The Conversation -- February 28, 2024

** John Fritze of CNN: "The Supreme Court agreed Wednesday to decide whether Donald Trump may claim immunity in special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case, adding another explosive appeal from the former president to its docket and further delaying his federal trial. The court agreed to expedite the case and hear arguments the week of April 22." At 5:10 pm ET, this is a developing story. The AP's story is here. Marie: To be clear, the Supremes are aiding & abetting Trump's delay-delay-delay tactic, thus effectively giving Trump immunity without granting general presidential immunity.

** Buh-bye, Mitch. Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell, the longtime top Senate Republican, said on Wednesday that he would give up his spot as the party's leader at the end of this year, acknowledging that his Reaganite national security views had put him out of step with a party now headed by ... Donald J. Trump. 'Believe me, I know the politics within my party at this particular time,' Mr. McConnell, who turned 82 last week, said in a speech on the Senate floor announcing his intentions. 'I have many faults. Misunderstanding politics is not one of them.' His decision, reported earlier by The Associated Press, was not a surprise. Mr. McConnell suffered a serious fall last year and experienced some episodes where he momentarily froze in front of the media. He has also faced rising resistance within his ranks for his push to provide continued military assistance to Ukraine as well as his close-to-the-vest leadership style." The AP's report is here.

Way last week, Trump was too rich to post bond in the E. Jean Carroll case. (Story linked below.) This week ~~~

~~~ Ben Protess & Kate Christobek of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump  offered a New York appeals court on Wednesday a bond of only $100 million to pause the more than $450 million judgment he faces in his civil fraud case, saying that he might need to sell some of his properties unless he gets relief. An appellate court judge promptly denied Mr. Trump's emergency request to halt the financial judgment, but the former president is not out of options. Mr. Trump can try again with a panel of five appellate court judges, which will entertain his request next month. However that panel rules, the request represented a stunning acknowledgment that the former president, who is racing the clock to secure a bond from a company for the full amount if he does not produce the money himself, lacks the resources to do so. If he fails, the New York attorney general's office, which brought the fraud case, could seek to collect from Mr. Trump at any moment, though it is expected to provide him with a 30-day grace period until March 25.... The appellate court judge ... granted the former president's request to temporarily pause [a three-year ban on running his company and a ban on obtaining a New York bank loan]...." This is an update of a story linked earlier.

Mikey Wants to Keep the Lights on for a Few Weeks. Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Speaker Mike Johnson is floating another short-term stopgap spending bill to head off a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, offering a temporary path out of a stalemate that has repeatedly threatened federal funding over the past six months. His proposal would extend funding for some government agencies for a week, through March 8, and the rest for another two weeks, until March 22. It would be contingent on congressional leaders finalizing an emerging bipartisan agreement on six of the 12 annual spending bills. And it would leave time for top lawmakers to negotiate the other six measures, and then try to pass the spending bills individually before the next set of deadlines to fund the government. That would be a tall order in the House, which has struggled to pass spending legislation amid Republican divisions."

     ~~~ Marie: Colbert does raise an issue I not thought of: when can you destroy a frozen embryo in Alabama? Since the darling teensy, weensy cell blob is a person, frozen embryos can never, ever be destroyed because to do so would be murder. So once you get those embryos in the cold storage, folks, you will have to support them for long past your own natural life.

CNN is running a liveblog of Hunter Biden's deposition to members of the House as part of the fake Biden impeachment inquiry:

"For months, Hunter Biden said he would only testify before Congress if it was in public. But President Joe Biden's son will now go behind closed doors Wednesday to face off with his Republican detractors on Capitol Hill for a deposition.... Sources familiar with terms negotiated between Hunter Biden's team and congressional Republicans told CNN that the deposition will have several unique features that are different from the other interviews the committees have conducted to date: ... The deposition will not be videotaped.... After a review to redact any sensitive information like names of congressional staffers, it could be released quickly, potentially within 24 hours after the deposition wraps."

"House Republicans are using a bigger room than they typically do for closed-door interviews because there are a number of members expected to attend Hunter Biden's deposition."

"House Oversight Chair James Comer could not specify what direct actions Joe Biden took while in office that benefited his son;s business dealings, and instead pointed to two checks that his brother wrote to him as loan repayments when he was not in office as evidence of the bribery House Republicans are alleging."

"Hunter Biden said in a statement for his deposition that his testimony should 'put an end' to the Republican impeachment inquiry because his father, President Joe Biden, was not involved in his business dealings. '... I did not involve my father in my business,' Hunter Biden said, according to a copy of his opening statement."

So what we saw I think was a rather embarrassing spectacle where the Republicans continue to belabor completely trivial points they seem to be obsessively focused on. I believe based on this first hour that this whole thing has really been a tremendous waste of our legislative time and the people's resources. -- Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), during a break in the deposition

Remember, this is all predicated upon testimony originally provided them by four witnesses, one of whom is in jail, one of whom is accused of being a Chinese spy, and the third one also in jail for lying to the FBI and possibly being an agent of Russian intelligence. What committee in Congress wants to hang its hat on that kind of evidence and that kind of basis. Enough said. -- Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), during a depo break

"Democrats leaving Hunter Biden's deposition said the president's son raised the 'double standard' of Republicans investigating his business dealings but turning a blind eye to members of the Trump family like Jared Kushner, whose company received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia after leaving the Trump White House."

"House Oversight Chair James Comer said the next phase of the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden will be a public hearing with Hunter Biden. 'But I think this was a great deposition for us. It proved several bits of our evidence that we've been conducting throughout investigation, but there are also some contradictory statements that I think need further review. So this impeachment inquiry will now go to the next phase which will be a public hearing,' the Republican from Kentucky told reporters Wednesday afternoon."

"Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters after his closed-door deposition that Republicans have produced 'no evidence' to support allegations that President Joe Biden benefited from his son's business dealings. Lowell also criticized Republicans for going after Hunter's drug addiction during the deposition."

~~~~~~~~~~

Presidential Race

Michigan Primary Results. Nicholas Nehamas & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "President Biden won Michigan's Democratic primary election on Tuesday but faced opposition over his support for Israel as it wages war in Gaza, with a substantial number of voters casting ballots for 'uncommitted' as part of a protest movement against him.... Donald J. Trump was also victorious in the Republican primary, coasting past former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina to continue his undefeated primary streak. The Associated Press called both races as final polls closed at 9 p.m. The results demonstrated how both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump are confronting enduring weakness within their parties, with meaningful numbers of Democrats and Republicans voting against them even as they race toward a November rematch." This is the pinned item in a liveblog.

Putting the Uncommitted Vote in Perspective. Chris Cameron: "In 2008, over 238,000 votes were cast [in Michigan] for 'uncommitted' in the Democratic primary after Barack Obama and others removed their names from the ballot, because the state had jumped ahead of the national party's calendar."

Epstein: "President Biden did not mention the 'uncommitted' vote or the organized protest of his Gaza policy in a statement on Michigan's results released by his campaign. 'I want to thank every Michigander who made their voice heard today. Exercising the right to vote and participating in our democracy is what makes America great,' Biden said."

Christine Zhang: "With nearly all of the vote estimated to be counted in Dearborn [-- the center of Michigan's Arab-American community --] 'uncommitted' now has received around 56 percent of the vote, with President Biden at about 40 percent."

With 89% of the vote counted, President Biden had 80.5% of the vote; "uncommitted" had 13.8%. With 94% of the vote counted, Trump led Haley 68.2% to 26.5%.

But Wait! It ain't over till it's over: ~~~

Henry Gomez of NBC News: "A Michigan court has thwarted Kristina Karamo's efforts to remain in control of the state Republican Party, issuing a preliminary injunction Tuesday that bars her from conducting party business. Kent County Circuit Judge J. Joseph Rossi issued the decision hours before polls closed in the state's presidential primary and days ahead of a Michigan GOP convention that will determine how delegates for this summer's Republican National Convention are allocated. Rossi's order also could end a long dispute between Karamo, who was ousted as chair in a vote by party insiders last month, and former Rep. Pete Hoekstra, who had been selected as her replacement. The sides have been on a collision course that could culminate in a crisis Saturday if Karamo goes forward with plans to host a rival convention.... [At least until now,] Karamo has refused to leave the post, even after Trump and the RNC weighed in against her. She has maintained access to the Michigan GOP bank, email and social media accounts, hamstringing Hoekstra's efforts to take full control of the party."

The Winter of Our Discontent. Elena Schneider & Adam Cancryn of Politico: "President Joe Biden scored a decisive win in the Michigan primary on Tuesday evening, clearing an organized protest vote against his handling of the Israel-Hamas war though not necessarily by enough to calm Democratic jitters.... Democrats were divided over how to treat the outcome, noting that Biden continued to dominate the primary in ways similar to, or even exceeding, past incumbents but also wary that significant pockets of discontent in the party could prove fatal in the general election. 'I don't see a pathway for them to win Michigan with that many people not voting for them,' said Wa’el Alzayat, CEO of the Muslim advocacy organization Emgage.... Donald Trump also won the Michigan primary convincingly on Tuesday. But the former president continues to face a faction of Republicans who refuse to back his candidacy despite his chokehold on the nomination."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The big question going forward will be how many of these voters Biden will be able to win back, particularly since it's almost unimaginable that he would cut off military aid to Israel, as the Listen to Michigan movement is demanding. Biden needs to win the state in November, and right now, it's hard to see how he can even campaign there without encountering furious demonstrations. We need a cease-fire first and foremost to save lives in Gaza. But without one, America is also stumbling toward disaster."

Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "President Biden and congressional leaders appeared to agree Tuesday to press forward to prevent a government shutdown, but in a gathering that one lawmaker [-- Chuck Schumer --] called the most intense Oval Office meeting of his career, officials remained divided on U.S. support for Ukraine as Russia begins to make battlefield gains in its two-year-old invasion." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

~~~ Everybody Picked on Mikey. Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "At an intense meeting inside the Oval Office on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson was the odd man out. President Biden made clear that the speaker's positions were out of step with other leaders in government, as did Vice President Kamala Harris. The top Democrats in the House and Senate did, too. Even Senator Mitch McConnell, his fellow G.O.P. leader on the other side of the Capitol, emphasized the need for the speaker to avoid a government shutdown and provide badly needed aid to Ukraine.... Mr. Johnson, only months into his job, has found himself the last holdout at an increasingly agitated table of negotiators. On the one side, he is feeling pressure from the president of the United States, both Senate leaders and the House minority leader -- all demanding he cut a deal to fund the government and keep aid to Kyiv flowing. But on his right flank, he is facing a band of hard-line Republicans demanding that he hold out for conservative priorities and spurn Ukraine's calls for help, or risk being booted from the speakership. To put it succinctly, Mr. Johnson is in a bind." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If Bible Mike were an American patriot, he would not be "in a bind." It's obvious to the majority of Americans what needs to be done here. That said, I listened to some interviews Vaughn Hillyard of MSNBC conducted with Trump supporters. They said President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine was "evil" and Vladimir Putin of Russia was "someone who would work with America," or words to that effect. (This Raw Story report includes video of Hillyard's interviews.) At least one of them also said that if Donald Trump lost the presidential election, Americans would be justified in taking control of the country by force. I'm always knocking these idiots, but it's still disturbing to hear them openly voicing such anti-democratic opinions. There's a chicken-and-egg question here, but it's clear why elected GOP traitors don't want to support Ukraine. And of course opposition to Ukraine all flows from the Biggest Traitor, Donald Trump. When you see Trump winning every primary by wide margins, you can't attribute it just to voters without a clue; a lot of his voters are knowingly supporting a fascist-style dictatorship.

Phillip Bump of the Washington Post uses facts and figures to show that the size of the judgments against Donald Trump dictate that he will have to pay his own bills. ~~~

~~~ But Trump Is Too Rich to Post Bond! Liz Dye of Above the Law: "The court entered its judgment [in favor of E. Jean Carroll in her defamation case against Donald Trump] on February 8, starting the clock for the 30-day automatic stay of judgment under Rule 62. If Trump fails to post a bond of $91.6 million, or get the bond requirement stayed by March 9, Carroll will be able to immediately begin collecting. And yet it took the defendant until Saturday to get around to asking the court for an 'an unsecured stay of the execution of the Court's February 8, 2024, judgment...'. Alternatively, he'd like to 'post a bond in an appropriate fraction of the amount of the judgment' -- maybe $91.60! -- while he tries to convince the court to overturn the jury's verdict.... [Trump's lawyers make several arguments for the unsecured stay.] But the best part is Trump's claim that he's so rich that he should be spared the ignominy of having to post a bond. 'Having argued to the jury that President Trump has great financial resources, Plaintiff is in no position to contradict herself now and contend that she requires the protection of a bond during the brief period while post-trial motions are pending,' he huffs. He then immediately turns around and argues that, despite his vast wealth, having to post a bond would constitute irreparable injury."

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump brought a key witness back to the stand on Tuesday afternoon, as the judge weighs whether Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor who brought the case, has a disqualifying conflict of interest. The witness is Terrence Bradley, the former divorce lawyer and law partner of Nathan Wade, whom Ms. Willis hired to manage the case. The decision by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court to seek more testimony from Mr. Bradley was a victory for Mr. Trump and his 14 co-defendants, who are trying to remove Ms. Willis, Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis's entire office from the high-stakes prosecution.... But 90 minutes into Tuesday's hearing, the defense had not achieved its goal of getting Mr. Bradley to contradict the two prosecutors about when the relationship began." (Also linked yesterday.)

Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Indiana's ban on hormone treatments and puberty blockers for transgender minors can go into effect, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, undoing a lower court decision last year that had largely blocked the law. The three-paragraph ruling by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, said it was staying a preliminary injunction that the district court had issued in June, just before the law was scheduled to take effect last summer. The appellate judges did not explain their reasoning but simply said that a full opinion on the case would be issued in the future. The decision further unsettles the national legal landscape around transgender care for minors, with bans blocked in some states but not others, and it could lead to abrupt changes in treatment for young people in Indiana." MB: IOW, another instance where legislators & judges, unqualified to make medical decisions, are making medical decisions and usurping the personal rights of individuals & families. Please don't be yelling fre-e-e-e-dom at me.

Feeling Good about the Economy? Thank an Immigrant. Rachel Siegel, et al., of the Washington Post: "Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country's economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world. That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market's extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.... Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country's ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns." (Also linked yesterday.)

Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Business types and some economists may talk glowingly about the virtues of creative destruction, but the process can be devastating economically and socially for those who find themselves on the destruction side of the equation.... This process and its effects are laid out in devastating, terrifying and baffling detail in 'White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,' a new book by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman. I say 'devastating' because the hardship of rural Americans is real, 'terrifying' because the political backlash to this hardship poses a clear and present danger to our democracy and 'baffling' because at some level I still don't get the politics.... Technology ... has made America as a whole richer, but it has reduced economic opportunities in rural areas.... Maybe ... loss of dignity explains both white rural rage and why that rage is so misdirected -- why it's pretty clear that this November a majority of rural white Americans will again vote against Joe Biden, who as president has been trying to bring jobs to their communities, and for Donald Trump, a huckster from Queens who offers little other than validation for their resentment." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: When I was growing up, I often heard a song called "How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm (After They've Seen Paree?)" The song was written in 1919 and gained new popularity after World War II. What interests me about it is that the song expresses exactly the opposite dynamic as the rural belief system Krugman describes: "In the crudest sense, rural and small-town America is supposed to be filled with hard-working people who adhere to traditional values, not like those degenerate urbanites on welfare...." I recall the old dynamic, the feeling that it was embarrassing to be a rube. There was a real desire to go to the big city and "prove yourself": "New York, New York; if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere." Although I had lived in two of the nation's biggest cities -- Chicago & Los Angeles -- when I moved to Manhattan well into my adulthood, I did experience that "New York, New York" feeling. Still, my sense was not that being able to navigate the big city made me better than the rubes, but that it made me more self-confident. I was grateful, too, that my life had been more adventuresome and varied than I had imagined as a teenager it would be. I had seen Paree (actually and figuratively). If today's rural Americans are suffering from a lack of dignity, as Krugman writes, it's because they chose to remain not just physically but also intellectually, emotionally and socially isolated.

For a Balanced Dinner, Choose Frosted Flakes. Emily Heil & Jaclyn Peiser of the Washington Post: "People angered by the rising cost of food have found another villain in the ongoing saga of inflation: the CEO of WK Kellogg, who recently suggested in a TV interview that cash-strapped consumers should eat cereal for dinner to save money.... [CEO Gary] Pilnick touted a marketing campaign that his company launched urging people to give 'chicken the night off' and instead consume bowls of Frosted Flakes and Frosted Mini-Wheats.... Some critics questioned whether the CEO, whose total compensation last year was $4.9 million -- and that was before his promotion to the top job -- was following his own company's suggestion. 'I wonder what cereal he and his family are eating for dinner?' one user posted on X." MB: Unfuckingbelievable. The two top ingredients in Frosted Flakes: milled corn & sugar. A 10.5-oz. box of Frosted Flakes costs $5.70 at Walmart (though you can buy it cheaper in bulk). But, hey, it's fat- & cholesterol-free.

Jordan Holman of the New York Times: "Macy's said on Tuesday that it would vastly reshape its strategy and retail footprint, closing about 150 Macy's stores over the next three years while expanding its upscale Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury chains. The moves put the stamp of the company's new chief executive, Tony Spring, on an effort to improve the profitability of the largest department store operator in the United States and stave off a potential takeover bid. It is the second major downsizing of the Macy's chain since 2020 and will leave the company with 350 stores, slightly more than half the number it had before the pandemic. Macy's said the 'underproductive locations' it planned to close accounted for 25 percent of the company's overall square footage but just 10 percent of sales." (Also linked yesterday.)

Starbucks Relents. Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "Starbucks and the union that represents employees in roughly 400 of its U.S. stores announced Tuesday that they were beginning discussions on a 'foundational framework' that would help the company reach labor agreements with unionized workers and resolve litigation between the two sides. The union greeted the development as a major shift in strategy for Starbucks, which has taken steps to resist union organizing at the company since the campaign began in 2021, moves that federal labor regulators have said violated labor law hundreds of times."

~~~~~~~~~~

Arizona. April Rubin of Axios: "Arizona Republicans are advancing a bill that would allow people to legally kill someone accused of attempting to trespass or actively trespassing on their property.... The legislation, which is expected to be vetoed if it reaches the state's Democratic governor, [Katie Hobbs,] would legalize the murder of undocumented immigrants, who often have to cross ranches that sit on the state's border with Mexico." MB: When my parents lived in the countryside near Las Cruces, New Mexico, my father would bring water, and occasionally sandwiches, to migrants crossing their land. I don't know what my father thought of unauthorized immigration, but he sure lacked the murderous cruelty of Arizona legislators.

Michigan. Praveena Somasundaram of the Washington Post: "An Indiana man pleaded guilty Tuesday to threatening to kill a Michigan elections clerk after the November 2020 election, federal prosecutors announced. A week after Joe Biden was elected president, Andrew Nickels of Carmel, Ind., left a voice mail for Rochester Hills, Mich., Clerk Tina Barton in which he said she deserved a 'throat to the knife' because she had 'frauded out America of a real election,' the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of Michigan said in a news release.... When Nickels called Barton on Nov. 10, he said in his expletive-filled message that '10 million plus patriots will surround you when you least expect it,' according to prosecutors.... Nickels, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of making a threatening interstate communication, according to the news release, and he faces up to five years in prison.... [Nickels' attorney] told the Detroit News that the case shows 'how mental health affects so many people.'" MB: Yes, the affliction might be called "Trump syndrome,"; and it is primarily found among people who present with high levels of stupid.

Texas. Paxton Bests Pregnant Women. Matthew Choi of the Texas Tribune: "A federal court in Lubbock ruled Tuesday that proxy voting in Congress doesn't count toward a quorum, weakening a law to protect pregnant workers that was passed with proxy votes. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration last year over a massive government funding package that passed largely by proxy votes because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The funding package, passed in December 2022 [when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker], included the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which protects accommodations for pregnant employees in the workplace.... Paxton argued the Constitution requires a physical majority of members in the U.S. House to pass legislation. Since a majority of members of the House voted on the funding package by proxy, Paxton said it was unenforceable.... Judge James Wesley Hendrix of the Northern District of Texas agreed with Paxton's understanding of a quorum.... Hendrix ruled the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act unenforceable against the state government and its agencies."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Wednesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israel and Hamas have downplayed progress on a potential deal to pause fighting in Gaza in exchange for the release of more hostages, after President Biden said he hoped a weeks-long cease-fire could start as soon as next week. Biden faces political pressure over his handling of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, including in key swing states he must secure to win reelection.... A Hamas official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive cease-fire talks, said Hamas 'received a paper, which is not a draft agreement, but rather ideas for discussion.' An Israeli official was also circumspect about Biden's timeline, saying, 'Right now, there is no deal.'"

Ukraine, et al. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Through much of [Volodymyr Zelensky's fraught relationship with Donald Trump], Zelensky has been mostly diplomatic toward the former and potentially future president who, regardless of the 2024 election results, holds considerable sway over the survival of Zelensky's country. But increasingly, Zelensky has apparently decided that diplomacy involves putting pressure on and, in some cases, directly criticizing Trump. In a CNN interview that aired Monday, Zelensky ... repeatedly entertained the idea that Trump might effectively be on Russia's side.... He also suggested that Trump doesn't know what he's talking about when he says he could quickly end the Russia-Ukraine war."

News Ledes

New York Times: "The second-largest wildfire on record in Texas raged across 850,000 acres on Wednesday, as firefighters from around the state tried to contain it. The blaze has consumed houses, burned vast ranch lands, killed livestock and forced evacuations across the sparsely populated Texas Panhandle. The blaze, known as the Smokehouse Creek fire, ignited on Monday and by Wednesday had spread across vast swaths of ranch lands, fueled by strong winds and dry conditions. It still had not been contained and was growing, according to the Texas A&M Forest Service. Satellite data from the National Interagency Fire Center suggested that the fire had already become the largest ever seen in the state."

New York Times: "Richard Lewis, a stand-up comedian who first achieved fame in the 1980s with his trademark acerbic, dark sense of humor, and who later parlayed that quality into an acting career that included movies like 'Robin Hood: Men in Tights' and a recurring role as himself on HBO's 'Curb Your Enthusiasm,' died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 76."

The Conversation -- February 27, 2024

Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "President Biden and congressional leaders appeared to agree Tuesday to press forward to prevent a government shutdown, but in a gathering that one lawmaker [-- Chuck Schumer --] called the most intense Oval Office meeting of his career, officials remained divided on U.S. support for Ukraine as Russia begins to make battlefield gains in its two-year-old invasion."

Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "The judge overseeing the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald J. Trump brought a key witness back to the stand on Tuesday afternoon, as the judge weighs whether Fani T. Willis, the prosecutor who brought the case, has a disqualifying conflict of interest. The witness is Terrence Bradley, the former divorce lawyer and law partner of Nathan Wade, whom Ms. Willis hired to manage the case. The decision by Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court to seek more testimony from Mr. Bradley was a victory for Mr. Trump and his 14 co-defendants, who are trying to remove Ms. Willis, Mr. Wade and Ms. Willis's entire office from the high-stakes prosecution.... But 90 minutes into Tuesday's hearing, the defense had not achieved its goal of getting Mr. Bradley to contradict the two prosecutors about when the relationship began."

Feeling Good about the Economy? Thank an Immigrant. Rachel Siegel, et al., of the Washington Post: "Immigration has propelled the U.S. job market further than just about anyone expected, helping cement the country's economic rebound from the pandemic as the most robust in the world. That momentum picked up aggressively over the past year. About 50 percent of the labor market's extraordinary recent growth came from foreign-born workers between January 2023 and January 2024, according to an Economic Policy Institute analysis of federal data. And even before that, by the middle of 2022, the foreign-born labor force had grown so fast that it closed the labor force gap created by the pandemic, according to research from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.... Economists and labor experts say the surge in employment was ultimately key to solving unprecedented gaps in the economy that threatened the country's ability to recover from prolonged shutdowns."

Jordan Holman of the New York Times: "Macy's said on Tuesday that it would vastly reshape its strategy and retail footprint, closing about 150 Macy's stores over the next three years while expanding its upscale Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury chains. The moves put the stamp of the company's new chief executive, Tony Spring, on an effort to improve the profitability of the largest department store operator in the United States and stave off a potential takeover bid. It is the second major downsizing of the Macy's chain since 2020 and will leave the company with 350 stores, slightly more than half the number it had before the pandemic. Macy's said the 'underproductive locations' it planned to close accounted for 25 percent of the company's overall square footage but just 10 percent of sales."

Blayne Alexander, et al., of NBC News: "The former divorce attorney for Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade is expected to resume testimony Tuesday afternoon at a hearing pertaining to the romantic relationship between Wade and District Attorney Fani Willis. Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the Georgia election interference case against ... Donald Trump and his co-defendants, determined that some of Wade's communications with his former lawyer Terrence Bradley would not be covered by attorney-client privilege, according to an email chain obtained by NBC News."

~~~~~~~~~~

Marie: Late start today; I was posting links up till 9:00 am ET, so if you came by earlier, check again.

Erica Green & Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "President Biden will convene the top four congressional leaders at the White House on Tuesday as lawmakers swiftly run out of time to strike a deal to avert another partial government shutdown. The president plans to discuss the urgency of legislation to keep federal funding going past midnight on Friday, as well as his requests for billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine and Israel, said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary. 'A basic, basic priority or duty of Congress is to keep the government open,' Ms. Jean-Pierre said."

Missy Ryan of the Washington Post: "The Defense Department on Monday released a long-awaited review of senior officials' handling of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's recent hospitalizations, finding that there was 'no attempt to obfuscate' his cancer diagnosis and medical treatment, even though the Pentagon initially withheld it from the White House and public. An unclassified summary of the review did not identify any failures by Austin or his aides as they oversaw the transfer of top-level authority from Austin to his deputy several times while he was undergoing medical treatment in December and January. But the probe, which was conducted by a senior Pentagon official, said that Austin's staff was constrained by medical privacy laws and their own concern about their boss's privacy." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: "Long-awaited"? Really? Austin's illness came to public attention only last month. "Long-awaited" were the Mueller report (three years after the offending behavior) and the DOJ's prosecution of the other guy's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election (two-and-a-half years after the insurrection). Update: See also Akhilleus' commentary below: he notes that in the lede, Ryan writes that the "long-awaited" report is about "recent hospitalizations." Uh, how does that work?

Lauren Herstik & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Alexander Smirnov, the former F.B.I. informant charged with falsely claiming that President Biden and his son Hunter had accepted bribes, will be held in custody indefinitely because he poses a significant flight risk, a judge in California ruled on Monday.... Judge Otis D. Wright II of Federal District Court found fault with a decision by a federal magistrate in Las Vegas who last week released Mr. Smirnov, 43, a confidential informant since 2010, and dismissed the argument by prosecutors that he would try to escape to Russia. Prosecutors working for David C. Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, offered new details about the circumstances of Mr. Smirnov's rearrest last week in the office of his lawyer.... A prosecutor for Mr. Weiss, Leo Wise, explained that the sheer number of guns [officers found during a search of the condo where Smirnov lived] prompted Justice Department officials to make an arrest at [Smirnov's lawyer's] office, rather than Mr. Smirnov's home, which they believed would not be safe." CNN's report is here.

The Trials of Trump & the Trump Gang

There has never been a case in American history in which a former official has engaged in conduct remotely similar to Trump. -- Prosecutors' surreply to a Trump filing in the classified documents case ~~~

~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors on Monday rejected ... Donald J. Trump's claims that he was unfairly charged with holding on to classified documents after he left office, saying that his case bore no comparison to the one in which President Biden was cleared of wrongdoing.... In rebuffing what was known as a 'selective prosecution' claim by Mr. Trump, the prosecutors said that while many government officials over the years had taken classified materials with them after leaving office -- often inadvertently, but occasionally willfully -- Mr. Trump's case remained unique because of the extent to which he had 'resisted the government's lawful efforts to recover them.... In their 12-page filing, the prosecutors dismissed as a 'conspiracy theory' a separate claim that Mr. Trump has raised in his own defense -- that Mr. Biden had 'secretly directed' the classified documents case and used the special counsel who filed the indictment, Jack Smith, as a 'puppet' and a 'stalking horse.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Special counsel Jack Smith said Monday that President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents -- which earned him a scolding from special counsel Robert Hur -- is not 'remotely' similar to the 'deceitful criminal conduct' of Donald Trump.... In fact, Hur's report underscored why Trump is facing criminal charges and Biden is not, they noted." ~~~

     ~~~ The prosecutors' reply, via the courts, is here.

Zach Schonfeld & Ella Lee of the Hill: "Former President Trump's lawyers in his hush-money case on Monday demanded a New York judge block key witnesses from testifying in Trump's first criminal trial set to begin next month. Trump attorney Todd Blanche moved to block testimony from Michael Cohen, Trump's ex-fixer, and two women he paid to stay quiet about affairs they alleged with Trump: Porn actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.... The 47-page motion attacks the witnesses' credibility at length, casting Cohen as a 'liar' and suggesting Daniels would offer 'false' and 'salacious' testimony. Trump's lawyers also took aim at how prosecutors have described the hush money payments as a 'catch-and-kill' scheme to quash negative information about Trump in advance of the 2016 presidential election." ~~~

~~~ Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "Manhattan prosecutors on Monday asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald J. Trump to prohibit the former president from attacking witnesses or exposing jurors' identities. The requests, made in filings by the Manhattan district attorney's office, noted Mr. Trump's 'longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him.'... The gag order in the Manhattan case, if the judge approves it, would bar Mr. Trump from 'making or directing others to make' statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case. The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, also asked that Mr. Trump be barred from commenting on prosecutors on the case -- other than Mr. Bragg himself -- as well as court staff members.... In a separate filing..., prosecutors asked that Mr. Trump be barred from publicly revealing [the jurors' identities. And although Mr. Trump and his legal team are allowed to know the jurors' names, Mr. Bragg asked that their addresses be kept secret from the former president." Politico's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Bragg's motions are here, via Politico. The Politico story describes the motions as a "30-page court filing," but in fact, with adenda -- which detail Trump's attacks on participants in court proceedings against him and the resulting threats made to these participants -- the entire filing is 331 pages.

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously, the D.A.'s asks are perfectly reasonable, but it remains stunning that ordinary citizens must be protected from a dangerous former POTUS*. He's a mobster & a monster. ~~~

~~~ Oh, And This. Matthew Chapman of the Raw Story: "Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and special prosecutor Nathan Wade were slammed with harassing phone calls over the weekend after one of ... Donald Trump's attorneys put their contact information in a public court filing, according to a new report.... The attorney, Steven Sadow, says he made a mistake in sharing unredacted phone records with a reporter, and 'when I realized the error, I immediately contacted him and told him explicitly not to disclose them to anyone else and not to publish the cell phone numbers or any other protected information,' reports [Zachary] Cohen [of CNN in a tweet]. However, Cohen reports that 'cell phone records "with personal identifying information" still appeared on social media, per the DA's response' to the motion filed by Trump's team on Friday."

Michael Sisak of the AP: "Donald Trump has appealed his $454 million New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge's finding that he lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency. The former president's lawyers filed notices of appeal Monday asking the state's mid-level appeals court to overturn Judge Arthur Engoron's Feb. 16 verdict in Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit and reverse staggering penalties that threaten to wipe out Trump's cash reserves.... [MB: Separately (I surmise),] Trump said Engoron's decision, the costliest consequence of his recent legal troubles, was 'election interference' and 'weaponization against a political opponent.' Trump complained he was being punished for 'having built a perfect company, great cash, great buildings, great everything.'" ~~~

~~~ Trolling Trump. Lee Moran of the Huffington Post: "New York Attorney General Letitia James is publicly keeping tabs on the interest accumulating on the hundreds of millions of dollars that Donald Trump has been ordered to pay following the civil fraud trial that James' office brought against the former president and his Trump Organization in New York. James has been posting daily updates on X of the running total of Trump's liability in the case.

** Lying to Investigators? Check. Intent? Oh Yeah. Em Steck, et al., of CNN: "Kenneth Chesebro, the right-wing attorney who helped devise the Trump campaign's fake electors plot in 2020, concealed a secret Twitter account from Michigan prosecutors, hiding dozens of damning posts that undercut his statements to investigators about his role in the election subversion scheme, a CNN KFile investigation has found. Chesebro denied using Twitter ... or having any 'alternate IDs' when directly asked by Michigan investigators last year during his cooperation session, according to recordings of his interview obtained by CNN. But CNN linked Chesebro to the secret account [BadgetPundit] based on numerous matching details.... The Twitter posts reveal that even before the 2020 election, and then just two days after polls closed, Chesebro promoted a far more aggressive election subversion strategy than he later let on in his Michigan interview.... Chesebro has not been charged with any crimes in Michigan and sat for an hourslong interview with the state attorney general's office in early December. In his retelling to Michigan prosecutors, Chesebro has cast himself as a moderate middleman who was duped by Trump's more radical lawyers.

"Asked about the secret tweets..., a spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, said in a statement to CNN, 'Our team is interested in the material and will be looking into this matter.'... Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, who reviewed the posts for CNN, [said,] 'The Twitter posts strongly suggest Chesebro committed the crime of making false statements to investigators ... his entire cooperation agreement may now fall apart.'"

     ~~~ Marie: Do you suppose Kenny Boy also lied to Georgia prosecutors who gave him that sweet plea deal?

Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "An attempt by D.C. bar authorities to force former Justice Department attorney Jeff Clark to fork over documents -- part of an effort to potentially disbar the ... Donald Trump ally -- would violate his Fifth Amendment rights, a D.C. appeals court panel ruled Monday. In a brief order, the three-judge panel of the D.C. Court of Appeals agreed that the investigators' effort to subpoena documents from Clark 'infringes on Mr. Clark's Fifth Amendment right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself.'"

Jonathan Allen & Zoe Richards of NBC News: "Authorities in Palm Beach County, Florida, responded to Donald Trump Jr.'s home Monday after he was sent an envelope containing a death threat and white powder.... The spokesperson [for the County Fire Rescue squad] said that test results to identify the white substance were inconclusive but that officials on the scene did not believe it was deadly.... 'It's just become a little bit too commonplace that this sort of stuff happens,' he told the [Daily Caller]. 'It doesn't matter what your politics are, this type of crap is unacceptable.'" MB: You might want to tell that to Dad, Donnie. See NYT story linked above, in which Jonah Bromwich reports, "In an affidavit released Monday, the head of his security detail listed some of the worst of the dozens of attacks directed at [Manhattan D.A. Alvin] Bragg last year, including racial slurs and death threats," as a result of Daddy's repeated spoken & written unhinged rants against Bragg.

Presidential Race

He's about as old as I am, but he can't remember his wife's name. -- President Biden, on Donald Trump ~~~

~~~ Trump Is Old. Peter Baker & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden has come up with a new defense against claims that he is too old to run for another term: At least he knows who his wife is.... As he expands his efforts to reassure voters that he is fit for another four years, Mr. Biden took a turn on the talk show circuit, using an appearance on 'Late Night With Seth Meyers' on NBC to poke his challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, on his own struggles with memory.... [When Trump appeared to refer to his wife as 'Mercedes' during a speech over the weekend, he] was addressing Mercedes Schlapp, a former White House adviser whose husband, Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, hosts the conference, according to the former president's spokesman, Steven Cheung." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Nice save, Steve-o. But I still suspect Trump confused Melanie with Mercedes. They're both attractive women with longish brown hair, and Mercedes is as cruel & irresponsible as Melanie I-Really-Don't-Care-Do-U Trump. According to Schlapp's Wiki page, "In May 2018, Schlapp defended White House aide Kelly Sadler after she joked that John McCain's opposition to CIA Director nominee Gina Haspel was irrelevant because 'he's dying anyway'." ~~~

     ~~~ More here, with Amy Poehler, too!

** It's primary election day in Michigan today for both Democrats & Republicans. On the GOP side, Trumpbots like those featured below will be voting. Thanks to RAS for the lead: ~~~

~~~ IOKIYAR, Trumpity Doo-Dah Edition:

~~~ Michigan. Anjali Huynh of the New York Times: "In the run-up to Michigan's presidential primary on Tuesday, President Biden has stayed out of the state, where he is facing a campaign from liberal activists frustrated with his enduring support for Israel in the war in Gaza.... Representative Ro Khanna of California last week assumed the unofficial role as mediator between Democrats disaffected by Mr. Biden's Middle East policies and Biden allies like himself. He met with students, Arab American leaders and progressive voters, many of whom said they were, at least for now, withholding their support from Mr. Biden. He was blunt about his takeaway. 'We cannot win Michigan with status quo policy,' Mr. Khanna, who has pushed for a cease-fire, said in an interview, adding that a shift should come in 'a matter of weeks, not months.'" More on President Biden's Israel/Palestine policy linked below. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: IMO, if the Biden administration can deliver on a significant cease-fire, critics like Rashida Tlaib (here) & Beto O'Rourke (here) will end up looking like the foolish, counterproductive naifs they are. It's about carrots & sticks, kids. While I appreciate (and to an extent share) the underlying impetus of objections to Biden's Israel/Palestine policy, helping Donald Trump win the presidential election will hurt Palestinians a lot more than anything Joe Biden will ever do. Remember the Abraham Accords?

Michigan. Azi Paybarah of the Washington Post tries to explain why "Michigan will hold a Republican presidential primary on Tuesday, but that contest won't award all the state's delegates -- the GOP also will hold a state convention days later to award the rest." It's not entirely clear that a voter can participate in both contests -- well, all three contests, because the Michigan GOP is so messed up that rival party chairmen are holding dueling conventions unless a court decides this week who the "real leader" is. MB: Whatever happens, apparently Trump will win all or most of the state's delegates. As Mercedes/Melanie might say, "I really don't care, do U?"

Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post: Rona Romney McDaniel's tenure as chair of the Republican National Committee has been "marked by one electoral failure after another: the 2018 midterms that returned the House to Democratic control and ended the GOP's one-party rule in Washington; Trump's defeat in 2020 that was coupled with the Democrats taking back the Senate; the expected 'red wave' that failed to materialize in 2022, giving the GOP only the thinnest and most ungovernable of majorities in the House.... Last year saw the RNC's lowest annual fundraising total in a decade.... Meanwhile, many Republican state parties ... have disintegrated into a dysfunctional MAGA-fueled mess.... It is unfair to put the blame for the RNC's deterioration since then at McDaniel's feet.... For instance, it wasn't McDaniel but Trump who squandered the GOP's chances of taking back the Senate in 2022 by endorsing fringe candidates across the map. The real problem is that the Republican Party is no longer recognizable ... as a political party at all. It is being turned into a subsidiary of the Trump Organization."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court seemed skeptical on Monday of laws in Florida and Texas that bar major social media companies from making editorial judgments about which messages to allow. The laws were enacted in an effort to shield conservative voices on the sites, but a decision by the court, expected by June, will almost certainly be its most important statement on the scope of the First Amendment in the internet era, with broad political and economic implications. A ruling that tech platforms have no editorial discretion to decide which posts to allow would expose users to a greater variety of viewpoints but almost certainly amplify the ugliest aspects of the digital age, including hate speech and disinformation. Though a ruling in favor of big platforms like Facebook and YouTube appeared likely, the court also seemed poised to return the cases to the lower courts to answer questions about how the laws apply to sites that do not seem to moderate their users' speech in the same way, like Gmail, Venmo, Uber and Etsy.” ScotusBlog's analysis, by Amy Howe, is here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alabama. Moira Donegan of the Guardian: "... the concept of embryonic personhood, now inscribed in Alabama law, poses dangers well beyond the cruelty it has imposed on the hopeful couples who were pursuing IVF in Alabama, before their state supreme court made that impossible. If embryos and fetuses are people, as Alabama now says they are, then whole swaths of women's daily lives come under the purview of state scrutiny.... Embryonic personhood would also ban many kinds of birth control, such as Plan B, IUDs, and some hormonal birth control pills, which courts have said can be interpreted as working by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg. (In fact these methods work primarily by preventing ovulation, but facts are of dwindling relevance in the kind of anti-abortion litigation that comes before Republican-controlled courts.)... Even before the Alabama court began enforcing the vulgar fiction that a frozen embryo is a person, authorities there had long used the notion of fetal personhood to harass, intimidate and jail women -- often those suspected of using drugs during pregnancies -- under the state's 'chemical endangerment of a child' law...."

Florida. Never Mind. Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "Republican legislators in Florida hit the pause button on a bill that would have given any 'unborn child' new protections after opponents raised concerns it would impact women's reproductive rights in ways similar to the Alabama IVF ruling. The bill had passed easily through most committees in the Republican-led legislature until Democrats began raising concerns last week that the proposal was so broad that it might also impact in vitro fertilization treatments. The legislation sought to define a fetus as an 'unborn child' shielded by civil negligence laws.... Opponents called it an effort to establish 'fetal personhood' that would put abortion providers and people who help women obtain an abortion at risk of being sued.... [Florida GOP] lawmakers pulled a Senate Rules Committee hearing for a companion bill off the calendar on Monday. The committee is not scheduled to meet again this session, which ends March 8, making it unlikely that the bill will advance."

Missouri, et al. Incubator Chattel. Elura Nanos of Law & Crime: "A Missouri lawmaker [State Rep. Ashley Aune (D)] says it is time to end an archaic law that forces pregnant women to stay in potentially dangerous marriages. HB 2402 amends the state's existing divorce law to remove the requirement that a pregnant woman wait until she gives birth in order to get divorced and to specifically state that 'pregnancy status shall not prevent the court from entering a judgment of dissolution of marriage or legal separation.' In Missouri, as in Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas, the current law requires that a pregnant woman has given birth before any child custody or child support order is finalized."

New York. Patrick Svitek of the Washington Post: "Lawmakers in the Democratic-led New York state legislature Monday rejected a new congressional map proposed by an independent redistricting commission, the latest political twist in a state that could play a large role in determining which party wins control of the House. The New York Senate voted down the map proposal Monday afternoon, followed by the lower chamber. The rejection of the map is likely to spark a legal challenge ahead of the state's June 25 primary.... A spokesman for [U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem] Jeffries [D-N.Y.] said on Feb. 16 that state lawmakers needed to 'meticulously' scrutinize the proposal, particularly whether it protected 'historically under-represented communities.'... The New York congressional map has been under scrutiny since 2022, when Democrats drew one that was heavily favorable to themselves and the state's highest court struck it down as unconstitutional." CNN's report is here.

New York. Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "The 93-year-old widow of a Wall Street financier has donated $1 billion to a Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with instructions that the gift be used to cover tuition for all students going forward. The donor, Ruth Gottesman, is a former professor at Einstein, where she studied learning disabilities, developed a screening test and ran literacy programs. It is one of the largest charitable donations to an educational institution in the United States and most likely the largest to a medical school. The fortune came from her late husband, David Gottesman, known as Sandy, who was a protégé of Warren Buffett and had made an early investment in Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate Mr. Buffett built. The donation is notable not only for its staggering size, but also because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, the city's poorest borough. The Bronx has a high rate of premature deaths and ranks as the unhealthiest county in New York."

~~~~~~~~~~

Hungary/Sweden/NATO. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Hungary's Parliament voted on Monday to approve Sweden as a new member of NATO, allowing the Nordic country to clear a final hurdle that had blocked its membership and held up efforts by the military alliance to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine. The measure passed after a vote of 188 for and only 6 against in the 199-member Parliament, which is dominated by legislators from the governing Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On Friday, after his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, made a visit to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, Mr. Orban declared the end of a monthslong spat with Sweden over its membership of NATO."

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.

Peter Baker & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden said on Monday that he believed negotiators were nearing an agreement that would halt Israel's military operations in Gaza within a week in exchange for the release of at least some of the more than 100 hostages being held by Hamas. Speaking with reporters during a stop in New York, Mr. Biden offered the most hopeful assessment of the hostage talks by any major figure in many days, suggesting that the war might be close to a major turning point. 'I hope by the end of the weekend,' he said when asked by reporters when he expected a cease-fire to begin. 'My national security adviser tells me that we're close. We're close. We're not done yet. My hope is by next Monday, we'll have a cease-fire.'" The AP's story is here.

Jon Stewart proposes some solutions, but the first two seem a bit sketchy:

The Conversation -- February 26, 2024

Lauren Herstik & Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Alexander Smirnov, the former F.B.I. informant charged with falsely claiming that President Biden and his son Hunter had accepted bribes, will be held in custody indefinitely because he poses a significant flight risk, a judge in California ruled on Monday.... Judge Otis D. Wright II of Federal District Court found fault with a decision by a federal magistrate in Las Vegas who last week released Mr. Smirnov, 43, a confidential informant since 2010, and dismissed the argument by prosecutors that he would try to escape to Russia. Prosecutors working for David C. Weiss, the special counsel investigating Hunter Biden, offered new details about the circumstances of Mr. Smirnov's rearrest last week in the office of his lawyer.... A prosecutor for Mr. Weiss, Leo Wise, explained that the sheer number of guns [officers found during a search of the condo where Smirnov lived] prompted Justice Department officials to make an arrest at [Smirnov's lawyer's] office, rather than Mr. Smirnov's home, which they believed would not be safe."

Here's video of a Jimmy Kimmel segment RAS linked earlier today. The voters interviewed take IOKIYAR to a whole new level:

Jonah Bromwich, et al., of the New York Times: "Manhattan prosecutors on Monday asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald J. Trump to prohibit the former president from attacking witnesses or exposing jurors' identities. The requests, made in filings by the Manhattan district attorney's office, noted Mr. Trump's 'longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him.'... The gag order in the Manhattan case, if the judge approves it, would bar Mr. Trump from 'making or directing others to make' statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case. The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, also asked that Mr. Trump be barred from commenting on prosecutors on the case -- other than Mr. Bragg himself -- as well as court staff members.... In a separate filing..., prosecutors asked that Mr. Trump be barred from publicly revealing [the jurors' identities. And although Mr. Trump and his legal team are allowed to know the jurors' names, Mr. Bragg asked that their addresses be kept secret from the former president." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Obviously, the D.A.'s asks are perfectly reasonable, but it remains stunning that ordinary citizens must be protected from a dangerous former POTUS*. He's a mobster & a monster.

Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Hungary's Parliament voted on Monday to approve Sweden as a new member of NATO, allowing the Nordic country to clear a final hurdle that had blocked its membership and held up efforts by the military alliance to isolate Russia over its war in Ukraine. The measure passed after a vote of 188 for and only 6 against in the 199-member Parliament, which is dominated by legislators from the governing Fidesz party of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. On Friday, after his Swedish counterpart, Ulf Kristersson, made a visit to Budapest, the Hungarian capital, Mr. Orban declared the end of a monthslong spat with Sweden over its membership of NATO."

~~~~~~~~~~

Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "Congressional leaders have failed to reach a deal on legislation to keep federal funding going past Friday, with Republicans insisting on adding right-wing policy dictates to the spending bills, pushing the government to the brink of a partial shutdown within days. Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said on Sunday that despite 'intense discussions' that were continuing among top lawmakers to break the impasse, Republican recalcitrance was raising the prospect of a 'disruptive shutdown' at midnight on Friday.... With no sign of a breakthrough, President Biden summoned congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday to discuss the spending legislation, as well as the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine and Israel that the Senate passed earlier this month, which Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to take up." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is the one must-do job that the Constitution demands of the Congress, yet Republicans refuse to do it. This is dereliction of duty on the highest. However, these same jamokes are amenable to making sure women (and their partners) have to pay a huge price for enjoying "recreational sex." ~~~

~~~ ** Majority of House Republicans Support Total U.S. Abortion Ban. Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Prominent congressional Republicans are coming out in support of in vitro fertilization days after the Alabama state Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people and therefore that someone can be held liable for destroying them. But many of the same Republicans who are saying Americans should have access to IVF have co-sponsored legislation that employs an argument similar to the one the Alabama Supreme Court used in its ruling. The congressional proposal, known as the Life at Conception Act, defines a 'human being' to 'include each member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization or cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being.' The bill would also provide equal protection under the 14th Amendment 'for the right to life of each born and preborn human person.'

"The measure has no provisions for processes like IVF, meaning access to the procedure would not be protected. It would ban nearly all abortions nationwide. The legislation is co-sponsored by 125 Republicans in the House, including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who, in the wake of the Alabama ruling, said in a statement ... that he supports efforts to allow IVF treatments because he believes 'the life of every single child has inestimable dignity and value.'" Emphasis added. ~~~

~~~ Sabrina Malhi of the Washington Post: "A cancer diagnosis often comes with a host of difficult decisions, including what to do about the impact of treatment on a person's fertility. Many individuals grappling with this dual burden turn to in vitro fertilization (IVF) as a way to preserve their reproductive options. That's why cancer patients and oncologists are expressing shock and anxiety about the recent ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court that frozen embryos are considered children under the law.... Cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy and surgery, can have a significant impact on fertility in both men and women. Chemotherapy drugs are designed to kill rapidly dividing cells, including cancer cells, but they can also harm healthy cells in the body, including those involved in reproductive functions [of both women and men].... Many physicians today say that egg and embryo freezing can be used as safety nets for people with cancer in case they decide to have a family in the future." ~~~

~~~ Sam Levine of the Guardian: "California's governor, Gavin Newsom, is launching a series of new advertisements in Republican states targeting Republican efforts to criminalize having an abortion and 'a war on travel' for reproductive care. The first advertisement by Campaign for Democracy, Newsom’s political action committee (Pac), will air this week in Tennessee, where lawmakers are considering legislation that would make it illegal for anyone who helps a minor obtain an abortion without permission from their parents. Anyone found guilty of the offense could face between three and 15 years in prison.... The Pac plans to air them in other states like Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma that are considering similar measures." ~~~

Tools or Traitors? Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "Are Republicans easy marks or willing participants in Russian anti-Biden operations? That's a troubling question raised by the Feb. 14 grand jury indictment of a former FBI informant, Alexander Smirnov, on charges of concocting a tale about President Biden's supposed involvement in his family members' business dealings.... [House Republicans] championed him as their star witness [against Biden].... They're vowing to plow ahead on this cock-and-bull mission that never got off the ground. Not only did multiple witnesses testify that Biden had no involvement with his son's business dealings, but previous allegations that Biden acted on his son's behalf had also already been thoroughly repudiated.... 'DOJ must investigate whether and when Grassley, Comer or Jordan knew that Smirnov was spreading Russian disinformation,' Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) warned." ~~~

~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "Former CIA Director John Brennan pounced on the House GOP leadership for using a now-indicted Russian purveyor of lies about President Joe Biden to be their central witness in their bid to impeach the president. During an appearance on MSNBC's 'The Weekend,' Brennan said it doesn't matter if they knew they were being played or not by their informant Alexander Smirnov who is now in custody for lying to the FBI.... 'I think it's unclear whether they knew or not, quite frankly.... Based on what I've seen, they really don't care if these things are true or not. They will just try to use them to advance their efforts to undermine the integrity of President Biden, as well as to advance their impeachment process.... So, therefore, they seized upon something that was clearly on un-evaluated information, it was raw, it was obtained by the FBI. Director Christopher Wray initially tried to resist them being provided to the Hill, but then the pressure increased and it was eventually shared with them.'"

David Edwards of the Raw Story: "U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan declined a request to grant a stay after a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll over $83 million for defamation. 'Twenty-five days after the jury verdict in this case, and only shortly before the expiration of Rule 62's automatic stay of enforcement of the judgment,' Kaplan noted. 'Mr. Trump has moved for an "administrative stay" of enforcement pending the filing and disposition of any post-trial motions he may file. He seeks that relief without posting any security.... The Court declines to grant any stay, much less an unsecured stay, without first having afforded plaintiff a meaningful opportunity to be heard,' the judge wrote in his one-page order. Kaplan said Carroll must file a motion by Thursday. Trump will also have a chance to respond." ~~~

~~~ Jonathan O'Connell, et al., of the Washington Post: Donald "Trump, who built his business and political identities around boasts of financial savvy, now faces an immediate cash crunch of more than a half-billion dollars -- the combined cost of two legal battles that will now test the limits of his personal wealth. According to state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron's final judgment, entered Friday, Trump now owes New York at least $454 million -- the $355 million penalty plus interest, which is now accruing at a rate of $112,000 per day. Separately, he faces an $83.3 million judgment in a federal defamation case brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll.... To keep both judgments from being enforced while he appeals, he must put up the entire amount in either cash or bonds, according to legal experts.... Most of Trump's wealth is tied up in real estate, and it's not clear whether he has enough cash on hand to cover what he now owes." The article goes on to outline some of the obstacles Trump faces in putting up the cash or bonds to cover the judgments.

Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "... Donald Trump's lawyers see a major opportunity this week to use his criminal document mishandling case in Florida to create an impasse on his calendar for the two federal judges overseeing his major criminal cases.... The ultimate goal, his team has said openly, is to prevent Trump from being tried in federal court before voters cast their ballots in the 2024 general election. A primary aim for Trump's legal team, according to people familiar with the strategy, is to put the judge in DC overseeing the 2020 federal election obstruction case, Tanya Chutkan, in a position where she can't start a trial before Election Day. 'Meaning, ice her,' said a person familiar with Trump's trial schedule strategy. 'Making it impossible for her to jam a trial down before the election, by things that are out of her control.'... A gradually shifting calendar could ... [shield] Trump from other trials through the summer, multiple sources familiar with the former president's legal strategy told CNN."

Presidential Race

Michigan. Anjali Huynh of the New York Times: "Two days before the Michigan Democratic primary, speakers at a rally on Sunday in Dearborn, Mich., urged voters to withhold their support from President Biden over his policy on the war in Gaza -- and said that only Mr. Biden and Democrats who support his Israel policies would be to blame if the protest vote helped ... Donald J. Trump win in November. 'You all know Trump is an existential threat to our democracy,' said one of the speakers, Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, 'and President Biden is risking another Trump term over his support for the most right-wing government, most extremist government in the history of Israel.'" ~~~

~~~ Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "Arab Americans, irate over [President] Biden's support for Israel, are pushing Democrats to select 'uncommitted' on the state's primary ballot on Tuesday. Several recent general election polls show Mr. Biden running behind ... Donald J. Trump in Michigan, while another shows Mr. Biden leading. Prominent Democrats in Detroit and Lansing say they are worried not just about losing Arab Americans, but also about Black men and union workers and young people. That leaves [Gov. Gretchen] Whitmer, one of eight national co-chairs of Mr. Biden's campaign, who is seen by many Democrats as a future contender for the presidency, facing perhaps the biggest electoral test of her career even though her name is not on the ballot. Ms. Whitmer is particularly strong with moderate voters and suburbanites, and has forged deep ties with Black leaders in Detroit. But it remains to be seen whether she can help much with those most frustrated with Mr. Biden, including voters further to the left and Arab Americans." MB: The Michigan primary is Tuesday.

Alex Seitz-Wald of NBC News: "Steve Kramer, a veteran political consultant working for a rival candidate, acknowledged Sunday that he commissioned the robocall that impersonated President Joe Biden using artificial intelligence, confirming an NBC News report that he was behind the call. In a statement and interview with NBC News, Kramer expressed no remorse for creating the deepfake, in which an imitation of the president's voice discouraged participation in New Hampshire's Democratic presidential primary. The call launched several law enforcement investigations and provoked outcry from election officials and watchdogs.... Kramer said he has received a subpoena from the Federal Communications Commission, suspected he might get sued by a half dozen people and said he could even face jail time.... Kramer said ... it had nothing to do with his client, Biden's long-shot primary challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn. Phillips had paid Kramer over $250,000 around the time the robocall went out in January, according to his campaign finance reports. Phillips and his campaign have denounced the robocall, saying they had no knowledge of Kramer's involvement and would have immediately terminated him if they had known."

Shane Goldmacher & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "The political network created by the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers announced on Sunday that it was suspending its support for Nikki Haley in the presidential primary after her latest defeat in South Carolina. The group, Americans for Prosperity Action, had spent tens of millions of dollars trying to elevate Ms. Haley and prevent the renomination of Donald J. Trump, but it had already slowed its spending in the G.O.P. race dramatically after Ms. Haley fell short in the New Hampshire primary last month. The organization made its decision official on Sunday." Politico's story is here.

Lost Causes 2024. Tom Sullivan in Hullabaloo: "Nikki Haley hopes to be lying around when the GOP finds its nominee convicted and facing jail. It is her only path forward.... What strikes me is the parallel magical thinking on the Democratic side. Digby wrote last week (agreeing with Josh Marshall), 'The brouhaha over Ezra Klein's article agitating for [President] Biden to drop out at this late date has been overwhelming and it's not helpful. The idea of choosing a new candidate at the conventions is downright fanciful. Not gonna happen.' But on this point, Haley and her supporters are thinking along the same lines as Klein and his. Klein's article promotes yet another Lost Cause." ~~~

~~~ Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times explains why Ezra Klein's bright idea of dumping President Biden at the Democratic National Convention would be a big mistake: "... an attempt to hold an open, brokered convention would immediately run into the basic issue that no candidate would be able to claim any kind of democratic legitimacy, especially if the delegates were free agents unaccountable to the public. The nominee who would come out of this process would have little basis, given the norms since 1968, to say that he or she was any better or more viable than any other candidate. The odds of alienating large parts of the Democratic Party coalition would be just as large as the odds of finding an able and competent nominee.... It would be difficult for the Democratic Party to win the November election with an unpopular incumbent at the top of the ticket. It would be even more difficult to do so with a divisive nominee -- who had neither earned the votes of Democratic voters nor weathered the vetting process of a primary campaign -- and a fractured coalition." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The only way, IMO, that a brokered convention would work for either party is if the nominee voters chose in primaries & caucuses around the country (1) dropped out of the race & supported the process of nominating a candidate at the convention or (2) was completely incapacitated or (3) dead.

Former Intel Officials Sound the Alarm. Erin Banco & John Sakellariadis of Politico: "Former top officials from Donald Trump's administration are warning he is likely to use a second term to overhaul the nation's spy agencies in a way that could lead to an unprecedented level of politicization of intelligence. Trump, who already tried to revamp intelligence agencies during his first term, is likely to re-up those plans -- and push even harder to replace people perceived as hostile to his political agenda with inexperienced loyalists, according to interviews with more than a dozen people who worked in his administration.... An overhaul of the type Trump is expected to attempt could undermine the credibility of American intelligence at a time when the U.S. and allies are relying on it to navigate crises in Ukraine and the Middle East. It could also effectively strip the intelligence community of the ability to dissuade the president from decisions that could put the country at risk."

Kaitlan Collins & Avery Lotz of CNN: "Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel will officially step down from her position on March 8, days after Super Tuesday."

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The most important First Amendment cases of the internet era, to be heard by the Supreme Court on Monday, may turn on a single question: Do platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and X most closely resemble newspapers or shopping centers or phone companies? The two cases arrive at the court garbed in politics, as they concern laws in Florida and Texas aimed at protecting conservative speech by forbidding leading social media sites from removing posts based on the views they express. But the outsize question the cases present transcends ideology. It is whether tech platforms have free speech rights to make editorial judgments." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yes, but what did the Founders say about Facebook? Since the Federalist Papers were first published in New York newspapers, and not on Facebook or Twitter, won't the Supreme originalists have to conclude that social media are not protected by the First Amendment? But as Liptak reports, "'It is not at all obvious how our existing precedents, which predate the age of the internet, should apply to large social media companies,' Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in a 2022 dissent when one of the cases briefly reached the Supreme Court." Oh, Sam, Sam, what a quandary!

Denise Chow & Evan Bush of NBC News: "Climate change is throwing the water cycle into chaos across the U.S. The water cycle that shuttles Earth's most vital resource around in an unending, life-giving loop is in trouble. Climate change has disrupted that cycle's delicate balance, upsetting how water circulates between the ground, oceans and atmosphere. The events of 2023 show how significant these disruptions have become. From extreme precipitation and flooding to drought and contaminated water supplies, almost every part of the U.S. faced some consequence of climate change and the shifting availability of water." See also Mexico City water crisis; story linked below.

~~~~~~~~~~

Florida Man! Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: A St. Ausgustine, Florida podcaster, Pete Melfi, has launched a Florida Man Games competition "with a series of zany events: A mullet contest. A 'mud duel' with pool noodles. An 'evading arrest' obstacle course, with real sheriff's deputies pursuing the contestants.... If ... the rest of the world is going to make Florida the punchline, then those who call it home might as well be in on the joke.... The phrase has entered the political lexicon, transforming from a generic term for a nonpublic person -- Florida Man as John Doe -- to a stand-in for ... Donald J. Trump.... The first-ever Florida Man Games were held at the fairgrounds of a historic district [in St. Augustine -- the oldest continuously settled city in the nation --], with tickets going for $55 a pop on Saturday. Sponsored by a Florida apparel company and others..., the competition awarded $5,000 to one winning team, based on its performance in events throughout the day."

Texas Man. Amanda Holpuch of the New York Times: "A Texas man pleaded guilty to insider trading after he was accused of making $1.7 million in illegal profits by purchasing and selling stocks based on his wife's work conversations, which he had overheard while she was working remotely at home, federal prosecutors said on Thursday. The man, Tyler Loudon, of Houston, bought 46,450 shares of stock in the truck stop and travel center company TravelCenters of America after he heard his wife discuss her employer's proposed acquisition of it, according to a complaint filed in the Southern District of Texas by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Loudon's wife, who is not named in court documents, was a mergers and acquisitions manager at BP, a British oil and gas company, the complaint said."

~~~~~~~~~~

Israel/Palestine, et al.

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israeli media reported that an Israeli delegation is expected to head to Qatar to move forward discussions over a potential cease-fire and hostage deal, following negotiations in Paris last week.... Officials involved in ongoing negotiations agreed to the 'basic contours of a deal,' White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday. He added that the United States hoped to firm up a final agreement 'in the coming days.'... On CBS's 'Face the Nation,' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel wants a deal to free the hostages held in Gaza, and he said he hopes Hamas will abandon what he called 'crazy demands.'... 'Very little' aid has entered the Gaza Strip in February, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said, noting a 50 percent reduction in delivered supplies compared with January."

Thomas Fuller & Isabel Kershner of the New York Times: "Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that Israeli forces would push into the southern Gaza Strip city of Rafah regardless of the outcome of talks to pause the fighting that appear to have been making some progress in recent days.... Mr. Netanyahu did say that if a cease-fire deal was reached, the move into Rafah, which during 20 weeks of war has served as a last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Gazan families forced from their homes, would be 'delayed somewhat.'"

Ali Sawafta of Reuters: "Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Monday he was resigning to allow for the formation of a broad consensus among Palestinians about political arrangements following Israel's war against the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza. The move comes amid growing U.S. pressure on President Mahmoud Abbas to shake up the Palestinian Authority as international efforts have intensified to stop the fighting in Gaza and begin work on a political structure to govern the enclave after the war."

Mexico. Laura Paddison, et al., of CNN: "Mexico City, a sprawling metropolis of nearly 22 million people and one of the world's biggest cities, is facing a severe water crisis as a tangle of problems -- including geography, chaotic urban development and leaky infrastructure -- are compounded by the impacts of climate change. Years of abnormally low rainfall, longer dry periods and high temperatures have added stress to a water system already straining to cope with increased demand. Authorities have been forced to introduce significant restrictions on the water pumped from reservoirs.... Some experts say the situation has now reached such critical levels that Mexico City could be barreling towards 'day zero' in a matter of months -- where the taps run dry for huge swaths of the city." Thanks to RAS for the link.

Russia. Robyn Dixon of the Washington Post: "Negotiations were underway on a prisoner exchange that would have involved swapping Alexei Navalny and two Americans for a Russian agent imprisoned in Germany, when the Russian opposition leader died in prison, one of his associates said Monday. Maria Pevchikh, who chairs Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation, said in a video address on YouTube that negotiations were in their final stages on Feb. 15 just before his death in the 'Polar Wolf' prison colony in the Yamalo-Nenets region of northern Russia. She alleged that Russian President Vladimir Putin, having gained Germany's agreement to include Vadim Krasikov in a prisoner swap, then decided to 'get rid of the bargaining chip,' by having Navalny killed, so that the agent imprisoned for murder could be exchanged for someone else." The Guardian's story is here.

Ukraine, et al.

Carlotta Gall & Constant Méheut of the New York Times: "Some 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia's full-scale invasion began two years ago, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, acknowledging for the first time in the war a concrete figure for Ukraine's toll.... But he declined to disclose the number of wounded or missing, saying that Russia could use the information to gauge the number of Ukraine's active forces."

Ivana Kottasová & Kaitlan Collins of CNN: "Former US President Donald Trump will be 'against Americans' if he chooses to support Russia over Ukraine, the war-torn country's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday. Speaking to CNN's Kaitlan Collins in Kyiv, Zelensky said he 'can't understand how Donald Trump can be on the side of (Russian President Vladimir) Putin.' 'It's unbelievable,' he added."

Stephanie Halasz & Ivana Kottasová of CNN: "'Millions' could die in Ukraine's war with Russia if US lawmakers don't approve President Joe Biden's $60 billion aid request for Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told CNN on Sunday. Asked by CNN's Kaitlan Collins about a claim made by the US Senator J.D. Vance that the outcome of the war would not change even if Ukraine receives the money, Zelensky said he wasn't sure Vance 'understands what is going on here.'"