I haven’t been following the Antony Fauci story at all. I heard that his diaries were released, but I assumed it was just some wingnut thing. But today Fauci appeared in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, headed by Covid conspiracy theorist Rand Paul. In a surprise move, Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right to refuse to answer questions.
Dr. Anthony Fauci declined to answer senators’ questions at a hearing Wednesday on the origins of Covid and the government’s handling of the pandemic, saying he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right to avoid the possibility that Republicans could try to use his testimony to prosecute him for perjury.
The surprise decision shook up the hearing, which was expected to be contentious given Fauci’s previous public clashes with Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Antony Fauci is swarn in Wednesday.
In his opening statement to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Fauci pointed to Paul’s “obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, his repeated slanderous comments about me” and his decision to publicly release the doctor’s personal journal.
“The only conclusion I can reach is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something — anything — that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words — quote — ‘behind bars,’” Fauci said.
“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” he continued. “Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.”
Despite Fauci’s refusal to respond, Paul still used his time at the hearing to ask the doctor a series of questions.
Fauci answered each question with the same line: “On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution.”
At the end of his questioning, Paul told Fauci that he would face “repercussions” for not answering questions.
“The committee will have to consider after this hearing what appropriate action should be taken against you for the failure to testify after being directed to do so,” Paul said. “It’s against the law to obstruct an investigation of Congress. There will be repercussions to your refusal to testify today.”
I guess Rand Paul doesn’t understand the Fifth Amendment.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has released more than a thousand pages of journal entries from Dr. Anthony Fauci, teeing up what is likely to be a contentious hearing with the nation’s former top infectious disease expert on Wednesday about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Paul, who heads the Senate Homeland Security Committee, subpoenaed Fauci to appear before the committee as part of the panel’s investigation into the origins of the coronavirus. Paul, who has pushed the theory that the virus emerged from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China rather than spilling over from animals to humans naturally, has long accused Fauci and other government officials of misleading the public and Congress about the source of the outbreak.
The journal entries date from December 2019, in the days leading up to the U.S. declaring a public health emergency, until December 2022, when Fauci stepped down as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he held for nearly four decades….
Many scientists believe the evidence suggests that the virus emerged naturally from infected bats before it circulated to other species and spread to humans who were handling those animals at a market in Wuhan, where the first human cases appeared in late 2019. But the FBI has assessed the coronavirus “most likely” emerged in a “lab incident in Wuhan.” In January 2025, the CIA issued a new assessment that favored the “lab leak” hypothesis, though it said the finding was made with “low confidence.”
Some of Fauci’s diary entries reflect early uncertainty about the source of the pandemic. In January 2020, he wrote that “we know the market was not the source, it was the amplifier,” though he added that “somewhere the virus jumped from animals to humans.” About a week later, he referenced a conference call in which several top infectious disease experts thought the coronavirus might not have originated in nature.Paul on Monday accused Fauci of saying one thing to “Dear Diary” while telling the public “it’s implausible that it came from the lab, and we’re really convinced it came from these wild animals in the marketplace. But that level of dishonesty is really astounding.”
On Saturday afternoon, as part of this ongoing inquiry, Paul published a thread on X describing the release of a string of what he called diary entries made by Fauci from December 2019 through December 2022. Paul commented on X at the start of the posts, “What [Fauci] wrote privately and what he told the country are two different stories.” [….]
Felicia Goodrum, a virologist at Dartmouth College who spoke to NPR from the American Society for Virology meeting in Minneapolis, says that it’s possible that Fauci may have been less certain in private with his colleagues as they were racing to learn about the new virus than he was in public where he had to assure a population that was panicking over the rapidly emerging pandemic.
David Schertler, center, an attorney for infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci, right, is removed by Capitol Police from a Senate hearing Wednesday. Maxine Wallace, The Washington Post
For years, Paul and Fauci have differed over the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Fauci has asserted that the scientific evidence points to a spillover — whereby the virus would have found its way from an animal into its first human host, and then spread at that point from human to human.
Proponents of this theory point to the wet market in Wuhan where potentially infected animals were waiting to be sold. “There’s very good evidence that there are two lineages [of SARS-CoV-2] that emerged,” according to Goodrum. “Both of those lineages were present at the market, and susceptible animals were present at the market.”
Goodrum says the market was cleared before it was possible to take any samples. However, she says the genetic data “maps all initial cases to that market” and “none to, for example, the Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they have accused the virus of having been created or released.”
Most scientists in the virology community share this view, according to a survey published in February 2024 by the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute, a nonpartisan U.S.-based think tank that studies potentially catastrophic events.
Paul has advocated for an alternative explanation. He says the possibility that the virus was engineered in a lab should not be discounted. Two years ago, during a full Senate committee hearing, Paul said, “Do we know for certain it came from the lab? No, but there’s a preponderance of evidence indicating that it may have come from the lab.”
So Rand Paul didn’t get what he wanted today. What’s next?
Anthony S. Fauci repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment during a Senate hearing Wednesday where Republicans pressed the retired government scientist on whether he was sufficiently truthful in past testimony about the coronavirus pandemic.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), a longtime adversary of Fauci, concluded the nearly three-hour hearing by saying the committee is planning a vote next week on whether to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
Paul acknowledged to GOP colleagues that there are legal questions about whether Fauci could be held in contempt — citing President Joe Biden’s preemptive pardon of Fauci last year — but contended that Fauci should have just answered questions on Wednesday, even if it meant admitting to a past lie or other wrongdoing.
After that surprise move, Paul and other Republican Senators asked Fauci numerous questions.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Missouri) peppered Fauci with basic questions, such as the day of the week and what color tie he was wearing. Fauci declined to answer those questions, too. At times, senators grew heated, with Hawley alternately using a mocking tone — repeatedly referring to Fauci as “doc” — and raising his voice to lace into him.
At one point, a Hawley staffer propped up an image of a magazine cover for which Fauci posed in September 2020. “You became a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar,” Hawley said.
Democrats, meanwhile, praised Fauci as a hero and thanked him for his work fighting infectious diseases.
Fauci’s lawyer alleged that Paul was fixated on Fauci after their clashes at the height of the pandemic — referring to a 2021 incident in which the two men traded accusations of lying — and that the senator’s sole purpose for the hearing was to punish Fauci and see him in prison.
“The accusations that Chairman Paul continues to propagate are false and disgraceful, and we will examine all options to hold him accountable,” David Schertler, Fauci’s attorney, said in a statement.
There’s more funny nonsense from the Republicans, if you’re interested. I made this a gift article just in case.
In other news, the Iran war continues, even though Trump tries to pretend otherwise.
Donald Trump has unleashed an expletive-ridden threat to “beat the f****** s***” out of Iran following its “surprise” missile attack against US bases in the Middle East.
“We’ll be hitting them hard. They’re going to get a beating,” the US president told Fox News as he responded furiously to the strikes.
The US military announced on Tuesday night that it intercepted Iran’s latest “surprise attack” by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after Trump’s meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday.
CENTCOM later said the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces aided the US military in a separate military effort Tuesday after “Iran-aligned” terrorists launched more than 30 drone attacks in the last 72 hours.
Saudi Arabia also joined US strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 20 soldiers as war spread throughout the Middle East.
The strikes on targets inside Iraq come as Oman proposed a new regional deal aimed at resolving the conflict over the critical Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas flowed before the war.
Saudi Arabia and the US have carried out strikes against Iran-backed militias in Iraq, in a potential escalation of the Middle East conflict.
US Central Command (Centcom) said the strikes were against “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure”.
Iraqi security and emergency personnel work at the scene of a strike in Muqdadiyah, Diyala province on Wednesday
Iraq’s paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), which is dominated by Iran-backed Shia militias, said at least 20 of its members had been killed in US-Saudi strikes on its bases.
It came hours after Centcom said Iran had launched missiles at US forces in the Middle East in an “attempted surprise attack”, ending a lull in hostilities.
The US said the Iranian attack occurred at 17:45 EDT (21:45 GMT) on Tuesday, with all missiles “successfully intercepted”.
The IRGC said it had targeted a US air base and a command centre in Jordan “in response to the acts of aggression of the American child-killing army”.
It also said that naval forces had struck three oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz after they “ignored warnings” and sailed along what it described as an “unsafe and illegal route” through the vital Gulf waterway.
When asked by a Fox News correspondent on Wednesday about the Iranian attack on Jordan, US President Donald Trump said in an expletive-laden response that US forces would be “hitting them hard”, adding: “They’re going to get a beating.”
Remember the old days when we had dignified presidents?
American and Saudi fighter jets attacked Iranian-linked militias and their Iranian advisers in Iraq on Wednesday, and Iran fired missiles at military bases in Jordan . It ended a dayslong pause in direct fighting between the United States and Iran and further widening the scope of the war.
Since the collapse of a cease-fire between the United States and Iran this month, Iran-linked groups across the region have opened new fronts and reopened old ones, embroiling forces in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan in the war that until recently had been contained to countries along the Persian Gulf.
The United States accused the Iranian military on Wednesday of directing its allies in Iraq to attack “U.S. forces and Saudi energy infrastructure.” The Iranian foreign ministry condemned the U.S.-Saudi strikes as an attempt to broaden the conflict.
Ships transiting through the Gulf of Oman on Saturday.Credit…Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
On Wednesday, the Saudi foreign ministry said in a statement that the country was not seeking escalation but would respond to any aggression.
Mr. Trump said Iran’s latest strikes were a surprise in an interview on “Fox & Friends.” American forces had only a few minutes’ notice to shoot down the incoming Iranian missiles, he said. “We’ll be hitting them hard,” the president said.
Also on Wednesday, the Jordanian military said it had shot down five missiles that Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps claimed were fired in retaliation for American aggression.
The U.S. military said that the strikes in Iraq were in retaliation for more than 30 drone attacks by Iranian proxy groups in the past 72 hours. A U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters, said the strikes killed about 20 Iranian military and technical advisers.
The next big Senate news will be the Judiciary Committee vote on Todd Blache’s confirmation as Attorney General.
GOP Sen. John Cornyn said Wednesday, less than 24 hours before a critical committee vote, that he is “not prepared” to support Todd Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general as the two continue to tangle over the fate of a controversial DOJ-brokered settlement agreement involving President Donald Trump.
Blanche did not appear for a planned morning meeting in Cornyn’s office, and the senator told reporters that time was running out for Blanche to meet his demand to formally modify the settlement Trump reached with the IRS earlier this year — a key ultimatum the Texas Republican set out after Blanche’s confirmation hearing earlier this month.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during the 2026 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, U.S. March 26, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole
“Hopefully they now recognize the seriousness of this,” said Cornyn, who recently lost his bid for renomination to a fifth term to a Trump-backed challenger. “Maybe they think I’m just going to give up or, you know, go along, but they’re mistaken.”
A DOJ official said the department shared a “written proposal” with Cornyn’s staff Tuesday. “We look forward to further discussion around any outstanding concerns,” said the person, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the matter.
Cornyn said Wednesday that he has yet to see “a single piece of writing that is responsive to what I’ve requested.”
His comments came ahead of a scheduled Thursday vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he has been seen as the pivotal vote. Opposition from any one Republican could sink Blanche’s chances of confirmation, and another potential GOP swing vote, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, said this week he would follow Cornyn’s lead.
Cornyn said Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) had told him he needed to know by 4 p.m. Wednesday if the vote could go forward, putting the Trump administration on a tight timeline if it wants Blanche confirmed before the Senate starts its summer recess next week.
One more important story. On Saturday, I posted an article about Trump ordering signs posted outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to inform visitors of the “inaccurate information presented in the Museum.” This is from Noel Sims and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information: The fake historian advising Trump’s anti-Smithsonian crusade.
Last Friday, President Trump released an executive order directing officials to install signs outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) informing visitors that the museum presents history inaccurately.
The order is the latest attack in a lengthy campaign by the Trump administration to discredit and control the Smithsonian Institution. The Trump administration has argued that the institution, which includes 21 museums and the National Zoo, has a liberal bias.
The Smithsonian National Museum of American History
he order cites a 162-page report released by the White House on July 4. The report, written by the White House Domestic Policy Council, argues that the “Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of American History in particular, under its current leadership and current interpretive ideology, cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic.” The report criticizes the NMAH for “extreme political activism,” “anti-White activism,” “transgender activism,” and supporting illegal immigration.
The executive order states that the temporary signs outside the museum should tell visitors that exhibits should be altered to reflect the report’s findings and “direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.” It does not specify where visitors will be redirected.
Trump’s war against the Smithsonian began shortly after the start of his second term. In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” that stated that the Trump administration would “restore the Smithsonian Institution to its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.” The Trump administration has since threatened to withhold federal funding, ordered a comprehensive review of eight museums, and released a list of exhibits it did not agree with.
According to the article’s authors, important sources of Trump’s hostility to the Smithsonian are David and Tim Barton, a father an son who founded an organization called “WallBuilders.”
The father and son are founder and president, respectively, of WallBuilders, a Christian nationalist advocacy organization founded in 1988. WallBuilders aims to “teach US history and how our beginnings were overwhelmingly rooted in Christian ideology.”
Despite having no degree in history, David Barton calls himself a historian. He has amassed a large collection of documents related to America’s founding and published several books. For decades, he has pushed the view that the founding fathers never intended for there to be a separation between church and state. David Barton’s work has been rejectedrepeatedly by actual historians. Most notably, a book he published in 2012 about Thomas Jefferson was pulled from the shelves by its publisher after a group of historians from Christian universities accused him of including distortions and false information.
This has not prevented David Barton from gaining political influence. In Texas, David Barton has advised the Texas State Board of Education on public school curricula. According to Barton’s own social media posts and statements, he has attended several meetings at the White House during Trump’s second term and has been in communication with Trump officials about the “crazy stuff” in the Smithsonian museums.
Read the rest at Public Information.
Those are the stories that caught my attention today. I hope you found something of interest here. What other stories have you been following?
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I’m getting a late start today after a night of tossing and turning. The news is depressing, as usual. Crazy Grandpa Trump is making an complete ass of himself on his Asian trip, where he’s temporarily left behind all the messes he’s left us with here.
People walk along a road during the passing of Hurricane Melissa in Rocky Point, Jamaica, on Tuesday. Matias Delacroix AP
Before I get to the politics news, here’s a brief update from CNN on the devastation Hurricane Melissa is leaving in her wake.
• Severe damage: Melissa hit Jamaica as one of the strongest Atlantic hurricanes on record, caused major damage to public infrastructure and left most of the island without power. The full extent of the devastation there is unclear with some areas inaccessible.
• Deadly storm: Twenty five people have died in Petit-Goâve, Haiti, after a river flooded by Melissa burst its banks, the local mayor said. Three people were killed in Jamaica during storm preparations, and one person died in the Dominican Republic.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica Tuesday as the strongest storm in the island’s history. The Category 5 hurricane tore a path of destruction across the island, causing major flooding and power cuts. Prime Minister Andrew Holness declared the country a “disaster area.”
The massive storm swept through Cuba early this morning as a Category 2 hurricane. Over 750,000 residents were evacuated ahead of the storm. Melissa is now carving a path towards the Bahamas.
The intense winds have diminished in Jamaica, but the National Hurricane Center warns that heavy rains and flooding might continue.
And this is a monster of a storm that meteorologists say will be in the history books. Only six other Atlantic storms have done that since record-keeping began.
Click the NPR link to see more photos.
We’re expecting stormy weather from Melissa here in Massachusetts on Thursday night and Friday. I hope it won’t interfere too much with kids’ Halloween plans.
Some lowlights from Trump’s embarrassing foreign trip:
You probably saw this video of spaced-out Trump being guided around by the new Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
Trump in Japan.He has no idea what's going on, just wanders off.His brain is cooked.This is insane.
President Donald Trump treated his time in Japan on Tuesday as a victory lap — befriending the new Japanese prime minister, taking her with him as he spoke to U.S. troops aboard an aircraft carrier and then unveiling several major energy and technology projects in America to be funded by Japan.
By the end of the day, Trump — by his administration’s count — came close to nailing down the goal of $550 billion in Japanese investment as part of a trade framework. At a dinner for business leaders in Tokyo, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in commitments, including $100 billion each for nuclear projects involving Westinghouse and GE Vernova….
It was not immediately clear how the investments would operate and how they compared with previous plans, but Trump declared a win as he capped off a day of bonding with Takaichi.
Because they are probably fake “investments.” There’s more at the link.
President Donald Trump rarely has anything negative to say about the men and women of the U.S. military, but he made an exception on Tuesday to offer a rare criticism of America’s fighting forces: They may be too “good-looking” for his tastes.
Trump was in the midst of an address to sailors aboard the U.S.S. George Washington, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier that is semi-permanently based at the American naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, when he paused an attempt to praise the assembled service members to rant about their excessive attractiveness.
Speaking on the second day of a multi-day, multi-country trip through Asia that will conclude after a planned summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Thursday, Trump said the Navy’s “ultimate strength” comes from “the men and women of the rank and file,” calling his uniformed audience “incredible people” and “good-looking people.”
After a beat, he said there were “too many good-looking people” present.
“I don’t like good-looking people,” he continued, as the sailors laughed at their commander-in-chief’s bizarre remark.
“I never liked good-looking people, I’ll be honest with you … never admitted that before,” he said.
Trump: You take a little glass of water and you drop it on magnets. I don't know what's going to happen.
Donald Trump went on a deranged rant about the power of water to destroy magnets during a rambling address to the U.S. Navy just off the coast of Japan.
Speaking aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier during his tour of East Asia, the president appeared to suggest—in a largely incoherent speech—that he is pushing for aircraft carriers to use “steam for the catapults” and hydraulics for elevators, while wrongly claiming that water can disable magnets.
The elderly president was talking about the magnetic catapults used to launch planes from the latest Navy super carriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford class, and the electromagnetic elevators used to move weaponry to the flight deck. Both systems double the speed with which planes can be armed and launched but slowed the delivery and commissioning of the $13 billion flagship of the class.
“You know, the new thing is magnets. So instead of using hydraulic that can be hit by lightning and it’s fine. You take a little glass of water, you drop it on magnets, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Trump said.
“So, you know, the elevators come up in the new carriers—I think I’m going to change it, by the way—they have magnets. Every tractor has hydraulic, every excavator, every excavating machine of any kind has hydraulic. But somebody decided to use magnets.”
The 79-year-old president then stumbled over his words and failed to complete a coherent sentence before moving on and asking the watching troops whether they preferred hydraulics or magnets.
Trump then called out to a “top-ranking general” in the crowd for his opinion before continuing his tirade against the 2,000-year-old technology.
“I’m going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it’s steam for the catapults and it’s hydraulic for the elevators. We’ll never have a problem,” Trump said. “He agrees. Everybody agrees. But, ahh, these people in Washington.”
President Trump told American troops assembled in Japan on Tuesday that he was prepared to send “more than the National Guard” into cities to enforce his crackdowns on crime and immigration, further escalating how he has talked about using the military at home and abroad.
Trump “dances” for the troops in Japan.
Speaking to thousands of military service members aboard an aircraft carrier at the Yokosuka Naval Base in Japan on Tuesday, Mr. Trump delivered a partisan speech that resembled the raucous rallies that made him an ascendant force in U.S. politics.
But throughout his nearly hourlong speech, his usual ramblings about the physical appearances of audience members and steam-powered catapults were laced with dark warnings about how he might choose to deploy military forces.
“We have cities that are troubled, we can’t have cities that are troubled,” Mr. Trump said. “And we’re sending in our National Guard, and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard, because we’re going to have safe cities.”
Legal disputes over what troops under federal control may be used to do on domestic soil — like a bar on using them to enforce the law, except when there is an insurrection — treat National Guard troops under federal control and active-duty troops as the same.
Mr. Trump also defended the U.S. military’s strikes against what the administration has said are suspected drug smugglers. The tactics have drawn widespread rebuke from experts who have said it is illegal to use the military to target civilians — including criminal suspects — who are not directly participating in hostilities.
Mr. Trump has increasingly used speeches to the military to air his grievances and bolster his accomplishments. Still, the scene was striking: an American president defending war and military deployments on U.S. soil, and employing partisan talking points on the global stage.
It’s a lot more than “striking,” IMHO.
Next stop for Trump: South Korea.
They all know how to play him. It isn’t difficult. bsky.app/profile/acyn…
GYEONGJU, South Korea, Oct 29 (Reuters) – South Korea welcomed U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday with a replica gold crown and awarded him with the “Grand Order of Mugunghwa”, the country’s highest decoration, the presidential office said.
Trump landed in South Korea on the final leg of a trip through Asia that also saw stops in Malaysia and Japan, with high-profile trade talks expected with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
U.S. and South Korean warplanes escorted Air Force One on approach, and on the tarmac a South Korean military band greeted Trump with a rendition of “YMCA” and guns fired a salute.
Lee is hoping to win concessions from Trump in drawn-out negotiations aimed at lowering U.S. tariffs on South Korea, and has wooed the U.S. president by praising his outreach to North Korea.
Lee’s office said that in recognition of Trump’s role as a “peacemaker” on the Korean peninsula, he was awarded the “Grand Order of Mugunghwa”, which is named after South Korea’s national flower, a pink hibiscus also known as the Rose of Sharon in English.
They really know how to suck up to Trump.
Trump was gifted a replica of the golden Cheonmachong crown. The delicate original, which was found in a tomb in Gyeongju, features towering gold prongs and dangling leaf shapes.
“This symbolizes the history of Silla, which maintained a long-term era of peace on the Korean Peninsula, and a new era of peaceful coexistence and common growth on the Korean Peninsula that the United States and South Korea will work together for.”
The leaders had a working lunch that included Thousand Island salad dressing, in what Lee’s office said was a nod to Trump’s “success story in his hometown of New York.” The meal also included local specialties “according to President Trump’s preferences.”
On the menu were “mini beef patties with ketchup”, a “Korean Platter of Sincerity” featuring U.S. beef and local rice and soybean paste, and grilled fish with a glaze of ketchup and gochujang, a red chilli paste.
The lunch was capped by a “Peacemaker’s Dessert” consisting of a brownie adorned with gold.
A gold crown, junk food and being lauded as a “peacemaker.” What more could Trump ask for?
Donald Trump gushed over Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the most cringeworthy way possible on Wednesday, describing the leader as “the nicest-looking guy” and then attempting to impersonate him.
The elderly president went there at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Gyeongju, South Korea, during his tur of East Asia. He was bragging again that he single-handedly brought a swift end the four-day armed conflict between nuclear rivals India and Pakistan earlier this year by allegedly threatening both nations with 250 percent tariffs.
Indian officials have publicly rejected Trump’s repeated claims that he mediated the ceasefire. Sources told Bloomberg that Modi skipped the entire summit in Malaysia this week because Indian officials were worried Trump would once again repeat his self-proclaimed role in ending the conflict. They probably didn’t anticipate the accent.
“I’ll tell you what, Prime Minister Modi is the nicest looking guy,” Trump said, adding Modi looked like someone “you’d like to have as your father.”
“He’s tough as hell,” Trump said, before launching into a Modi impersonation, complete with what sounded like an attempt at an Indian accent: “No, we will fight!”
“I said, ‘Whoa, is that the same man that I know?’” Trump told the room.
Trump then took credit again for ending the escalating crisis, a claim disputed by officials in New Delhi. He said it wouldn’t have been resolved “if it wasn’t for the tariffs.”
“After a little while, and they’re good people, and after literally two days they called up, and they said we understand, and they stopped fighting—isn’t that amazing?”
The White House on Tuesday fired all six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, an independent federal agency that had expected to review some of President Donald Trump’s construction projects, including his planned triumphal arch and White House ballroom.
“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as a member of the Commission of Fine Arts is terminated, effective immediately,” reads an email reviewed by The Washington Post that was sent to one of the commissioners by a staffer in the White House presidential personnel office.
The commission, which was established by Congress more than a century ago and traditionally includes a mix of architects and urban planners, is charged with providing advice to the president, Congress and local government officials on design matters related to construction projects in the capital region. Its focus includes government buildings, monuments and memorials. White House officials have traditionally sought the agency’s approval.
President Joe Biden appointed the six sitting commissioners to four-year terms, several of which would have extended through 2028. Their termination comes as the White House gears up for several Trump construction projects, including his planned $300 million White House ballroom, and seeks to install allies on key review boards.
A White House official confirmed that the Commission of Fine Arts members had been terminated.
“We are preparing to appoint a new slate of members to the commission that are more aligned with President Trump’s ‘America First’ policies,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
I guess Trump will get approval for his tasteless ballroom and Hitler arch then.
Democrats are expanding their probes into President Donald Trump’s demolition of the East Wing and construction of his planned ballroom, with lawmakers pressing the White House and outside companies to explain the project’s finances and what was promised to contributors.
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California), a frequent critic of President Donald Trump, is opening a probe into the president’s planned White House ballroom. (Demetrius Freeman, The Washington Post)
Sen. Adam Schiff (D-California) and colleagues on Tuesday demanded that the White House provide a “complete accounting” of how it is paying for the ballroom, including any terms for donors. Trump said Friday that he had raised more than $350 million to pay for the project, and the White House has said that at least three dozen companies and private individuals have helped fund it.
“The opaque nature of this scheme reinforces concern that President Trump is again selling presidential access to individuals or entities, including foreign nationals and corporate actors, with vested interests in federal action,” Schiff wrote to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles in a letter shared with The Washington Post. Schiff, a frequent critic of the president, also sent his request to the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog that conducts oversight of the executive branch.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) separately sent letters Tuesday to contractors involved in the White House construction project, including McCrery Architects, Clark Construction and engineering firm AECOM, questioning the “rapidly changing and secretive terms” of Trump’s planned ballroom. The letters were also shared with The Post.
Trump said in July that the ballroom would cost about $200 million and hold 650 guests, estimates that he increased last week to $300 million and nearly 1,000, respectively. The ballroom donors include defense and tech companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Lockheed Martin and Meta, which frequently have business before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Lawmakers said they were frustrated that the White House had neither consulted Congress nor received approval from at least two relevant federal commissions before rapidly demolishing the East Wing last week.
Five Senate Republicans voted with Democrats on Tuesday night to pass a resolution terminating President Trump’s emergency authority to impose steep tariffs on Brazil, one of the biggest exporters of coffee to the United States.
The Senate voted 52 to 48 to pass the resolution sponsored by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to terminate Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on Brazilian imports, such as coffee, oil and orange juice.
Paul, speaking on the Senate floor, called the tariff a tax on U.S. consumers.
The Kentucky Republican argued that the Constitution requires that “taxes must originate in the House” of Representatives.
“Yet, these taxes are originating with the White House,” he said.
McConnell, in a statement, said that Trump’s tariffs are hurting Kentucky businesses and farms.
It’s symbolic, but still could be a positive sign.
I guess this post is kind of disorganized–I’m just not that with it today. But that’s all I have for you. I hope there’s something here worth reading/watching.
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My stress level is sky high lately. If only I could relax like a cat, blissfully unaware of the daily shocks we humans have to deal with these days. At least it’s the weekend, so maybe we’ll get a break–or maybe even some good news? Here’s the latest:
With the US supreme court apparently poised to overturn the 1973 landmark decision which made abortion legal, hundreds of thousands of people across America are planning to take to the streets to protest the looming decision.
A coalition of groups such as Planned Parenthood, UltraViolet, MoveOn and the Women’s March are organizing Saturday’s demonstrations, whose rallying cry is “Bans Off Our Bodies”. More than 370 protests are planned, including in Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago….
The “Bans Off Our Bodies” gatherings will take place three days after Democrats in the US Senate on Wednesday made a largely symbolic effort to advance legislation that would codify the right to an abortion into federal law. All 50 Republicans and one conservative-aligned Democrat – West Virginia’s Joe Manchin – voted against the measure, leaving it well short of the 60 votes necessary for it to advance.
Pro-choice demonstrators continue to turn up outside the homes of supreme court justices, with the latest target being conservative Amy Coney Barrett, who signed on to a majority draft opinion that was leaked to reveal an intention to overturn the constitutional right to seek an abortion in the US.
“The right to your own body – to do what you want with your own body – is the most personal freedom you can have,” one protester said from among a group wearing long red “handmaid” capes and white bonnets earlier this week to symbolize forced childbearing, as members of the Virginia state police watched nearby….
Several organizations, led by Planned Parenthood and the Women’s March, are preparing for a nationwide day of pro-choice marches on Saturday….
Protesters have so far gathered outside the residences in the Washington DC area of Samuel Alito, who wrote the scorching draft opinion, and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as Barrett and the chief justice, John Roberts, who did not sign on to the draft opinion, unlike the other three and Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch.
Yesterday, British medical journal The Lancet released a scathing editorial warning the U.S. Supreme Court that if they overturn Roe v. Wade, they will have women’s “blood on their hands.”
“Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views.” So begins a draft opinion by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, leaked from the US Supreme Court on May 2, 2022. If confirmed, this judgement would overrule the Court’s past decisions to establish the right to access abortion. In Alito’s words, “the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives”. The Court’s opinion rests on a strictly historical interpretation of the US Constitution: “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision.” His extraordinary text repeatedly equates abortion with murder.
The Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution has been the main foundation underpinning the right of American women to an abortion. That 1868 Amendment was passed during the period of American Reconstruction, when states’ powers were being subjected to certain limitations. The goal of the Amendment was to prevent states from unduly restricting the freedoms of their citizens. That guarantee of personal liberty, so the Supreme Court had previously held, extended to pregnant women, with qualifications, who decided to seek an abortion. Alito rejected that reasoning. He argued that for any right not mentioned in the Constitution to be protected, it must be shown to have had deep roots in the nation’s history and tradition. Abortion does not fulfil that test. Worse, Roe was an exercise in “raw judicial power”, it “short-circuited the democratic process”, and it was “egregiously wrong” from the very beginning. It was now time, according to Alito, “to set the record straight”.
What is so shocking, inhuman, and irrational about this draft opinion is that the Court is basing its decision on an 18th century document ignorant of 21st century realities for women. History and tradition can be respected, but they must only be partial guides. The law should be able to adapt to new and previously unanticipated challenges and predicaments. Although Alito gives an exhaustive legal history of abortion, he utterly fails to consider the health of women today who seek abortion. Unintended pregnancy and abortion are universal phenomena. Worldwide, around 120 million unintended pregnancies occur annually. Of these, three-fifths end in abortion. And of these, some 55% are estimated to be safe—that is, completed using a medically recommended method and performed by a trained provider. This leaves 33 million women undergoing unsafe abortions, their lives put at risk because laws restrict access to safe abortion services.
Washington’s reaction to the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade has been typically myopic.
Republicans first tried to make people believe that the issue wasn’t the opinion itself but the leak. Now they’re absurdly trying to portray Democrats as supporters of infanticide. Democrats, in turn, squabbled among themselves before a show vote on a doomed abortion rights bill. And the news media have reverted to our usual horse-race speculation about how it will affect the midterms.
This small-bore response misses the radical change to society that Justice Samuel Alito and his co-conspirators are poised to ram down the throats of Americans. Their stunning action might well change the course of the midterms — but more importantly, it is upending who we are as a people.
Assuming little changes from the draft, overturning Roe would be a shock to our way of life, the social equivalent of the 9/11 attacks (which shattered our sense of physical security) or the crash of 2008 (which undid our sense of financial security). As epoch-making decisions go, this is Brown v. Board of Education, but in reverse: taking away an entrenched right Americans have relied upon for half a century. We remember Brown because it changed us forever, not because it altered the 1954 midterms.
Read more at the WaPo.
Clarence Thomas, husband of Ginni Thomas, who supported a coup against the U.S. government, is still whining about the SCOTUS link, which most likely came from a right wing source. Adam Liptak at The New York Times: Justice Thomas Says Leaked Opinion Destroyed Trust at the Supreme Court.
The leak of a draft opinion has done irreparable damage to the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas said at a conference in Dallas on Friday night, adding that it had destroyed trust among its members.
“What happened at the court is tremendously bad,” Justice Thomas said. “I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them.”
The leak of the opinion, which would overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion, was “like kind of an infidelity,” Justice Thomas said.
“Look where we are, where that trust or that belief is gone forever,” he said. “And when you lose that trust, especially in the institution that I’m in, it changes the institution fundamentally. You begin to look over your shoulder.”
Tough shit. My trust in SCOTUS was gone after Thomas was confirmed by lying about his sexual harassment of Anita HIll.
I won’t quote from this one, but if you want to read an argument by a constitutional scholar who is a Democrat who supports abortion rights but opposes Roe, check out this article at The Wall Street Journal by Akhil Reed Amar: The End of Roe v. Wade. I found it interesting but not that helpful for women who are facing a disastrous and traumatic future around pregnancy and childbirth. The article wasn’t behind the paywall when I opened it.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, visited Ukraine on Saturday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, leading the latest delegation of American lawmakers to the country as the United States deepens its commitment to Kyiv’s fight against the Russian invasion.
The surprise visit by Mr. McConnell, who was accompanied by three other Republican senators, comes as the Senate is working to pass a $40 billion emergency military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine. It follows a string of other clandestine visits, including by the first lady, Jill Biden, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi….
“Helping Ukraine is not an instance of mere philanthropy — it bears directly on America’s national security and vital interests that Russia’s naked aggression not succeed and carries significant costs,” Mr. McConnell said this week. “If Ukraine fails to repel Russian aggression, there is no question that the threat to American and European security will grow.”
The trip was disclosed by Mr. Zelensky’s office. Details were not yet available from the lawmakers.
Mr. McConnell was joined by Senators John Barrasso of Wyoming, a member of his leadership team and the Foreign Relations Committee; John Cornyn of Texas, a member of the Intelligence Committee; and Susan Collins of Maine, who sits on both the Intelligence Committee and the Appropriations Committee, which oversees government funding.
In the photos I’ve seen, Zelensky doesn’t look as happy as he did when Jill Biden and Nancy Pelosi visited him.
The decision by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol to issue subpoenas to five Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, has sent a shock wave through Capitol Hill, heightening tensions in an already hostile environment and raising questions about the future of the inquiry and the institution itself.
The move by the Democratic-led panel set up a showdown with Republicans that could result in the threat of jail time against sitting members of Congress — including Mr. McCarthy, who is in line to be speaker if his party wins control of the House in November. It also had major implications for the investigation, and whether the country will ever get full answers about the deadly mob attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that disrupted the peaceful transfer of power and left more than 150 police officers injured.
Some Democrats immediately began clamoring for Mr. McCarthy and other lawmakers to be held in criminal contempt if they fail to appear at their scheduled depositions in late May, while Republicans warned of retaliation if they take control of the House after the midterm elections.
“I wouldn’t be for it, but turnabout is fair play,” Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, said of retaliatory subpoenas. He called the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas a “horrible precedent for the institution,” adding: “It’s a race to the bottom.”
I’d say the refusal of Republicans and Trump associates to honor Congressional subpoenas looks bad for Republicans, especially if they try to investigate Democrats in the future; but for the NYT, it’s always about how everything that happens is bad for Democrats.
The Jan. 6 committee may seek testimony from additional lawmakers as soon as next week, ahead of blockbuster TV hearings that kick off next month, Axios has learned.
Driving the news: Chiefs of staff and other aides to members of the House select committee were told Friday on their weekly call with committee staff to brace for more bombshells ahead of the June 9 start to public hearings, according to two sources on the call….
— Members haven’t said how they would enforce those subpoenas.
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the committee, told Axios on Thursday that “the fact-gathering process will continue through the hearings.”
What we’re hearing: A U.S. Capitol Police security briefing for members and their chiefs of staff, to prepare for the June hearings, is scheduled for May 20.
That’s what’s happening so far today, as I see it. What’s on your mind?
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Clerk of the House Cheryl Johnson along with acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Tim Blodgett lead the Democratic House impeachment managers as they walk through the Capitol Hill
What we’re hearing: The notoriously stingy former president and his lead lawyer, Butch Bowers, wrangled over compensation during a series of tense phone calls, sources familiar with their conversations said. The argument came even though Trump has raised over $170 million from the public that could be used on his legal defenses.
The two initially agreed Bowers would be paid $250,000 for his individual services, a figure that “delighted” Trump, one of the sources said.
However, Trump didn’t realize Bowers hadn’t included additional expenses — including more lawyers, researchers and other legal fees that would be accrued on the job.
He was said to be livid when Bowers came back to him with a total budget of $3 million. Trump called the South Carolina attorney and eventually negotiated him down to $1 million.
All of this infuriated Trump and his political team, who think the case will be straightforward, given 45 Republican senators already voted to dismiss the trial on the basis it’s unconstitutional to convict a former president on impeachment charges.
Trump’s political arm also was planning to pay separately for audiovisuals, a rapid-response team and legislative liaison.
In the end, the money dispute added to frustrations Bowers and the other lawyers felt about whether the former president’s claims of election fraud should be central to their arguments.
Castor was the district attorney of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, from 2002 to 2008. In 2005, Castor declined to prosecute Bill Cosby when he was charged with sexually assaulting Andrea Constand. Castor said at the time that “insufficient, credible and admissible evidence exists upon which any charge against Mr. Cosby could be sustained beyond a reasonable doubt,” The Washington Post reported.
Years later, after more than four dozen women had accused Cosby of sexual crimes, Castor said he’d verbally offered Cosby an immunity deal in which he declined to prosecute him in criminal court to ensure that Constand would be able to sue him in civil court.
Bruce Castor Jr.
His handling of the Cosby case is widely believed to be responsible for the failure of his reelection bid in 2015….
David Schoen, a criminal-defense lawyer in Atlanta, was a part of the Trump ally Roger Stone’s defense team during his trial on charges of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and making false statements related to the special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
Schoen also met with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in the days before Epstein’s death in August 2019. Schoen has claimed that Epstein’s death was not actually a suicide.
Those two sound perfect for Trump. I wonder if he’s paying them?
Former President Donald Trump’s legal team are expected to use an argument at his impeachment trial next week that is already supported by the majority of Senate Republicans in charge of his fate: That the trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer the commander in chief….
While Trump’s new team says fraud isn’t at the center of their arguments, they’re not closing the door on them….
Schoen, in an interview with The Washington Post Sunday evening, offered some insight on the path forward, saying he planned to focus on the “weaponization of the impeachment process” and would not argue the president’s claims of voter fraud.
David Schoen
“I am not a person who will put forward a theory of election fraud,” Schoen told the Post. “That’s not what this impeachment trial is about.”
Schoen told Sean Hannity of Fox News on Monday night that the trial is unconstitutional and nothing more than an effort to prevent Trump from running for president again. “This is the political weaponization of the impeachment process,” he said.
Schoen also called the trial “the most ill-advised legislative action that I’ve seen in my lifetime.” [….]
The new team appears to have a two-pronged strategy: Arguing the trial is unconstitutional and that Trump’s remarks about the election did not incite the deadly riot at the Capitol.
House Democrats made their case to convict former president Donald Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in a sweeping impeachment brief filed with the Senate on Tuesday that accused Trump of whipping his supporters into a “frenzy” and described him as “singularly responsible” for the mayhem that ensued.
In the brief, the nine House impeachment managers argue that Trump is not protected by the First Amendment’s freedom of speech provision, which was never intended, they wrote, to allow a president to “provoke lawless action if he loses at the polls.”
“If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a Joint Session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be,” the brief states.
Democrats also rejected the claim embraced by many Republicans that it is unconstitutional to convict a president after he has left office — an argument that Trump’s lawyers are expected to make in his defense.
“There is no ‘January Exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the House Democrats wrote. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”
House impeachment managers
Trump is supposed to submit his response later today. It’s difficult to see how his lawyers could have had enough time to prepare careful arguments. More from the Democrat’s case:
The House Democrats wrote that Trump’s embrace of unfounded accusations that the 2020 election was stolen from him helped foment his supporters’ attack on the Capitol. When those false assertions failed to overturn the election, the Democrats wrote, Trump “summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue.”
They added: “The Framers themselves would not have hesitated to convict on these facts.”
The House impeachment managers urged senators to bar Trump from ever serving again in elected office: “This is not a case where elections alone are a sufficient safeguard against future abuse; it is the electoral process itself that President Trump attacked and that must be protected from him and anyone else who would seek to mimic his behavior. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a case that more clearly evokes the reasons the Framers wrote a disqualification power into the Constitution.”
The brief made clear Democrats’ intention to build an emotionally compelling impeachment case against Trump in which they have sought out new cellphone footage of the Capitol siege, as well as details about injured police officers.
The goal is to present the Senate with fresh evidence that reveals what Trump knew in advance of the Jan. 6 rampage at the Capitol, as well as how his words and actions influenced those who participated. The rioting left five dead, including one member of the U.S. Capitol Police. In addition, two officers, one with the D.C. police department, have since died by suicide.
As the Senate trial of Donald Trump nears, the defense is coming into view. It appears that most Senate Republicans will not defend Mr. Trump’s conduct around the Jan. 6 Capitol siege. Instead, they will rally around an argument about the chamber’s constitutional powers and the supposedly dangerous consequences for our politics if the Senate tries a “late impeachment.”
This argument is built on two closely connected representations, and Senator Rand Paul previewed them in his recent constitutional objection to “late impeachment.”
The first, in Mr. Paul’s words, is that “impeachment is a tool to remove someone from office. That’s it.” The Senate lacks the power to try an impeached president, once out of office, to determine if he is guilty of the charges the House has levied against him.
The second, Mr. Paul and others argued, is that Mr. Trump is now a “private citizen,” and so any action against him could serve no purpose other than revenge….
Bob Bauer
This Republican argument wholly misconstrues the text, history and structure of the Constitution’s impeachment clause. It is a mistake to minimize impeachment’s broader objectives by suggesting that removal from office was somehow its only or primary function.
The power to impeach specifically provides for two decisions: impeachment and conviction, resulting in removal, and then disqualification from holding office. As drawn from the English practice, and reflected in state constitutions at the time, both these actions were understood to serve the overall purpose of public accountability for egregious abuses of public office.
Indeed, several state constitutions at the time of the federal Constitution’s writing permitted impeachment only after public figures had left office. Public accountability and disqualification were the purposes of impeachment; the Constitution’s addition of removal from office was an expansion on these provisions.
The argument focused on Mr. Trump’s status as a former president is misguided and dangerous. When impeached, he was in office. Moreover, it is highly doubtful that the framers intended the impeachment clause to give the president free rein to commit impeachable offenses in the closing months of his term.
In any case, the Senate always decides on disqualification after the offender is a “private citizen,” since that is what he becomes upon conviction of an impeachable offense. The Constitution does not even specify that this second vote on disqualfication must be immediate. The Senate could vote weeks later, after deliberation and debate, well into the former president’s “private” life.
Still more fundamental: This “late impeachment” argument fails to grasp the constitutional framework within which the question must be considered. The Federalist Papers made plain the framers’ preoccupation with protections against the demagogue, the “unworthy candidate” of “perverted ambition” who practices “with success the vicious arts, by which elections are too often carried.” The provision for “disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit” was one of many instances of constitutional checks against popular passions that could lead to the election of officeholders who would threaten to subvert the Republic.
Read the rest at the link. I imagine the impeachment managers will read this article carefully.
So, that’s what we know so far about the impeachment trial. I’ll post more news links in the comment thread below. There’s a lot happening.
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The occupant of the people’s White House began his morning with more racist attacks on people of color. This time it was Rep. Elijah Cummings and the people of Baltimore. I won’t subject you to the tweets, but he claimed that Cummings’ district in Maryland is “a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” and “very dangerous & filthy place” and that “no human being would want to live there.” He also called Cummings a “brutal bully” because he criticized Trump’s concentration camps.
Apparently the occupant was watching TV this morning before he heads out to play more golf.
Trump's attack on Rep. Cummings is a straight recitation of a Fox segment. "Living conditions at the border are better than most areas in his district, the city lined with abandoned building and trash on the streets."
Cummings also announced recently that he has subpoenaed the White House for employees’ emails sent on personal accounts. That would include Ivanka and Jared.
Of course the real source of Trump’s rage is the fact that Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee have opened an impeachment inquiry into his crimes.
Has the House of Representatives opened an impeachment inquiry? That question is starkly presented by a petition that the House Judiciary Committee filed in federal court on Friday. It is also answered by that petition. No matter what certain House Democratic leaders might say about the politics of the matter, there can now be no doubt that the committee is engaged in an investigation of whether to impeach President Trump.
Flora Merleau, Dear Alexander
Through its petition, the committee seeks access to portions of the report by former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III that were redacted to protect grand jury secrecy. The panel also seeks grand jury testimony bearing on Trump’s knowledge of criminal acts, Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and Russian connections to his campaign. Finally, the committee seeks grand jury testimony about actions taken by former White House counsel Donald McGahn; this last request probably anticipates the committee’s rumored plans to seek an order compelling McGahn to testify.
It is settled law that House committees can obtain grand jury materials as part of impeachment investigations. So the legal dispute will probably center on whether such an inquiry is underway.
The Constitution itself does not use phrases like “impeachment investigation” or “impeachment proceedings.” This has led some to mistakenly assume that the House is disregarding its impeachment power because it has not yet held a floor vote approving articles of impeachment (or expressly instructing the Judiciary Committee to deliberate on such articles).
But to those who specialize in these matters, that all-or-nothing vision of the impeachment power is mistaken. The Constitution’s text and structure — supported by judicial precedent and prior practice — show that impeachment is a process, not a single vote. And that process virtually always begins with an impeachment investigation in the judiciary committee, which is already occurring.
Here is the historic announcement made by Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
Here's @RepJerryNadler saying during a news conference that the House Judiciary Committee has filed a petition in federal court announcing they are fact-gathering with eye toward possibly recommending articles of impeachment pic.twitter.com/vzXMT5r0Zc
At The Atlantic, four members of the House of Representatives Mary Gay Scanlon, David Cicilline, Pramila Jayapal, and Veronica Escobar write: Why We’re Moving Forward With Impeachment.
Mueller’s testimony before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees was a watershed moment. At this point, it is up to Congress to act on the evidence of multiple counts of obstruction of justice committed by the president, and to continue our investigation into whether he has committed other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Beryl Cook, The Great Cat
Despite assertions to the contrary by the president and his allies, the special counsel’s report and testimony are not the end of our investigations. We have now filed a petition in court to obtain the grand-jury documents referenced in the special counsel’s report. In that filing, we have made clear that we will utilize our Article I powers to obtain the additional underlying evidence, as well as enforce subpoenas for key witness testimony, and broaden our investigations to include conflicts of interest and financial misconduct.
While many people believe that beginning an impeachment investigation can begin only with a vote of the full House of Representatives, this is not true. Article I authorizes the House Judiciary Committee to begin this process.
As members of the House Judiciary Committee, we understand the gravity of this moment that we find ourselves in. We wake up every morning with the understanding of the oath that binds us as members of Congress, and the trust that our constituents placed in us to uphold that oath. We will move forward with the impeachment process. Our investigation will seriously examine all the evidence as we consider whether to bring articles of impeachment or other remedies under our Article I powers.
Our Constitution requires it. Our democracy depends on it.
The hashtag #MoscowMitch was trending on Twitter on Friday morning after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked two election bills designed to deter interference by Russia and other states, claiming it was “partisan legislation” by the Democratic Party.
It followed special counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on Wednesday that Russia is still attempting to interfere in American democracy, further to its meddling in the 2016 presidential election, with a view to disrupting the 2020 contest.
Barbara Perrine Chu, Woman with Black Cat
Then on Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee published a report detailing Russian interference dating back to at least 2014 through to 2017 that targeted U.S. election infrastructure with an “unprecedented level of activity.”
Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough used the moniker “Moscow Mitch” in reference to McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, multiple times during his MSNBC show on Friday, and tore into the congressional leader for several minutes.
Scarborough made reference to an effort in 2016 ahead of the election by President Barack Obama to sound the alarm to American voters about Russian interference by urging congressional leaders to sign a bipartisan statement condemning it publicly.
At the time, according to The Washington Post, McConnell rebuffed Obama’s suggestion, and said he would view the White House talking publicly about Russian interference before polling day as an act of partisanship designed to aid the then Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
This doesn’t mean he’s a spy, but neither is it a flip accusation. Russia attacked our country in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify in 2020. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses to repel the attack, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blocks us from defending ourselves.
By Mariana Kalacheva
Let’s call this what it is: unpatriotic. The Kentucky Republican is, arguably more than any other American, doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.
Robert Mueller sat before Congress this week warning that the Russia threat “deserves the attention of every American.” He said “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in our election is among the most serious” challenges to American democracy he has ever seen. “They are doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign,” he warned, adding that “much more needs to be done in order to protect against these intrusions, not just by the Russians but others as well.”
Millbank provides specifics of McConnell’s unpatriotic behavior:
McConnell has blocked all such attempts [to protect our elections], including:
A bipartisan bill requiring Facebook, Google and other Internet companies to disclose purchasers of political ads, to identify foreign influence.
A bipartisan bill to ease cooperation between state election officials and federal intelligence agencies.
A bipartisan bill imposing sanctions on any entity that attacks a U.S. election.
A bipartisan bill with severe new sanctions on Russia for its cybercrimes.
McConnell has prevented them all from being considered — over and over again. This is the same McConnell who, in the summer of 2016, when briefed by the CIA along with other congressional leaders on Russia’s electoral attacks, questioned the validity of the intelligence and forced a watering down of a warning letter to state officials about the threat, omitting any mention of Russia.
Read the rest at the WaPo.
On Hardball yesterday, John Brennan discussed McConnell’s behavior in 2016.
"I think I was the first Obama Administration official to brief McConnell in the summer of 2016 about Russian interference. And he said, 'You, the Obama Admin, do not want Trump elected."@JohnBrennan on Mitch McConnell's continuous efforts to block election security reform. pic.twitter.com/yvTItGktdw
This days, the GOP is filled with Russian assets like Trump’s suck-up golf buddy Lindsey Graham and Rand Paul, who tried to block funding to help 9/11 first responders but fights sanctions on a Russian pipeline. The Daily Beast:
Advocates for a massive Russian natural gas pipeline project have a powerful, quiet ally in Congress: Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican and close friend of President Donald Trump. He has quietly worked against sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project, which would dramatically expand Russia’s shipments of natural gas to Germany. Critics say it would also dramatically expand Russia’s influence in Western Europe while harming Ukraine. The Trump administration has weighed sanctioning the project, but has yet to do so. And Trump himself has criticized it.
On Thursday, the senator postponed the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s mark-up of legislation that would have put sanctions on the project, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the committee’s proceedings. And while Paul hasn’t publicized his opposition to the proposed sanctions, he sent Senate colleagues a letter before the mark-up explaining his stance. The letter, which The Daily Beast obtained, argues that the legislation in question—a bipartisan bill introduced by Sens. Ted Cruz and Jeanne Shaheen—doesn’t clearly state which entities would be sanctioned.
That’s it for me today. What stories have you been following?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
“The right to your own body – to do what you want with your own body – is the most personal freedom you can have,” one protester said from among a group wearing long red “handmaid” capes and white bonnets earlier this week to symbolize 
What is so shocking, inhuman, and irrational about this draft opinion is that the Court is basing its decision on an 18th century document ignorant of 21st century realities for women. History and tradition can be respected, but they must only be partial guides. The law should be able to adapt to new and previously unanticipated challenges and predicaments. Although Alito gives an exhaustive legal history of abortion, he utterly fails to consider the health of women today who seek abortion. Unintended pregnancy and abortion are universal phenomena. Worldwide, around 120 million unintended pregnancies occur annually. Of these, three-fifths end in abortion. And of these, some 55% are estimated to be safe—that is, completed using a medically recommended method and performed by a trained provider. This leaves 33 million women undergoing unsafe abortions, their lives put at risk because laws restrict access to safe abortion services.
The leak of a draft opinion has done irreparable damage to the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas said at a conference in Dallas on Friday night, adding that it had destroyed trust among its members.
The surprise visit by Mr. McConnell, who was accompanied by three other Republican senators, comes as the Senate is working to pass a $40 billion emergency military and humanitarian aid package for Ukraine. It follows a string of other clandestine visits, including by the first lady, 
I’d say the refusal of Republicans and Trump associates to honor Congressional subpoenas looks bad for Republicans, especially if they try to investigate Democrats in the future; but for the NYT, it’s always about how everything that happens is bad for Democrats.
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