandal is how it slowed the case down, giving Trump’s lawyers a chance to make this not about the defendant but about her—and another chance to delay, delay, delay.

Meanwhile, Thursday, down in Florida, we saw Trumpy Judge Aileen Cannon issue yet another ruling in the classified documents case that helps Trump. She didn’t support Trump’s lawyers’ motion to dismiss the case, but she kicked the can down the road in a way that’s very helpful to Trump. MSNBC analyst Andrew Weissmann even called it the “worst possible outcome” for the government. “If the judge had simply said, ‘I agree with Donald Trump, and I find that this is vague, and I’m dismissing it,’ the government could have appealed it to the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, as they have done twice before and won twice before,” Weissmann said. “But she also did not want to rule in favor of the government. So what she did is said, ‘Why don’t you bring this up later? I think there’s some real issues here.’”

Also this week, in the Stormy Daniels hush-money case against Trump, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg shocked us all by asking for a 30-day delay in the trial, which was scheduled to start March 25. Trump’s lawyers had requested a 90-day delay. Bragg conceded that some delay was appropriate.

Why? It looks like it’s the fault of federal prosecutors. Bragg’s office requested certain documents a while ago from the Southern District of New York, and it shared them with Trump’s lawyers during the discovery process. Trump’s lawyers suspected there was more, especially relating to Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen, so they subpoenaed the SDNY. That happened in January. It was only earlier this month that the Southern District turned over all the documents….

It’s more than fair to ask: Why did the Southern District take so long to produce these documents? And we must also ask this: Did Merrick Garland know his prosecutors were taking so long to hand over documents, and thus playing into Trump’s hands? And if he knew, did he do anything about it?

And then there’s the most significant case of all–the one about Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Finally, let’s recall the status of the fourth criminal case against Trump, the biggest one, at least to my mind—the January 6 insurrection case. On that one, we’re basically waiting on the Supreme Court, which announced on February 28 that it would hear arguments in Trump’s claim of complete immunity but set the argument date for April 25. The high court could easily take another month—or even two—to hand down its decision after that, meaning that this crucial trial, about whether a sitting president initiated an insurrection against the government of the United States, may not happen before Election Day.

How in the world did all this happen? A few weeks ago, it looked like the wheels of justice were finally turning, catching up on a man who has flouted and broken laws not only during his presidency but for his entire adult life,

going back to when he and his father wouldn’t rent apartments to Black people in Queens. There was the judgment in the E. Jean Carroll case. And then the whopping penalty in the New York attorney general’s case against the Trump Organization.

But this week, it looks like everything is falling apart.

An American shorthair in 1966.

We can’t count on the courts. They move slowly and they favor the rich and powerful. We can’t count on the media either. They seem to favor another Trump presidency because the bosses believe the insanity and chaos would be good for their bottom line.

CNN on the Fani Willis case:

Another problem comes from MAGA threats. MSBNC’s Kyle Griffin wrote on Twitter that

“Judge Scott McAfee had written his order on Willis and Wade early last week, according to NBC News, but because he had been receiving threats, he waited until today to make it public in order to allow for proper security to be in place for him and his family.”

At NBC, Rebecca Shabad, Adam Reiss and Tom Winter write about the status of the Stormy Daniels election interference case: Trump hush money trial postponed until mid-April, judge rules.

The trial in the New York hush money case against former President Donald Trump has been delayed until the middle of April, Judge Juan Merchan ruled Friday.

Merchan said the trial — originally scheduled to begin March 25 — would be pushed back 30 days from Friday.

He also scheduled a hearing for the trial’s initial start date, to discuss a motion filed by Trump’s attorneys regarding document production in the case.

Merchan said he will set a new trial date “if necessary” when he rules on that motion, meaning it’s possible the trial proceedings could be delayed beyond the middle of next month.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg had previously said he would support the trial being delayed at least 30 days, into late April. Trump’s legal team requested that it be postponed 90 days.

Bragg said Thursday that Trump’s request to delay the trial was the result of the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan providing over 100,000 pages of discovery, which Bragg said were “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office provided an additional 15,000 pages of discovery on Friday, which Bragg’s office said were also “likely to be unrelated to the subject matter of this case.”

The documents relate to Michael Cohen’s guilty plea in 2018 to numerous criminal charges, including making secret payments to women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, lying to Congress about Trump’s business dealings with Russia and failing to report millions of dollars in income.

Echoing MIchael Tomasky, WTF is going on with the Southern District and the DOJ. Are there MAGA people still in place that are helping Trump delay justice?

This 1955 photo is one of Walter Chandoha’s most famous shots. “My daughter Paula and the kitten both ‘smiled’ for the camera at the same time. … But the cat’s not smiling, he’s meowing.”

Speaking of the rich and powerful, why is Elon Musk still getting federal contracts after his support for Nazis and white supremacists and his support for Russia’s war against Ukraine?

Joey Roulette and Marisa Taylor at Reuters: Exclusive: Musk’s SpaceX is building spy satellite network for US intelligence agency, sources say.

SpaceX is building a network of hundreds of spy satellites under a classified contract with a U.S. intelligence agency, five sources familiar with the program said, demonstrating deepening ties between billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s space company and national security agencies.

The network is being built by SpaceX’s Starshield business unit under a $1.8 billion contract signed in 2021 with the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), an intelligence agency that manages spy satellites, the sources said.

The plans show the extent of SpaceX’s involvement in U.S. intelligence and military projects and illustrate a deeper Pentagon investment into vast, low-Earth orbiting satellite systems aimed at supporting ground forces.

If successful, the sources said the program would significantly advance the ability of the U.S. government and military to quickly spot potential targets almost anywhere on the globe.

The contract signals growing trust by the intelligence establishment of a company whose owner has clashed with the Biden administration and sparked controversy, opens new tab over the use of Starlink satellite connectivity in the Ukraine war, the sources said.

The Wall Street Journal reported, opens new tab in February the existence of a $1.8 billion classified Starshield contract with an unknown intelligence agency without detailing the purposes of the program.

Reuters reporting discloses for the first time that the SpaceX contract is for a powerful new spy system with hundreds of satellites bearing Earth-imaging capabilities that can operate as a swarm in low orbits, and that the spy agency that Musk’s company is working with is the NRO.

Will Musk have access to this program, as he does with Starlink? How do we know he won’t share information with Russia? Am I an idiot to ask that?

Chandoha’s backlighting technique dramatizes the defensive posture of a kitten seeing a dog in 1957.

Another tale of the rich and powerful from Eric Lipton, Jonathan Swan, and Maggie Haberman at The New York Times: Kushner Developing Deals Overseas Even as His Father-in-Law Runs for President.

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald J. Trump, confirmed on Friday that he was closing in on major real estate deals in Albania and Serbia, the latest example of the former president’s family doing business abroad even as Mr. Trump seeks to return to the White House.

Mr. Kushner’s plans in the Balkans appear to have come about in part through relationships built while Mr. Trump was in office. Mr. Kushner, who was a senior White House official, said he had been working on the deals with Richard Grenell, who served briefly as acting director of national intelligence under Mr. Trump and also as ambassador to Germany and special envoy to the Balkans.

One of the proposed projects would be the development of an island off the coast of Albania into a luxury tourist destination.

A second — with a planned luxury hotel and 1,500 residential units and a museum — is in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, at the site of the long-vacant former headquarters of the Yugoslav Army destroyed in 1999 by the NATO bombings, according to a member of Parliament in Serbia and Mr. Kushner’s company.

These first two projects both involve land now controlled by the governments, meaning a deal would have to be finalized with foreign governments.

A third project, also in Albania, would be built on the Zvërnec peninsula, a 1,000-acre coastal area in the south of Albania that is part of the resort community known as Vlorë, where several hotels and hundreds of villas would be built, according to the plan.

Mr. Kushner’s participation would be through his investment firm, Affinity Partners, which has $2 billion in funding from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, among other foreign investors. In a statement, an official with Affinity Partners said it had not been determined whether the Saudi funds might be a part of any project Mr. Kushner is considering in the Balkans.

How does Kushner get away with this? Why aren’t Congressional Democrats investigating him, even if the DOJ is too busy or corrupt? I don’t get it.

Commentary from Carl Gibson at Raw Story: ‘Corrupt’: Jared Kushner’s overseas business deals under fire as Trump runs for president.

Former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner (who was also a senior adviser in his White House) has been ramping up his overseas business dealings undeterred by the optics of doing so in the midst of his father-in-law’s presidential campaign.

A Friday report in the New York Times scrutinized Kushner’s real estate deals in Balkan countries of Albania and Serbia, in which he stands to reap significant financial benefits once they’re completed. The Times reported that Kushner has been working with Richard Grenell, who was Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence who also served as German ambassador and a special envoy to the Balkans.

An American shorthair squeezes into a glass in 1960.

Notably, two of the three projects Kushner is aiming to finalize this year involve the transfer of land currently owned by Albania and Serbia, meaning a member of the president’s immediate family (Kushner is married to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka) stands to receive money directly from foreign governments. According to the Times, the first project involves redeveloping an island off the Albanian coast into a high-end luxury resort, and the second would be a 1,500-unit apartment building, museum and luxury hotel in the Serbian capital city of Belgrade. The third — which doesn’t involve a direct land acquisition from a foreign government — is a planned resort development in coastal southern Albania.

Kushner has been capitalizing on his foreign connections since leaving the White House. After Kushner’s departure became official, he launched his investment firm, Affinity Partners, which received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund as well as from other foreign business interests in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

The former president’s son-in-law worked closely with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin-Salman while he was in the White House, as Trump frequently put him in the driver’s seat in negotiations with Middle Eastern countries. In 2018, bin-Salman was accused of playing a direct role in the dismemberment and murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi (President Joe Biden made it clear in 2022 that the Saudi crown prince was immune from any legal action in relation to Khashoggi’s assassination)….

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, for his own foreign business deals even as Kushner plows ahead in the Balkans. House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) and House Judiciary Committee chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) both maintain that the president improperly influenced foreign governments in his son’s favor, though their respective investigations have yet to yield any smoking gun evidence.

In Israel-Hamas war news, Senator Chuck Schumer spoke out this week about Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Jonathan Weisman at The New York Times: A Watershed Moment for the Politics of Israel, Courtesy of Chuck Schumer.

Over 44 painstakingly scripted minutes on the floor of the Senate on Thursday, the majority leader, Chuck Schumer, spoke of his Jewish identity, his love for the State of Israel, his horror at the wanton slaughter of Israelis on Oct. 7 and his views on the apportionment of blame for the carnage in Gaza, saying that it first and foremost lay with the terrorists of Hamas.

Then Mr. Schumer, a New York Democrat and the highest-ranking elected Jew in American history, said Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was an impediment to peace, and called for new elections in the world’s only Jewish state.

The opposition was not nearly so painstaking.

Within minutes, the House Republican leadership demanded an apology. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname, declared: “Make no mistake — the Democratic Party doesn’t have an anti-Bibi problem. It has an anti-Israel problem.” And the Republican Jewish Coalition proclaimed that “the most powerful Democrat in Congress knifed the Jewish state in the back.”

Walter Chandoha, 1962

The months that have followed the slaughter of Oct. 7 and the ensuing, calamitously deadly war in Gaza have been excruciating for American Jews, caught between a tradition of liberalism that has dominated much of Jewish politics and an anti-Israel response from the political left that has left many feeling isolated and, at times, persecuted.

But Mr. Schumer’s speech was potentially a watershed moment in a much longer political process, pursued initially by Republicans but joined recently by left-wing Democrats — to turn Israel into a partisan issue. Republicans, as they see it, would be the party of Israeli supporters. Democrats, as the rising left would have it, would be the party of Palestine

At the root of that divide is a fundamental question: Is support for the Jewish State separable from the support of Israel’s democratically elected government? For years, Republicans have said no. Increasingly, the Democratic left agrees but from a different perspective: Israel is bad, regardless of who governs it.

“The pressure — electoral, social, cultural — on American Jews right now to declare themselves” on the justice of the war in Gaza and on the legitimacy of the Israeli prime minister has been “unrelenting, unforgiving and sometimes downright vicious,” said David Wolpe, a prominent rabbi in Los Angeles and a visiting scholar at Harvard Divinity School.

Mr. Schumer’s speech and the ensuing partisan response have made that pressure even more intense.

“It’s impossible to understate the seismic event this was,” said Matthew Brooks, the longtime chief executive of the Republican Jewish Coalition, who made it clear that the group would use the speech to drive Jewish voters to the G.O.P.

Lazy Caturday Reads: Fake Voter Fraud and Real SCOTUS Fraud

Posted: July 1, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: cat art, caturday, Corrupt and Political SCOTUS, Donald Trump, just because, SCOTUS | Tags: 303 Creative v. Elenis, Arizona 2020 election, Biden v. Nebraska, Doug Ducey, legal standing issues, Lorie Smith, Mike Pence, Neil Gorsuch, Rudy Giuliani, voting rights | 18 Comments

Cat and Girl by Tara Dougans

Happy Caturday!!

There’s quite a bit happening in politics news today, even though it is kind of a long holiday weekend with a Monday in between. I’ll bet plenty of working people are taking Monday off. I’m retired now; but whenever there’s a holiday weekend, I get the same feelings I used to when I was working. It feels like a time to goof off–maybe laze around reading a good book or binge watching something on TV. It’s a time to relax in the peaceful knowledge that you’re not required to be anywhere or do anything in particular.

Here in Boston, the Fourth of July weekend means lots of folks will be headed for Cape Cod or New Hampshire, and the city will be eerily quiet in the daytime. When I first moved to Boston from Indiana, I dutifully got a Massachusetts driver’s license; but I didn’t have a car, so I didn’t have to brave the insane Boston traffic. Eventually, I decided I wanted to learn to handle Boston driving even though I was terrified. I waited until the Fourth of July weekend, and drove all over downtown on empty streets to practice and build my confidence.

Yesterday, I started getting that holiday weekend feeling again. I can’t explain it any more than I can explain how I get that back to school feeling in the fall. I guess repeated experiences have formed pathways in my brain that are triggered by certain times of the year.

I feels like there should be a dearth of political news, too, but that’s not the case. It’s another very busy news day. There’s news of another “perfect” phone call by Trump trying to overturn the 2020 election. And of course, there are plenty of reactions to the most recent Supreme Court decisions.

Another “Perfect” Phone Call?

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Josh Dawsey, and Yvonne Winget Sanchez at The Washington Post: Trump pressured Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to overturn 2020 election.

In a phone call in late 2020,President Donald Trump tried to pressure Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) to overturn the state’spresidential election results, saying that if enough fraudulent votes could be found it would overcome Trump’s narrow loss in Arizona, according to three people familiar with the call.

Trump also repeatedly asked Vice President Mike Pence to call Ducey and prod him to find the evidence to substantiate Trump’s claims of fraud, according to two of these people. Pence called Ducey several times to discuss the election, they said, though he did not follow Trump’s directions to pressure the governor.

The extent of Trump’s efforts to cajole Ducey into helping him stay in power have not before been reported, even as other efforts by Trump’s lawyer and allies to pressure Arizona officials have been made public….

By Indira Baldano

Trump phoned the governor’s cellphone on Nov. 30,2020, as Ducey was in the middle of signing documents certifying President Biden’s win in the state during a live-streamed video ceremony. Trump’s outreach was immediately clear to those watching. They heard “Hail to the Chief” play on the governor’s ringtone. Ducey pulled his phone from out of his suit jacket, muted the incoming call and put his phone aside. On Dec. 2,he told reporters he spoke to the president after the ceremony,buthe declined to fully detail the nature of the conversation. Ducey said the president had “an inquisitive mind”but did not ask the governor to withhold his signature certifying the election results.

But four people familiar with the call said Trump spoke specifically about his shortfall of more than 10,000 votes in Arizona and then espoused a range of false claims that would show he overwhelmingly won the election in the state and encouraged Ducey to study them. At the time, Trump’s attorneys and allies spread false claims to explain his loss, including that voters who had died and noncitizens had cast ballots.

After Trump’s call to Ducey, Trump directed Pence, a former governor who had known Ducey for years, to frequently check in with the governor for any progress on uncovering claims of voting improprieties, according to two people with knowledge of the effort.

Pence was expected to report back his findings and was peppered with conspiracy theories from Trump and his team,the person said. Pence did not pressure Ducey, but told him to please call if he found anything because Trump was looking for evidence, according to those familiar with the calls.

Like officials in Georgia, Ducey told Trump there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in his state. Trump then began attacking Ducey publicly and shifted his efforts to using Rudy Giuliani to convince the Arizona legislature to find the “fraud” for him.

The article says that Ducey has not been contacted by the Special Counsel’s team, but he has interviewed other Arizona officials.

More than half a dozen past and current officials in Arizona contacted by Trump or his allies after his defeat have either been interviewed by Smith’s team or have received grand jury subpoenas seeking records,according to four people familiar with the interviews.Those interviewed include Bowers, the former Arizona House speaker, and three current members of the governing board of Maricopa County, the largest voting jurisdiction in the state that affirmed that Biden won.

Spokespeople for Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) and Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D), told The Post this week that their offices have not received correspondence from Smith’s team seeking records about the 2020 election. The Arizona Secretary of State’s office received a grand jury subpoena dated Nov. 22, 2022, that sought information about communications with Trump, his campaign and his representatives, according to an official familiar with the document but not authorized to publicly speak about it.

Reactions to Recent SCOTUS Rulings

There is a massive amount of discussion of the garbage rulings the Supreme Court issued this week. The student loan forgiveness case is getting a great deal of attention, as is the case of the web designer who used a fake customer and a non-existent wedding website to get the court to decide she could discriminate against gay couples. Dakinikat wrote a terrific post yesterday about several of the latest decisions, so I’m just going to follow that with some of the latest reactions from Court observers. If you haven’t read Dakinikat’s post, I highly recommend it.

Paul Blumenthal at HuffPost: The Supreme Court’s Conservative Supermajority Continues Its Work Rolling Back The 20th Century.

When five conservative justices on the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the right to an abortion in 2022, it signaled a new era for the court’s conservatism, one in which none of the rights and policies that emerged from the 20th century appeared safe.

By Valentin Gubarev

It also spawned a debate over the internal dynamics of that conservative supermajority. Chief Justice John Roberts did not join his fellow conservatives in overturning Roe. Had Roberts lost control of the court to the conservative ultras like Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito? Would he regain control in the next term?

The decisions released at the close of the court’s most recent term in June ― ending affirmative action in higher education, declaring a new right to discriminate against gay couples and voiding President Joe Biden’s plan for student loan debt relief ― present a different question: Does it even matter if Roberts is in the driver’s seat?

The conservative movement that built this court has long sought to roll back the legal and policy advances meant to blunt historic bigotries and discrimination, as well as the ability of the federal government to aid people harmed by the power of private capital. And they are continuing on that path whether Roberts or the ultra cohort runs the court.

At first, the conservative movement hoped that Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 would allow them to sweep away the policies of both the New Deal and the 1960s and 1970s, but they could not consolidate political power to do so through the legislative and executive branches. Instead, they launched a legal movement to win control of the judiciary and enact their policies outside of the political process.

That is what they have done over the last decade. They gutted the Voting Rights Act, first in 2013 and again in 2021. They blew a hole in restrictions on religious prayer in schools in 2022. And, of course, ended protections for reproductive rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Their progress continued this term.

Blumenthal addresses how each of the recent decisions of this illegitimate court have continued the work of erasing the gains of the last century. Read the rest of his arguments at HuffPo.

Ian Millhiser at Vox on the fake marriage website decision: Neil Gorsuch has a problem with telling the truth.

On Thursday, Justice Neil Gorsuch released a 26-page opinion venting outrage about a legal dispute that does not exist, involving websites that do not exist. Yet this case, built on imaginary grounds, will have very real consequences for LGBTQ consumers, and for anti-discrimination laws more broadly. All of the Court’s Republican appointees joined Gorsuch’s opinion in 303 Creative v. Elenis.

That said, the fake dispute that Gorsuch imagines in his 303 Creative opinion involves a reasonably narrow legal question….

The case centers on Lorie Smith, a website designer who wishes to expand her business into designing wedding websites — something she has never done before. She says she’s reluctant to do so, however, because she fears that if she designs such a website for an opposite-sex couple, Colorado’s anti-discrimination law will compel her to also design wedding websites for same-sex couples. And Smith objects to same-sex marriages.

As Gorsuch summarizes her claim, Smith “worries that, if she [starts designing wedding websites,] Colorado will force her to express views with which she disagrees.”

This is not a religious liberty claim, it is a free speech claim, rooted in well-established law, which says that the First Amendment forbids the government from compelling people to say something that they would rather not say. In ruling in Smith’s favor, the Court does not say that any religious conservative can defy any anti-discrimination law. It simply holds that someone like Smith, who publishes words for a living, may refuse to say something they don’t want to say.

The problem is that Smith brought her case using a fake customer who never requested a service she never offered. Back to the Millhiser piece:

Before this case was argued, I wrote that if Lorie Smith had been approached by a same-sex couple and refused to design a wedding website for them, and if she had then been sued for refusing to do so, then she would have a very strong First Amendment defense against such a suit. As the Supreme Court said in Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (2006), “freedom of speech prohibits the government from telling people what they must say.” And that includes the right of a web designer to refuse to write words on a website that they do not wish to write.

But none of these events have actually happened. And, for that reason, the Supreme Court should have dismissed the case.

The frustrating thing about this case is that it involves an entirely fabricated legal dispute. Again, Lorie Smith has never actually made a wedding website for a paying customer. Nor has Colorado ever attempted to enforce its civil rights law against Ms. Smith. Indeed, in its brief to the Supreme Court, Colorado expressed doubt that its anti-discrimination law would even apply to Smith.

Is this Gorsuch’s effort to set up a precedent for allowing businesses to discriminate against protected classes? And isn’t this decision based on fraud, since we now know that the customer Smith identified never contacted her and is already married and not gay?

Consequences for fabricating a court case:
DOJ: It’s a crime to lie to a court.
Roberts: litigants who file false filings can be removed from SCT bar and disbarred. https://t.co/TueVHfD9fM

— Andrew Weissmann (weissmann11 on Threads)🌻 (@AWeissmann_) July 1, 2023

And that wasn’t the only case SCOTUS decided on fake grounds. David Dayan at The American Prospect: Supreme Court Decides Fake Plaintiffs Are Good Plaintiffs.

Approximately 43 million Americans were made between $10,000 and $20,000 poorer today (plus interest) thanks to six Republican lawyers from Harvard and Yale. They decided that a program based on a statute intended to modify student loan balances in the event of an emergency could not modify student loan balances in the event of the COVID-19 emergency. And they did it by claiming that a plaintiff was injured by this program, when that plaintiff did not petition the Court over its injury, had no involvement in the case, and would likely not be injured by the program.

This is the upside-down world in which the Supreme Court dealt a fatal blow to the Biden administration’s student debt cancellation program. Advocates and members of Congress are now calling for a Plan B, to enact debt relief by some other means; for various reasons, I doubt that the administration will take that opportunity. But what should not be ignored is the way in which the nation’s highest court relies on dodgy theories and facts not in evidence to make the pronouncements it wants….

By Susan Visser

The plaintiffs in the two student loan cases, one of which was so preposterous that it was thrown out unanimously for lack of standing (that was the one where two borrowers said they didn’t have a chance to make public comment to get more debt relief, and that the remedy should be that nobody gets debt relief), simply didn’t like that borrowers would have some debt canceled, on ideological grounds. Nobody seriously contests this as their aim. But in American law, at least in theory, you have to have standing to sue: A party would have to be harmed by 43 million people getting debt relief, and eliminating the debt relief would have to redress this harm.

The Roberts Court, with the chief justice writing for the majority, believes they found one in the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA), a student loan servicer that stands to lose $44 million in servicing fees from debts that would be wholly canceled, according to the state of Missouri’s calculations. There’s one problem: MOHELA is not a plaintiff in the case. MOHELA in fact didn’t know about the case until hearing news reports, played no role in the case, opposed the case from being brought, and would not give the state of Missouri evidence for the case until required by state sunshine laws. We know all this from internal documents and public statements by MOHELA.

Even if MOHELA went ahead and sued, the contract they signed to accept federal student loans for servicing stipulates explicitly that the government has “sole discretion” to remove contracts from servicers, that the contractor cannot “object or protest,” and that the contractor “waives and releases all current or future claims” related to this. Perhaps this is why MOHELA did not sue in this case. Moreover, MOHELA stood to gain from debt cancellation on net, because it would get an estimated $61 million in fees to process forgiveness (more than Missouri said they would lose), and it would eliminate legal liability from botching Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) claims, and many of those loans would have been extinguished in debt cancellation.

Read the rest at the American Prospect link.

More on this standing issue and conflicts on the court from Mark Joseph Stern at Slate: John Roberts Is Already Frustrated With the Response to SCOTUS Killing Student Debt Relief.

The Supreme Court struck down Joe Biden’s student debt relief plan in a 6–3 decision on Friday that rewrites federal law to create a bespoke, extra-textual prohibition on the large-scale cancellation of student debt. Chief Justice John Roberts’ decision in Biden v. Nebraska blazed past a clearly insurmountable standing problem to scold the president for even trying to use the law according to its own plain terms in order to offer mass debt relief in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also chastised Justice Elena Kagan for her “disturbing” suggestion, in dissent, that the majority had gone “beyond the proper role of the judiciary.” The decision boils down to the chief justice’s obvious disdain for student debt relief—which is perhaps why he interpreted Kagan’s criticism as, in his words, a “personal” affront….

By Indira Baldano

The biggest question in the case was whether anyone could establish standing to challenge the program in the first place. After all, the federal government itself holds this debt, and no one is obviously “injured” by the government helping somebody else by erasing their debt. (In a separate case decided on Friday, the court unanimously held that two people who oppose the plan had no standing to sue.) Missouri tried to get around this problem by fixating on MOHELA, a corporation created by the state that services student loans. The Missouri attorney general asserted that MOHELA would suffer financially because of Biden’s plan—which turns out to be false—and that the state itself could represent its interests in court. A key flaw in this reasoning is that MOHELA is an independent entity from Missouri that could have sued to defend its own interests, but refused to do so, and even refused to help Missouri “represent” it in court. (State officials had to file public records requests to obtain key information because MOHELA did not want to participate in this case at all.)

Roberts didn’t care about any of that. MOHELA is “an instrumentality of Missouri,” he wrote, and Biden’s plan “will cut MOHELA’s revenues.” (Again: provably false!) So, according to Roberts and the court’s five other hard-line conservatives, the state had established standing.

This is so similar to what Gorsuch did in the fake marriage website case! The right wing justices can’t wait for legitimate cases to be brought; they have to search for fake ones, because they are desperate to return our country to the bad old days of Jim Crow and white male dominance.

Elena Kagan wasn’t having it.

Kagan pulled no punches in response. “From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint,” she wrote. “At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.” She skewered the idea that Missouri and MOHELA are interchangeable, citing the Missouri Supreme Court’s own declaration that they are not. And she eviscerated the majority for “wielding the major-questions sword” to overrule “legislative judgments” that belong to the political branches.

Congress had better watch out, because the Court is working to displace them. Just wait until they get control of the power of the purse!

One more SCOTUS action from yesterday reported by Sam Levine at The Guardian: Supreme court leaves intact Mississippi law disenfranchising Black voters.

The US supreme court turned away a case on Friday challenging Mississippi’s rules around voting rights for people with felony convictions, leaving intact a policy implemented more than a century ago with the explicit goal of preventing Black people from voting.

Those convicted of any one of 23 specific felonies in Mississippi permanently lose the right to vote. The list is rooted in the state’s 1890 constitutional convention, where delegates chose disenfranchising crimes that they believed Black people were more likely to commit. “We came here to exclude the negro. Nothing short of this will answer,” the president of the convention said at the time. The crimes, which include bribery, theft, carjacking, bigamy and timber larceny, have remained largely the same since then; Mississippi voters amended it remove burglary in 1950 and added murder and rape in 1968.

By Tara Dougans

It continued to have a staggering effect in Mississippi. Sixteen per cent of the Black voting-age population remains blocked from casting a ballot, as well as 10% of the overall voting age population, according to an estimate by The Sentencing Project, a criminal justice non-profit. The state is about 38% Black, but Black people make up more than half of Mississippi’s disenfranchised population.

Challengers to the law argued that the policy was unconstitutional because it bore the “discriminatory taint” from the 1890 constitution. One of the plaintiffs was Roy Harness, a social worker in his late 60s who is permanently barred from voting because he was convicted of forgery decades ago. Forgery was one of the original crimes included in the list of disenfranchising offenses.

“It makes me feel bad. I’ve served my country, nation … got a degree and [I] still can’t vote, no matter what you do to prove yourself,” Harness told the Guardian in 2022.

Once a person loses their right to vote in Mississippi it is essentially impossible to get it back. To do so, a disenfranchised person must get the legislature to approve an individualized bill on their behalf by a supermajority in both chambers and then have the governor approve the bill. There are no online instructions or applications, and lawmakers can reject or deny an application for any reason.

Thursday Reads

Posted: April 27, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Donald Trump, ethics, SCOTUS | Tags: Background Checks, defamation, E. Jean Carroll, Jack Teixeira, January 6 grand jury, John Roberts, mass shootings, Mike Pence, Pentagon documents, rape, security clearances, Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court ethics | 19 Comments

Tove Jansson, Still life with fruit and flowers on the background of an open door, 1945

Good Afternoon!!

Once again the news is coming fast and furious today, but the top story has to be the latest about Jack Teixeira, the 21-year-old air national guardsman who leaked classified documents on Discord.

The story is getting worse with each passing day. This kid not only had access to secret government documents, but also he stockpiled weapons in his parents’ home and fantasized about being a mass murderer.

NPR: The suspected leaker of Pentagon documents is due back in federal court.

The air national guardsman accused of leaking U.S. government secrets is due back in federal court in Worcester, Mass., at 1 p.m. on Thursday. Federal prosecutors are urging that the defendant, Jack Teixeira, 21, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, remain in jail pending trial.

In a new court filing, federal prosecutors say Teixeira faces significant prison time, if convicted, and poses a serious flight risk. They say he took steps to obstruct the investigation into the leak of U.S. intelligence documents, many of which were about Ukraine’s war against Russia.

According to court papers, investigators found a tablet, a laptop and a gaming console — all of them smashed — in a dumpster at Teixeira’s house after his arrest. Teixeira also allegedly told an associate online to delete all messages with him and that if anyone came asking questions about him, not to tell them anything. Prosecutors also say Teixeira began in February 2022 to access classified national defense information that had no bearing on his job. Not all of those materials have publicly surfaced yet.

NBC News: Intel leaks suspect is a flight risk and could have access to more classified docs, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors will urge a judge Thursday to keep Jack Teixeira, 21, behind bars, arguing he poses “a serious flight risk,” and that a “foreign adversary” could try to help him escape the United States and give him safe haven.

“The information to which the Defendant had access — and did access — far exceeds what has been publicly disclosed on the Internet to date,” the document said. The leaks “have the capacity to cause additional exceptionally grave damage to the U.S. national security if disclosed.”

The 18-page memo said Teixeira had a history of making violent and racist remarks — including posting on social media about wanting to carry out a mass shooting — keeping “an arsenal of weapons”and tactical gear at his house, and trying to thwart federal investigators by apparently destroying evidence.

The filing comes ahead of a detention hearing Thursday in Massachusetts federal court. Teixeira, who has not entered a plea, has been in jail since his arrest earlier this month in a case that represents one of the most significant intelligence leaks in years. The saga has fueled global uproar and doubts over America’s ability to guard its secrets….

“The damage the Defendant has already caused to the U.S. national security is immense. The damage the Defendant is still capable of causing is extraordinary,” prosecutors wrote. “If the Defendant were released, it would be all too easy for him to further disseminate classified information and would create the unacceptable risk that he would flee the United States and take refuge with a foreign adversary to avoid the reach of U.S. law.”

Spring still life, by Susan Novak

On Teixeira’s fascination with mass shootings:

Teixeira also used his government computer to search for information on previous mass shootings, including “Uvalde” and “Mandalay Bay shooting,” the filing said. Media reports have suggested these searches may have been related to Teixeira’s belief in conspiracy theories that the government had prior knowledge of these shootings, it added. But prosecutors said that coupled with his social media posts and weapons cache these searches were “troubling.”

Teixeira lives in his mother and stepfather’s house in North Dighton, Massachusetts, and in his bedroom keeps a gun locker stocked with handguns, bolt-action rifles, shotguns, and an AK-style high-capacity weapon, prosecutors said.

His “arsenal of weapons” also included a bazooka, and a “silencer-style accessory,” according to investigators, who found a tactical helmet with a GoPro camera and mount in the dumpster outside, according to the filing.

BBC News: Jack Teixeira: Suspected leaker made threats and researched shootings, US says.

Jack Teixeira wrote on social media that he wanted to kill a “ton of people” as a way of “culling the weak minded”, according to a court filing.

The 18-page document also claimed the 21-year-old asked what type of rifle would be easy to operate from an SUV.

According to the prosecutors, he posted repeatedly about “troubling” violent acts including a potential mass shooting. He allegedly described building an “assassination van” and driving around shooting people in a “crowded urban or suburban environment”.

He also allegedly searched for multiple recent mass shootings on his government computer, including Uvalde and the Las Vegas shooting.

The filing also said a search of Mr Teixeira’s home had uncovered “a virtual arsenal of weapons, including bolt-action rifles, rifles, AR and AK-style weapons, and a bazooka” that were kept “just feet from his bed”.

It added that he was suspended from high school when a classmate overheard him making threats and discussing Molotov cocktails as well as other weapons.

How the hell did this kid get a top secret security clearance from the Pentagon? Here’s a clue:

In April 2019, Donald trump signed a executive order moving all remaining background checks from OPM to DoD, and cut the time it takes from 150 days to 80 days. Teixeira got his clearance in 2021. https://t.co/bTe6ZBJ4j1

— Mueller, She Wrote (@MuellerSheWrote) April 27, 2023

In other news, E. Jean Carroll testified in her civil case against Donald Trump yesterday, and it was powerful. Trump didn’t have the guts to show up in court, and that probably didn’t make a good impression on the jury.

Mitchell Epner at The Daily Beast: Jury Has Likely Decided Trump’s Fate in Rape Case Already.

On the first day of trial testimony Wednesday, E. Jean Carroll took the witness stand and provided unvarnished testimony that she was raped by Donald Trump in the 1990s. She testified: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it did not happen.”

By André Deymonaz

She testified that she and Trump went together to the lingerie department on the sixth floor of Bergdorf Goodman, flirting. When they got there, Trump followed her into the dressing room and pushed her against the wall, knocking her head and disorienting her. He also pulled down her tights, stuck his fingers inside of her vagina—causing her great pain—and stuck his penis inside of her vagina, for a period of time, while she struggled against him.

This testimony is the key to the case. If the jury believes it, they will find Trump liable for the rape of E. Jean Carroll, and likely award her significant damages. If the jury does not believe it, they will return a verdict in favor of the former president.

Based upon more than 25 years of experience as a trial attorney, including service as an Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting sex crimes, I believe that it is highly likely that the jurors have already made up their minds about whether Carroll is telling the truth—before she has completed her direct testimony and long before Donald Trump’s attorneys have the opportunity to cross-examine her.

On Trump absenting himself:

This case won’t be a “he said, she said” case—because Trump is unlikely to testify.

In fact, Trump has not attended the trial at all so far. During opening statements, his attorney, Joe Tacopina, appeared to indicate that the trend would continue, saying that Trump’s testimony would only occur in deposition excerpts. Trump’s witness list consists of only two people, Donald Trump and Dr. Edgar Nace, a psychiatric expert witness.

Trump also is not presenting any exhibits, other than excerpts from depositions. If he does not testify, the only way he will get facts into evidence will be through cross-examination of Ms. Carroll’s witnesses.

Ms. Carroll, on the other hand, will present a number of corroborating witnesses:

Lisa Birnbaum: The bestselling author will testify that Carroll told her immediately after the incident what Trump had done to her. She will also testify that she told Carroll that she had been “raped.”

Carol Martin: The first African-American anchor on local news in New York City (for over two decade) will likewise testify that Carroll told her immediately of the rape by Trump. Martin will testify that she told Carroll not to pursue the case, because he had “200 lawyers” and would destroy her.

Jessica Leeds: Another of Trump’s alleged victims, she will testify that she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she sat next to him on a flight in the 1970s, when he attempted to place his fingers inside of her vagina.

Natasha Stoynoff: Then a reporter for People magazine, she will testify that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her when she was at Mar-A-Lago in the early 2000s, working on a story.

Carroll is also set to present the infamous Access Hollywood video, in which Donald Trump bragged that he could grab women “by the pussy” without consent, because he was “a star.”

Perhaps even more importantly, Carroll already addressed most of the points that Trump’s attorneys wanted to make on cross-examination.

Friday Reads

Posted: February 24, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: Donald Trump, morning reads | Tags: Jack Smith, January 6 grand jury, Mar-a-Lago, Mike Pence, Speech and Debate clause, stolen government documents, Ukraine | 17 Comments

Félix Vallotton, Laid down woman, sleeping, 1899, private collection.

Félix Vallotton, Lain down woman, sleeping, 1899, private collection.

Good Morning!!

I’m filling in for Dakinikat today, while she takes her cat Keely to the vet. Keely hasn’t had any problems since the seizure a few days ago, but she needs to be checked out and also get some shots. I’m curious to know what the vet thinks–I hope Dakinikat will update us later on.

The one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is getting lot of coverage today.

This is from The New York Times’ live updates: Here’s what to know on the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

With messages of support and new pledges of weapons, allies rallied around Ukraine on Friday as the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion prompted shows of solidarity around the world and a mix of anxiety and resolve in Ukraine.

“We will be victorious,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine told a news conference, saying that Ukraine could win the war this year as long as its allies remain united “like a fist” and continue delivering weapons.

Even as leaders in Ukraine and around the world marked the anniversary with ceremonies and speeches, the fighting continued much as it has for the past year. The war has already done untold damage: Tens of thousands have been killed on both sides, millions of Ukrainians have been made homeless, and Ukraine has sustained tens of billions of dollars worth of damage that has left cities flattened and people around the country grappling with dark and cold.

But Ukrainians have also found strength in shared sacrifice, and hope in the setbacks their country’s forces have dealt Russia on the battlefield. Ukraine has largely stopped the offensives of its much larger and better-armed neighbor and has regained swathes of captured land, aided by the United States and its European allies, which have remained united, funneling billions of dollars of weapons to Kyiv.

The war has reverberated around the globe, reshaping and strengthening alliances, and affecting everything from grain prices to energy policy. But even as Russia found itself more isolated from the West, sanctions have failed to bring the country to its knees, and much of the rest of the world has continued to provide economic or diplomatic support to Moscow.

Read more details and updates at the NYT link.

From the AP: US commits $2 billion in drones, ammunition, aid to Ukraine.

The Pentagon announced a new package of long-term security assistance for Ukraine on Friday, marking the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion with a $2 billion commitment to send more rounds of ammunition and a variety of small, high-tech drones into the fight.

The announcement comes just days after President Joe Biden made an unannounced visit to Kyiv and pledged America’s continuing commitment to Ukraine. Biden told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his people that “Americans stand with you, and the world stands with you.”

John William Godward, Expectation

In a statement Friday, the Pentagon said the aid includes weapons to counter Russia’s unmanned systems and several types of drones, including the upgraded Switchblade 600 Kamikaze drone, as well as electronic warfare detection equipment.

It also includes money for additional ammunition for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, artillery rounds and munitions for laser-guided rocket systems. But, in an unusual move, the Pentagon provided no details on how many rounds of any kind will be bought. Including this latest package, the U.S. has now committed more than $32 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion is a chance for all who believe in freedom “to recommit ourselves to supporting Ukraine’s brave defenders for the long haul — and to recall that the stakes of Russia’s war stretch far beyond Ukraine.”

Biden was scheduled to meet virtually Friday with other Group of Seven leaders and Zelenskyy “to continue coordinating our efforts to support Ukraine and hold Russia accountable for its war,” the White House said.

Those efforts include what the White House called “sweeping” sanctions on over 200 people and entities “to further degrade Russia’s economy and diminish its ability to wage war against Ukraine.” The Biden administration will also further restrict exports to Russia and raise tariffs on some Russian products imported to the U.S.

CNN has a story on the new sanctions: US Treasury takes ‘one of its most significant sanctions actions to date’ on anniversary of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The US Treasury Department on Friday took what it called “one of its most significant sanctions actions to date” to crack down on those aiding Moscow’s war against Ukraine, targeting Russia’s metals and mining sector, its financial institutions, its military supply chain and individuals and companies worldwide that are helping Moscow avoid existing sanctions.

These latest actions by the Treasury Department are among a series of new measures announced by the Biden administration Friday that are meant to strengthen Kyiv and deter those providing support to Moscow as the war enters its second year without signs of abating.

Friday’s sweeping actions are meant to fill in gaps in existing sanctions that have been imposed over the past year of the war and are intended to impair “key revenue generating sectors in order to further degrade Russia’s economy and diminish its ability to wage war against Ukraine,” according to a White House fact sheet.

Frederic Leighton, Flaming June

The administration on Friday imposed sanctions against a total of “over 200 individuals and entities, including both Russian and third-country actors across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East that are supporting Russia’s war effort,” according to the White House fact sheet.

The latest tranche of Treasury Department sanctions target a total of 22 individuals and 83 entities, according to a Treasury Department news release, and were taken in coordination with the Group of 7 nations.

The US State Department also imposed sanctions on dozens of Russian officials and entities involved in the war and will take “steps to impose visa restrictions on 1,219 members of the Russian military, including officers, for actions that threaten or violate the sovereignty, territorial integrity, or political independence of Ukraine,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Three Russian military officials – Artyom Igorevich Gorodilov, Aleksey Sergeyevich Bulgakov, and Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Vasilyev – will be blocked from entering the US due to their involvement “in gross violations of human rights perpetrated against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of wars,” Blinken said.

You can also check these two longer reads about Ukraine:

Defense One: EXCLUSIVE: Seven Former NATO Supreme Allied Commanders Say U.S. ‘Must Do Everything We Can’ for a Ukrainian Victory.

Politico has an oral history of the Russian invasion, compiled from hours of interviews by Politico reporters: ‘Something Was Badly Wrong’: When Washington Realized Russia Was Actually Invading Ukraine.

There is some breaking news about the Mar-a-Lago stolen documents case. Both The Guardian and CNN are claiming exclusives.

The Guardian: Classified Trump schedules were moved to Mar-a-Lago after FBI search – sources.

Donald Trump’s lawyers found a box of White House schedules, including some that were marked classified, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in December because a junior aide to the former president had transported it from another office in Florida after the FBI completed its search of the property.

The former president does not appear to have played a direct role in the mishandling of the box, though he remains under investigation for the possible improper retention of national security documents and obstruction of justice. This previously unreported account of the retrieval was informed by two sources familiar with the matter.

Known internally as ROTUS, short for Receptionist of the United States, the junior aide initially kept the box at a converted guest bungalow at Mar-a-Lago called the “tennis cottage” after Trump left office, and she soon took it with her to a government-leased office in the Palm Beach area.

Mary Cassatt, Girl in a Blue Armchair

The box remained at the government-leased office from where the junior aide worked through most of 2022, explaining why neither Trump’s lawyer who searched Mar-a-Lago in June for any classified-marked papers nor the FBI agents who searched the property in August found the documents.

Around the time that Trump returned to Mar-a-Lago from his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey at the end of the summer, the junior aide was told that she was being relocated to a desk in the anteroom of Trump’s own office at Mar-a-Lago that previously belonged to top aide Molly Michael.

The junior aide retrieved her work belongings – including the box – from the government-leased office and took them to her new Mar-a-Lago workspace around September. At that time, the justice department’s criminal investigation into Trump’s retention of national security documents was intensifying.

Read the rest at The Guardian.

CNN: Exclusive: How a box with classified documents ended up in Trump’s office months after FBI searched Mar-a-Lago.

The Justice Department wants to know how a box containing a handful of classified records scattered among copies of presidential schedules turned up at Mar-a-Lago late last year, well after several rounds of searches of the property by federal agents and aides to former President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Investigators working for special counsel Jack Smith in recent weeks have interviewed a Trump aide who copied classified materials found in the box using her phone to put them onto a laptop. After a voluntary interview with the aide, prosecutors subpoenaed the password to the laptop, which she provided, according to one of the sources.

The classified documents contained in the box were discovered in December, after the Justice Department told Trump’s legal team to conduct yet another search for documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

People familiar with the Trump legal team’s efforts to locate documents describe a confusing chain of events that delayed discovery of the box, including having its contents uploaded to the cloud, emailed to a Trump employee, and moved to an offsite location before finally ending up back at a Mar-a-Lago bridal suite that is now Trump’s office – the very place that the FBI had searched just weeks earlier….

The odyssey of the box has been a recent focus of Smith’s investigation into the mishandling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, according to people familiar with the line of questioning from federal prosecutors. The haphazard handling of documents that ended up online, on computers and moved around to multiple locations could further complicate Trump’s case in an investigation with criminal implications.

One person who described the box’s movements and the special counsel’s inquiry into it described federal investigators as suspecting a “shell game with classified documents.” The person said Trump’s daily movements and instructions to staff are a core part of prosecutors’ questions as well.

More details at CNN.

Mike Pence is getting quite a bit of attention in the news today, and it’s not positive attention.

CBS News: Special counsel asks judge to compel Mike Pence to testify in Jan. 6 probe.

Federal prosecutors have asked the chief judge in Washington, D.C.’s federal court to compel former Vice President Mike Pence to comply with a grand jury subpoena and testify as a witness in special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the events surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, three people familiar with the investigation told CBS News.

The motion to compel Pence’s testimony — filed in secret to Chief Judge Beryl Howell in recent days — came after lawyers for former President Donald Trump asserted executive privilege in response to Pence’s subpoena, the people said.

John Singer Sargent, Repose

That assertion of executive privilege on Pence’s subpoena, the people added, is in line with how Trump’s team has responded to related subpoenas over the past year, with Trump’s attorneys often arguing that private conversations or interactions with a president should remain confidential….

Pence and his lawyers have also been preparing to invoke the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause as a means of protecting him from the investigation. That clause protects members of Congress from being questioned about their legislative actions by other branches of the federal government.

Pence contends his unique role as both a member of the executive branch and president of the Senate — who presided over Congress’ certification of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6, 2021 — would be covered under the clause….

The motion to compel testimony filed by the special counsel’s office is the logical next step in a criminal probe, with prosecutors seeking to force a witness or third party to comply with a grand jury subpoena. Filed less than two weeks after news broke that Pence had received the subpoena, the legal document asks the court to uphold the subpoena’s legal authority and indicates Justice Department prosecutors are moving quickly in their attempt to get Pence before a grand jury.

Former federal judge Michael Luttig, who advised Pence when he was dealing with Trump’s pressure campaign to get Pence to try to overturn the 2020 election, has an op-ed in The New York Times today: Mike Pence’s Dangerous Gambit.

Former Vice President Mike Pence recently announced he would challenge Special Counsel Jack Smith’s subpoena for him to appear before a grand jury in Washington as part of the investigation into former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the related Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Mr. Pence claimed that “the Biden D.O.J. subpoena” was “unconstitutional” and “unprecedented.” He added, “For me, this is a moment where you have to decide where you stand, and I stand on the Constitution of the United States.” Mr. Pence vowed to take his fight all the way to the Supreme Court.

A politician should be careful what he wishes for — no more so than when he’s a possible presidential candidate who would have the Supreme Court decide a constitutional case that could undermine his viability in an upcoming campaign.

Felix Vallotton, Laziness

The former vice president should not want the embarrassing spectacle of the Supreme Court compelling him to appear before a grand jury in Washington just when he’s starting his campaign for the presidency; recall the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that ordered Richard Nixon to turn over the fatally damning Oval Office tapes. That has to be an uncomfortable prospect for Mr. Pence, not to mention a potentially damaging one for a man who — at least as of today — is considered by many of us across the political spectrum to be a profile in courage for his refusal to join in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election in the face of Donald Trump’s demands. And to be clear, Mr. Pence’s decision to brand the Department of Justice’s perfectly legitimate subpoena as unconstitutional is a far cry from the constitutionally hallowed ground he stood on Jan. 6.

Injecting campaign-style politics into the criminal investigatory process with his rhetorical characterization of Mr. Smith’s subpoena as a “Biden D.O.J. subpoena,” Mr. Pence is trying to score points with voters who want to see President Biden unseated in 2024. Well enough. That’s what politicians do. But Jack Smith’s subpoena was neither politically motivated nor designed to strengthen President Biden’s political hand in 2024. Thus the jarring dissonance between the subpoena and Mr. Pence’s characterization of it. It is Mr. Pence who has chosen to politicize the subpoena, not the D.O.J.

Read the rest at the NYT.

Another take on this issue from Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post: Pence has no right to dodge a subpoena.

Former vice president Mike Pence is bent on demonstrating to the MAGA base that he is not about to help prosecute would-be coup instigator Donald Trump, the very person who seemed to delight in egging on the mob that called for Pence’s head. To that end, Pence has threatened to refuse to appear in response to the grand jury subpoena special counsel Jack Smith has issued.

Rather than deploy the executive-privilege defense (almost certainly a loser since President Biden has waived it; in any case, United States v. Nixon stands for the proposition that executive privilege generally gives way in a criminal prosecution), Pence has cited the Constitution’s “speech and debate” clause. This passage from Article I protects lawmakers from arrest on the floor of Congress for things said there.

A close examination of Pence’s claim shows that the defense, even if valid in some respects, does not protect him from testifying about issues relating to the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt.

The argument that the vice president is an officer of Congress, and hence covered by the clause, is reasonable. Andy Wright and Ryan Goodman writing at Just Security explain: “The Speech or Debate Clause is designed as a safeguard against politically motivated civil litigation or criminal prosecutions that can chill congressional debate or intimidate legislators.” Therefore, they conclude, “It makes sense that the protections should extend to a Vice President when acting as President of the Senate or in other legislative branch capacity.” The Justice Department already conceded as much in multiple civil suits brought against the vice president (both Pence and then-vice president Joe Biden).

Yet, there is a compelling argument that Pence’s use of the speech and debate clause is inconsistent with the clause’s purpose, which is to insulate members of Congress from pressure from the executive. It might also be argued (as retired judge Michael Luttig has) that Pence’s role on Jan. 6 was purely ceremonial, not legislative, and thus the speech and debate clause does not apply. After all, Pence himself argued that day that he had no legislative authority to nullify the electoral votes.

These points might be subjects of novel litigation. But the government need not dispute the clause’s relevance because a good deal of what Smith wants to investigate is beyond any legislative function, and hence outside the scope of the clause.

Lazy Caturday Reads

Posted: February 11, 2023 | Author: bostonboomer | Filed under: cat art, caturday, Donald Trump, just because | Tags: Alaska, children with guns, classified documents, Evan Corcoran, grand jury, gun violence, Mike Pence, Turkey/Syria earthquake, unidentified high altitude object | 28 Comments

By Adrie Martens

Happy Caturday!!

I have a mixed bag of reads for you today: some stories about the terrible earthquake in Turkey and Syria, including a long read about the situation in Syria; a long read about the case of a six-year-old in Virginia who shot his teacher; a story about the still-unidentified flying object shot down over Alaska, and some new Trump investigation stories.

Turkey-Syria Earthquake

AP News: Survivors still being found as quake death toll tops 25,000.

ANTAKYA, Turkey (AP) — Rescue crews on Saturday pulled more survivors, including entire families, from toppled buildings despite diminishing hopes as the death toll of the enormous quake that struck a border region of Turkey and Syria five days ago surpassed 25,000.

Dramatic rescues were being broadcast on Turkish television, including the rescue of the Narli family in central Kahramanmaras 133 hours after the 7.8-magnitude temblor struck Monday. First, 12-year-old Nehir Naz Narli was saved, then both of her parents.

That followed the rescue earlier in the day of a family of five from a mound of debris in the hard-hit town of Nurdagi, in Gaziantep province, TV network HaberTurk reported. Rescuers cheered and chanted, “God is Great!” as the last family member, the father, was lifted to safety.

Turkish President Recep Tayypi Erdogan, on a tour of quake-stricken cities, raised the death toll in Turkey to 21,848, which pushed the total number of dead across the region, including government and rebel-held parts of Syria, to 25,401….

Still, the day brought one astonishing rescue after another, numbering more than a dozen.

Melisa Ulku, a woman in her 20s, was extricated from the rubble in Elbistan in the 132th hour since the quake, following the rescue of another person at the same site in the same hour. Ahead of her rescue, police announced that people shouldn’t cheer or clap in order to not interfere with other rescue efforts nearby. She was covered in a thermal blanket on a stretcher. Rescuers were hugging. Some shouted “God is great!”

Just an hour earlier, a 3-year-old girl and her father were pulled from debris in the town of Islahiye, also in Gaziantep province, and soon after a 7-year-old girl was rescued in the province of Hatay.

The rescues brought shimmers of joy amid overwhelming devastation days after Monday’s 7.8-magnitude quake and a powerful aftershock hours later caused thousands of buildings to collapse, killing more than 25,000, injuring another 80,000 and leaving millions homeless.

From Twitter:

The look of a baby rescued from the rubble 128 hours after the #earthquaketurkey pic.twitter.com/yOXvTAPVtX

— Belal Sharaf Aldeen (Abu Rami) (@BelalAldeen) February 11, 2023

Rescue workers pull a cat from the earthquake rubble in Kahramanmaras, Turkey. Photo: Evrim Aydin/Getty Images. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/xtv6hPDBky

— Lorenzo The Cat (@LorenzoTheCat) February 10, 2023

This is a long Washington Post article by Louisa Loveluck about the earthquake aftermath in Syria: In earthquake-battered Syria, a desperate wait for help that never came.

JINDERIS, Syria — It took four days and nights after the earthquake for the rubble to fall silent here. The strongest voices belonged to the women, residents said. Parted from their children, or fighting to save them, they screamed until their lungs gave out.

In this forgotten pocket of rebel-held northwest Syria, there were no international rescue workers to save them. No aid shipments brought painkillers to the survivors when stocks ran low. Just six miles away, across the border in Turkey, thousands of tons of relief poured in; support teams from as far away as Taiwan answered the Turkish government’s call for help. But Syria, divided against itself and isolated from much of the world, was left to pick up the pieces alone, as it has again and again over more than a decade of war and dislocation.

In the shattered town of Jinderis, at least 850 bodies had been recovered by Friday morning. Although hundreds are still missing, few believed there were any lives left to save. “We needed help here, we asked for help here,” said the town’s mayor, Mahmoud Hafar. “It never came.”

By Sandra Bierman

On Friday, the Bab Al-Salama border crossing into Syria was almost empty. A single ambulance with flashing lights was waiting to enter. The only Syrians crossing back were those being returned to their families in body bags.

On a rare visit to this Syrian enclave, controlled by Turkish-backed armed groups, The Washington Post found communities gripped by shock and bewilderment, and very much alone. In Jinderis, fathers stood watch over the remains of their homes and told of waking up to find their wives and children dead. As hulking excavators clawed the rubble, searching for a 13-year old boy, a man asked reporters to help him contact the United Nations for help. “Maybe they don’t know what happened in Jinderis,” he said. “No one could see this and not come here.”

This part of Syria has endured crisis after crisis, home to millions of people who have braved war and displacement, hunger and disease. Even before the earthquake, 4.1 million here required humanitarian assistance.

Heartbreaking. Read the rest at the WaPo. There are also many photographs the story.

USA Today has a story about how the Turkey/Syria earthquake compares to others in recent history:100 years of earthquakes: Turkey, Syria disaster could be among this century’s worst.

More than 25,000 people have been killed and the death toll is expected to rise after two earthquakes struck Turkey and Syria on Feb. 6. The quakes have become one of this century’s worst natural disasters.

More than 75,000 people have been injured. International rescue efforts from the U.N. and other organizations continue.

The two earthquakes, near the Syrian border, had magnitudes of 7.8 and 7.5. They struck about nine hours apart and were the strongest quakes recorded in Turkey in 80 years.

USA TODAY examined earthquake patterns over the past 100 years and how the unfolding tragedy in Turkey and Syria compares. Here is what we found.

See maps and charts at the USA Today link.

The Virginia Six-Year Old Who Shot His Teacher

This is a very interesting investigative piece about the case of a six-year-old boy who shot his first-grade teacher. I can’t do it justice with excerpts, but I’ll give you a taste, and hope you’ll go read the rest.

Hannah Natanson and Justin Jouvenal at The Washington Post: How Richneck Elementary failed to stop a 6-year-old from shooting his teacher.

Abigail Zwerner was frustrated.

It was Jan. 4. A 6-year-old in her first-grade class at Richneck Elementary School had stolen her phone and slammed it to the floor, apparently upset over a schedule change, according to text messages Zwerner sent to a friend.

Administrators, she wrote, were faulting her for the situation.

The 6-year-old “took my phone and smashed it on the ground,” Zwerner wrote in a text message obtained by The Washington Post, “and admin is blaming me.”

Two days later, the 6-year-old told classmates at recess he was going to shoot Zwerner, showed them a gun and its clip tucked into his jacket pocket, and threatened to kill them if they told anyone, according to an attorney for the family of a student who witnessed the threat, offering the first account of events leading to the shooting from someone in Zwerner’s class.

That afternoon, the 6-year-old did as he promised, authorities said — firing a bullet through Zwerner’s upraised hand and into her chest as she was midway through teaching a lesson.

Zwerner’s lawyer and other educators at the Newport News, Va., school have alleged the shooting came after school administrators downplayed repeated warnings from Zwerner and other teachers about the boy. The incident sparked a staffing shake-up at Richneck and the ouster of Superintendent George Parker III.

Olesya Serzhantova_(Serjantova)

Administrators had ample warning about the child’s behavior problems.

Teachers’ fears about the 6-year-old date backto his kindergarten year, when he tried to strangle his teacher, according to a letter Zwerner’s attorney sent to the school system Jan. 24 announcing her intent to sue. The letter was first reported by the Daily Press.

“The shooter had been removed from the school a year prior after he chokedhis teacher until she couldn’t breathe,” says the letter, obtained by The Post through a public records request. It was not immediately clear how a boy so young could have choked an adult. The Post was not able to learn other details of the incident and authorities have not released information about the boy.

Early this fall, as Richneck teachers sought to settle their new crop of students inside the low-slung red-brick building nestled amid trees, news of the 6-year-old’s troubled history circulated swiftly among the staff, according to text messages between teachers.

Less than a week into September, officials switched the 6-year-old to a half-day schedule due to misbehavior — but administrators were already lagging in efforts to accommodate the student, according to Toscano’s letter and to text messages sent between Zwerner and a friend of hers who teaches at the school.

It was not clear what specific incident triggered the schedule change.Toscano wrote in her letter that the 6-year-old “constantly cursed at the staff and teachers and then one day took off his belt on the playground and chased kids trying to whip them.”

What was going on in this child’s home life? It certainly seems as if abuse could be a clue to his behavior. And how was he able to get his hands on his mother’s gun, which she claimed was locked in her bedroom closet?

Text messages and a photo shared between teachers show that a student in Zwerner’s class reportedly hit a teacher so hard with a chair that her legs became dotted with green and purple bruises — and that, at another point, a kindergartner was accused of pushing a pregnant teacher to the ground and kicking her in the stomach so hard that she feared for her unborn child, two weeks shy of giving birth. It was not immediately clear how administrators responded to those episodes, although one educator wrote in a text this fall that the bruised teacher had “heard nothing from admin.”

On Nov. 9, the second-grade teacher wrote in a text message to a colleague that she was applying to work in another district because of “how bad the first graders are right now put together with the fact we don’t have doors.”

Yes, you read that right. The classrooms didn’t have doors because the administration said it would cost too much to put them in.

Diane Toscano, Zwerner’s lawyer, has said teachers relayed several warnings to administrators on the morning of the shooting, including at least three reports that the boy had a gun. The Post interviewed a kindergartner who said the boy threatened to punch her at lunch that day and that she informed a staffer — but that the staffer did little more than give the boy a verbal warning.

In the direct aftermath of the shooting, two second-grade classes were left briefly wandering the hallways in search of a safe place to hide because their classroom was not equipped with doors and they had not rehearsed safety drills, according to one second-grade teacher, one fifth-grade teacher and a parent of a second-grade student, as well as text messages obtained by The Post. A second-grade teacher told The Post she had asked to have doors installed but administrators refused, saying the doors would be too expensive.

As someone who attended elementary school in the 1950s, I can’t begin to comprehend what is happening these days. Not only do we have teenagers and adults committing school shootings; there are also 6-10 year-old kid bringing guns to school and even killing other kids. I hope you’ll read this story; it’s both frightening and fascinating.

High-Altitude Flying Object Over Alaska

The New York Times: U.S. Shoots Down High-Altitude Object Over Alaska.

The Pentagon said it shot down an unidentified object over frozen waters around Alaska on Friday at the order of President Biden, less than a week after a U.S. fighter jet brought down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic in an episode that increased tensions between Washington and Beijing.

Unknown artist

U.S. officials said they could not immediately confirm whether the object was a balloon, but it was traveling at an altitude that made it a potential threat to civilian aircraft.

At a news conference on Friday, John F. Kirby, a White House spokesman, said Mr. Biden ordered the unidentified object near Alaska downed “out of an abundance of caution.” [….]

Pentagon officials said they were able to immediately bring down the object over water, so they could easily avoid the dilemma posed by the spy balloon drifting over populated areas, which had prompted commanders to recommend to Mr. Biden to wait to shoot down the machine in order to avoid any chance of debris hitting people on the ground.

Three U.S. officials said that as of Friday evening, the government did not know who owned or sent the object seen above Alaska, which, like the Chinese balloon last week, was shot down by an F-22 fighter jet using a Sidewinder air-to-air missile.

Several officials said they believed the object shot down Friday was a balloon, but a Defense Department official said it broke into pieces when it hit the frozen sea, which added to the mystery of whether it was indeed a balloon, a drone or something else.

Mr. Kirby said that the object was “much, much smaller than the spy balloon that we took down last Saturday” and that “the way it was described to me was roughly the size of a small car, as opposed to the payload that was like two or three buses.”

So we still don’t know what this object was. Maybe we’ll find out today.

Trump-Pence News

CNN: Trump team turns over additional classified records and laptop to federal prosecutors.

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team turned over more materials with classified markings and a laptop belonging to an aide to federal prosecutors in recent months, multiple sources familiar with the investigation told CNN.

The Trump attorneys also handed over an empty folder marked “Classified Evening Briefing,” sources said.

The previously undisclosed handovers – from December and January – suggest the protracted effort by the Justice Department to repossess records from Trump’s presidency may not be done.

The Trump attorneys discovered pages with classified markingsin December, while searching through boxes at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence. The lawyers subsequently handed the materials over to the Justice Department.

A Trump aide had previously copied those same pages onto a thumb drive and laptop, not realizing they were classified, sources said. The laptop, which belonged to an aide, who works for Save America PAC, and the thumb drive were also given to investigators in January.

By Ophelia Redpath

Excuse me, how do we know that Trump didn’t order the aide to copy the documents? And how do we know there aren’t other electronic copies out there? I just can’t believe that Trump never shared any of those stolen documents.

NPR: FBI finds an additional classified document during ‘consensual’ search of Pence’s home.

The FBI confirmed it found an additional classified document during a search Friday at the Indiana home of former Vice President Mike Pence.

The search for classified documents as well as materials that aren’t classified but are subject to the Presidential Records Act lasted about five hours. Agents removed one document with classified markings plus six additional pages without classification markings.

The consensual search follows a discovery, relayed by Pence’s representatives to the National Archives and Records Administration last month, that documents bearing classified markings had been, they said, “inadvertently” boxed up and found in the former vice president’s home in Indiana.

This is big news from The New York Times: Trump Lawyer in Mar-a-Lago Search Appeared Before Grand Jury.

A lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump appeared before a federal grand jury investigating his handling of sensitive government documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago club and residence after he left office, two people briefed on the matter said on Friday.

The lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, a member of Mr. Trump’s legal team who handled his responses to the government over its repeated requests for the return of such records, could offer firsthand knowledge of the search the F.B.I. undertook in August and any insights into whether Mr. Trump knew that documents remained at the club.

Mr. Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment. And it was not immediately clear when and under what circumstances he appeared. His appearance was reported earlier by Bloomberg News.

Mr. Corcoran has raised eyebrows within the Justice Department for his statements to federal officials assuring them that Mr. Trump had returned all classified materials in his possession.

As part of Mr. Trump’s legal team, Mr. Corcoran was in discussions with the Justice Department in January 2022, after the National Archives and Records Administration recovered 15 boxes of presidential material from Mar-a-Lago containing nearly 200 individual classified documents.

In May 2022, Mr. Corcoran was in touch with the department after a grand jury subpoena was issued for any remaining classified material that Mr. Trump retained. He was also on hand the next month when the top Justice Department counterintelligence official visited Mar-a-Lago and collected more than 30 additional classified documents.

At the time, another lawyer working for Mr. Trump, Christina Bobb, signed a statement attesting that a “diligent search” for all remaining classified documents had been conducted and that what was turned over was all that remained. The attestation was drafted by Mr. Corcoran, but Ms. Bobb added language to it to make it less ironclad before signing it, according to people familiar with what took place.

Olesya Serzhantova_(Serjantova)

Former Watergate prosecutor Nick Akerman explained to MSNBC’s Joy Reid the significance of former Vice President Mike Pence’s cooperation with the Justice Department, as it subpoenas him for information in the January 6 investigation.

Above all, Akerman said, we are approaching the unprecedented possibility that a former vice president may have to testify at the criminal trial of his former president.

“If you had [Pence], you know, as you said, for hours and hours, and hours, what would you want to ask him?” asked Reid. “Myself personally, I would also want to know what the Secret Service agents were saying, did you trust them? Because this could be about Donald Trump, but it could also be about some of them. What would you want to know?”

“Yeah, I think we want to know exactly what his suspicion was based on,” said Akerman. “I mean, why did he think they were trying to whisk him out of the Capitol so quickly? Was it one of the people that was close to Donald Trump that was in charge of doing that? Did somebody say something to him? I mean, I’m sure he knew that part of this whole plot was to stop that vote, stop the Congress from considering the electoral count. And that one way to do it was to get him off premises, get him out of the Capitol. So I think, you know, he probably did have other conversations with people.”

“I mean, don’t forget, once Mike Pence told him there’s no way no how I’m gonna do this, Donald Trump knew that the only way he was going to stop this whole count was through the violence, through the disruption in the chaos that ensued at the Capitol and that one of the ways to do it of course was to get Mike Pence out of the Capitol as a result of all this violence and used the Secret Service as a foil and an excuse to do that,” continued Akerman.

I hope you find something here that interests you. What other stories have you been following?

	bostonboomer on Thursday Cartoons: The Defense…
	bostonboomer on Thursday Cartoons: The Defense…
	darthvelma on Thursday Cartoons: The Defense…
	quixote on Thursday Cartoons: The Defense…
	JJ Lopez aka Minkoff… on Thursday Cartoons: The Defense…
	JJ Lopez aka Minkoff… on Thursday Cartoons: The Defense…
	quixote on Wednesday Reads: Presidential…

a place to discuss real issues

Good Afternoon!!

Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:

Happy Caturday!!

Another “Perfect” Phone Call?

Reactions to Recent SCOTUS Rulings

Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:

Good Afternoon!!

Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:

Good Morning!!

Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:

Happy Caturday!!

Turkey-Syria Earthquake

The Virginia Six-Year Old Who Shot His Teacher

High-Altitude Flying Object Over Alaska

Trump-Pence News

Did you like this post? Please share it with your friends:

COVID-19 LINKS

Recent Comments

Recent Posts

Grab our RSS Feed

Follow Blog via Email

The Front Page Team

Blogs by Frontpagers

Econ/Finance Blogs

Feminists

Friends' Blogs

New Orleans

Places that Make a Difference

Political Blogs

World Views

Contact us

Blogs to follow:

About our Banner

Categories

Archives

Find it here!

Blog Stats