The Conversation -- December 12, 2023
The New York Times is live-updating developments in President Zelensky's visit to Washington, D.C. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I know this is too difficult for GOP numbskulls to understand inasmuch as their perceptions are limited by two factors: (a) if they can't see it, they don't get it, and (b) if they don't want to see it, the opposite is true. BUT. Most of the funds spent on military aid the U.S. sends to Ukraine (or anyplace else) stays in the U.S. Americans make munitions & other military stuff in U.S. factories, those same Americans go to the store & buy goods from U.S. companies, and those same job-holding Americans pay taxes to the U.S. Treasury Department. So this notion that Republicans keep repeating about how Americans are "giving billions" to Ukraine is only partially true. We're giving a lot more billions to ourselves than we are giving to Ukrainians. "Billions for Ukraine" is in fact largely a U.S. domestic redistribution of wealth. And let me add that Democrats are doing a piss-poor job of even trying to explain Econ 101 to their intellectually-impaired collegues on the other side of the aisle. ~~~
~~~ Sahil Kapur & Megan Lebowitz of NBC News: "Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, on Monday dismissed fears of Russia's military capabilities under President Vladimir Putin and suggested Ukraine should give up some of its land to end the war.... 'No one can explain to me how this ends without some territorial concessions relative to the 1991 boundaries,' he added. A day earlier, Vance said on CNN's 'State of the Union' that it was in 'America's best interest ... to accept Ukraine is going to have to cede some territory to the Russians.'" MB: This would be a good place for me to mention that J.D. is often characterized as Donald Trump's mouthpiece in the Senate. ~~~
~~~ Miranda Nazzaro of the Hill: "Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Monday dug into Sen. JD Vance's (R-Ohio) recent remarks against sending further aid to Ukraine, calling the Ohio Republican's comments 'total and unmitigated bull‑‑‑‑.' Vance, in an interview with former White House aid[e] Steve Bannon earlier Monday, claimed some lawmakers are looking to cut Social Security benefits for more aid to Ukraine that he argued will be used so one of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's ministers 'can buy a bigger yacht.' Presented with Tillis's criticism later Monday, Vance said he believes Ukraine is 'one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.'"
Judd Legum & Rebecca Crosby of Popular Information list "10 alarming things Trump has promised to do in a second term:... He will 'abuse power' and be a 'dictator' on 'day one.'... Election fraud in 2020 gives him the power to 'terminate' the Constitution.... He will issue 'full pardons' to January 6 insurrectionists.... He will cut funding to schools that cover subjects he believes are 'inappropriate.'... He will legally erase trans people and ban them from military service.... He will end birthright citizenship by executive order.... He will impose a new 10% tax on all imported goods.... He will investigate NBC and MSNBC for treason and potentially remove the company from public airwaves.... He will demand anyone convicted of selling drugs get the death penalty.... He will order the arrest of all urban homeless and relocate them to federally-run tent cities...."
Jeremy Peters, et al., of the New York Times: "Claudine Gay will stay on as president of Harvard University, the school's governing board announced on Tuesday, despite an uproar over her evasive answers at a congressional hearing about campus antisemitism. The members of the board, the Harvard Corporation, deliberated into the night on Monday before finally deciding not to remove Dr. Gay, the university's first Black president, from her post." This is an update of a story linked earlier today. ~~~
~~~ Miles Herszenhorn & Calire Yuan of the Harvard Crimson: "The Harvard Corporation expressed concerns about allegations of plagiarism in University President Claudine Gay's academic work Tuesday morning, even as the board declared its unanimous support for Harvard's embattled president, providing Gay with a path forward to remain in office.... 'On December 9, the Fellows reviewed the results, which revealed a few instances of inadequate citation,' the Fellows wrote. 'While the analysis found no violation of Harvard's standards for research misconduct, President Gay is proactively requesting four corrections in two articles to insert citations and quotation marks that were omitted from the original publications.' In the statement, the Corporation revealed that it learned about the plagiarism allegations against Gay in late October. The board's concerns also call into question the presidential search committee's vetting process for the search that ended in Gay's selection less than one year ago." ~~~
~~~ Here's the statement of the Harvard Corporation, via Harvard.
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Trials of the Trump Mob
** Devlin Barrett, et al., of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court said Monday it will consider special counsel Jack Smith's request to fast-track consideration of Donald Trump's claim he is immune from prosecution for alleged election obstruction in 2020 -- intensifying the legal jockeying over whether Trump’s criminal trial in D.C. will stay on schedule for early next year. The decision by the nation's highest court doesn't mean that the justices will definitely short-circuit the typical appeals process, but it means they are going to hear arguments from both sides about whether they should act quickly. Trump's lawyers were told to file briefs on the issue by Dec. 20. The quick response by the Supreme Court came hours after Smith's office filed its request seeking to essentially leapfrog an appeals court process that Trump has already started but which could take months to resolve." The ABC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Adam Liptak & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting ... Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, asked the Supreme Court on Monday to rule on Mr. Trump's argument that he is immune from prosecution. The request was unusual in two ways: Mr. Smith asked the justices to rule before an appeals court acted, and he urged them to move with exceptional speed. 'This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former president is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office or is constitutionally protected from federal prosecution when he has been impeached but not convicted before the criminal proceedings begin,' Mr. Smith wrote. He added that speed was of the essence, as Mr. Trump's appeal of a trial judge's ruling rejecting his claim of immunity suspends the trial of the charges against him. The trial is scheduled to begin on March 4 in Federal District Court in Washington." The NBC News story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) The story has been updated: "The justices quickly agreed to fast-track the first phase of the case." ~~~
~~~ Matt Naham of Law & Crime: "'... The Court should grant a writ of certiorari before judgment to ensure that it can provide the expeditious resolution that this case warrants, just as it did in United States v. Nixon,' Smith wrote.... 'It is of paramount public importance that respondent's claims of immunity be resolved as expeditiously as possible -- and, if respondent is not immune, that he receive a fair and speedy trial on these charges. The public, respondent, and the government are entitled to nothing less,' Smith wrote." See also Akhilleus' commentary in today's thread. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ You can read Smith's petition here, via the Supreme Court. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Darren Samuelsohn of the Messenger: "Special Counsel Jack Smith unveiled a new weapon on Monday as part of his push to get the U.S. Supreme Court immediately involved in the sprawling investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump. His name is Michael Dreeben. Few U.S. lawyers know the nation's highest court quite like Dreeben, a longtime career DOJ attorney who has represented the United States more than 100 times before the Supreme Court. In May 2016, Chief Justice John Roberts recognized Dreeben for becoming the 'second person to reach that rare milestone.' Dreeben worked at DOJ until mid-2019, when his government career concluded as a counsel to Special Counsel Robert Mueller.... Most recently, Dreeben worked as a partner at O'Melveny, where he upped his total number of Supreme Court appearances to 108, according to a copy of his biography page from early November...." ~~~
~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post looks at the history of Trump's claim of absolute immunity. He points to a case in which not only the Supremes determined but even his own lawyer argued that absolute immunity did not apply once a president* left office. In a 2020 New York state case, Trump argued that he had absolute immunity from complying with a state subpoena. The trial judge asked if Trump could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue & not face an investigation while in office, and Trump's lawyer said that was correct. When that case got to the Supreme Court, the Supremes ruled unanimously that a sitting president* did not have absolute immunity from state subpoenaes. Indeed, Trump's own attorney William Consovoy told the Supreme Court, "Of course, Congress retains the impeachment power. And on the other side of impeachment, as the text of the Constitution makes clear, the president like all other citizens is subject to the laws and jurisdiction of states and the federal government alike.... This is not a permanent immunity."
Marie: Say, remember back in March 2017, when Donald Trump made the false claim, "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" Well, now, look. Joe Biden, too, has had Trump's "wires tapped." ~~~
~~~ Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Special counsel Jack Smith has extracted data from the cell phone Donald Trump used while in the White House and plans to present evidence of his findings to a Washington, D.C. jury to demonstrate how Trump used the phone in the weeks during which he attempted to subvert the 2020 election. In a court filing Monday, Smith indicated that he plans to call an expert witness who extracted and reviewed data copied from Trump's phone, as well as a phone used by another unidentified individual in Trump's orbit.... The expert will describe to jurors 'the usage of these phones throughout the post-election period, including on and around January 6, 2021.'... The expert's review also included 'analyzing images found on the phones and websites visited.' The expert testimony is the first explanation of how Smith plans to deploy a massive trove of data that prosecutors obtained from Twitter about Trump's use of his powerful account.... It's unclear, though, what the extent of Smith's access to Trump's phone was."
MEANWHILE, at Mar-a-Lardo. Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Three months after the FBI seized classified records from Mar-a-Lago last August, a longtime employee of Donald Trump's private club quit his job.... The former employee was a witness to several episodes special counsel Jack Smith included in his federal criminal indictment charging the former president with mishandling classified documents. He had moved several boxes for Trump and was also privy to conversations referenced in the indictment between Trump and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira, and Trump's body man Walt Nauta -- putting the former employee in a unique group of Mar-a-Lago staffers who could be in a position to provide valuable information to investigators.... [After he quit, he received a phone call from Donald Trump as well as other 'outreach,' like] offers of legal representation by attorneys paid for by Trump and complimentary tickets to a golf tournament, as well as repeated reminders [from co-workers like De Oliveira that] he could come back to work for Trump."
Kyle Cheney & Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Two Georgia election workers are seeking 'tens of millions of dollars' in damages from Rudy Giuliani for defamation, a punishment that Giuliani's lawyer said would be so severe it would amount to the 'civil equivalent of the death penalty.' Attorneys for Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss -- who were deluged by threats and attacks for years after Giuliani and Donald Trump falsely accused them of manipulating ballots in 2020 -- revealed the rough damages request for the first time Monday at the opening of a jury trial.... As the case kicked off Monday, jurors ... heard jarring audio of racist and violent phone messages and saw the text of emails, some echoing the false allegations that Giuliani and Trump lodged against Freeman and Moss as Trump sought to subvert his defeat in the 2020 election....
"U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell, who is presiding over the trial, has already found that Giuliani defamed Freeman and Moss and caused them emotional distress. Howell issued that ruling in August as a sanction for her finding that the former New York mayor and federal prosecutor intentionally hid evidence from them, including evidence about his net worth. The jury's only role is to settle on Giuliani's punishment....' ~~~
~~~ The New York Times story, by Eileen Sullivan, is here: "And arriving late to the courtroom on Monday did little to help Mr. Giuliani with the judge. After waiting for him to show up, Judge Howell sent someone to collect Mr. Giuliani from where he was standing with other members of the public in the security line to enter the courthouse." MB: According to Rachel Maddow, Rudy forgot to rebuckle his belt after he got through the security line, so showed up in the courtroom with his belt hanging off his pants. ~~~
~~~ Ryan Reilly, et al., of NBC News: "But in comments outside the courthouse Monday, Giuliani told reporters he did not regret his lies, and he claimed that he 'told the truth' about Freeman and Moss. 'When I testify, you'll get the whole story, and it will be definitively clear what I said was true,' he said.... Giuliani conceded in a court filing in July that he had made 'false' statements about Freeman and Moss.... The proceedings [in this case] got off to a rough start last week after Giuliani missed a pretrial hearing he was supposed to attend. [Giuliani's attorney fell on his sword and took the blame for Giuliani's failure to appear.]... A day before Giuliani failed to show up to the hearing, Howell slammed what she called his 'nonsense' claim in a recent court filing that damages should be determined by a judge, not a jury. The judge pointed out that Giuliani has been on notice about the jury trial demand for almost two full years." ~~~
~~~ Warning: If you befriend Donald Trump, you may become a confused, disheveled & impoverished old codger: a figure of fun or an object of pity.
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "The Air Force disciplined 15 members of the Air National Guard after an internal investigation found that a 'lack of supervision' and a 'culture of complacency' helped enable a 21-year-old airman to share hundreds of classified documents online in a sprawling leak of U.S. military secrets that rocked the national security establishment this spring. In a report delivered to Congress on Monday, the Air Force blamed Airman 1st Class Jack D. Teixeira's superiors for failing to restrict his access to classified systems and facilities and to alert appropriate authorities during the time that he was alleged to have been illegally sharing government secrets. The Air Force completed its investigation in August, but notified Congress and disclosed the findings Monday after being informed that The Washington Post was publishing a multipart investigation into the Discord leaks. The first article in the series published Monday morning; a 'Frontline'/Post documentary will premiere Tuesday."
Perry Stein & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "Hunter Biden's legal team on Monday asked a Delaware judge to dismiss the federal gun charges filed against him, arguing that prosecutors violated key promises they made as part of a previous agreement that would have allowed Biden to avoid felony charges. Biden's team insisted in a filing Monday that the agreement is in effect. The government disagrees."
Chris Cameron of the New York Times: "Federal authorities arrested a New Hampshire man, charging him with threatening to kill Vivek Ramaswamy and his supporters, the Justice Department said on Monday. Prosecutors said Tyler Anderson, a 30-year-old from Dover, threatened to kill Mr. Ramaswamy..., and attendees of a campaign event planned on Monday in nearby Portsmouth. The threats were made as replies to an automated campaign message inviting Mr. Anderson to attend the event, according to images of the texts included in court documents. His messages implied that the threat would be carried out with a firearm.... The police also seized several firearms and recovered the threatening text messages from a deleted folder on Mr. Anderson's phone. In an interview with an F.B.I. agent after his arrest..., Mr. Anderson acknowledged sending the threats, adding that he had also sent similar messages to other campaigns. Another federal agent discovered such texts sent to another presidential campaign." ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to the story, Ramaswamy's "campaign criticized the news media, 'deranged voices' and 'left-wing cranks,' accusing the groups of inciting violence against Republicans." Really? Since Anderson was responding to an invitation to attend a Ramaswamy event, in all likelihood, the Ramaswamy campaign got Anderson's phone number from from a list of registered Republican voters. So I don't think it very likely that he is a "left-wing crank." Not sure if Ramaswamy's campaign staff is stupid or purposely lying. Or both. Whatever, Anderson, his arsenal & his attitude comprise a fine example of why this left-wing crank seldom leaves the house.
Annie Grayer & Marshall Cohen of CNN: "House Republicans are preparing to formalize their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden with a House vote this week, as their investigation reaches a critical juncture while right-wing pressure grows. Up until this point, House Republicans have not had enough votes to legitimize their ongoing inquiry with a full chamber vote. The probe has struggled to uncover wrongdoing by the president which is why it hasn't garnered the unified support of the full GOP conference. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally launched the inquiry in September, even though he had previously criticized Democrats for taking the same step in 2019 when they launched the first impeachment probe of ... Donald Trump without taking a vote at the beginning." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Andrew Kaczynski & Em Steck of CNN: "House Speaker Mike Johnson is pursuing an impeachment strategy against President Joe Biden that he once said could cause 'irreparable damage' to the country when Democrats sought to oust then-President Donald Trump.... Just four years ago, Johnson blasted Democrats for opening an impeachment inquiry into Trump largely along party lines less than a year before the next presidential election -- the exact circumstances Johnson finds himself in now.... He argued the Democrats' grievances against Trump should be settled by voters and not through such an extreme remedy as impeachment." (Also linked yesterday.)
Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: Former Rep. "George Santos [R-N.Y.] ... is negotiating a plea agreement to potentially settle his indictment on fraud and campaign-finance-related charges, federal prosecutors disclosed in court papers Monday. The Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office, which handles cases in Long Island cited the negotiations in a letter filed in advance of a pretrial conference scheduled for Tuesday.... 'The parties are presently engaged in plea negotiations with the goal of resolving this matter without the need for a trial,' prosecutors from U.S. Attorney Breon Peace's office and from the Justice Department's public integrity section wrote in the filing.... Santos, 35, has been indicted on a host of counts, including charges that he defrauded his donors and lied to the government to get unemployment benefits during the pandemic.... Santos faces 23 counts in total." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Please, please make sure he does some jail time, if only because he defrauded donors who gave to a fund Santos set up supposedly to contribute to a homeless veteran who couldn't afford to pay for surgery for his dying dog. (Santos [allegedly!] kept the money; the dog didn't get the surgery and died.) I'm sure this is not one of the matters for which Santos is charged, but Santos should suffer just a bit of what that dog & his owner did.
The Crimson Scoops the New York Times. Miles Herszenhorn, et al., of the Harvard Crimson: "Harvard President Claudine Gay will remain in office with the support of the Harvard Corporation -- the University's highest governing body -- following the conclusion of the board's meeting on Monday, according to a source familiar with the decision. The Corporation will announce the decision in a statement Tuesday morning, according to the source." ~~~
~~~ Jeremy Peters, et al., of the New York Times: "Harvard's governing board on Monday was nearing a resolution that would allow its president, Claudine Gay, to remain in her job, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions. But those discussions were ongoing as of late Monday night. An announcement was expected on Tuesday. Harvard's board has said nothing about Dr. Gay's future or the festering controversy which began nearly a week ago over the way she equivocated when answering questions about antisemitism on campus in a congressional hearing.... Groups of donors, alumni and students ratcheted up a pressure campaign to oust Dr. Gay as her supporters banded together to try to save her job. About 700 members of Harvard's faculty, in addition to hundreds more alumni, came to her defense in several open letters."
Emily Badger, et al., of the New York Times: "Sometime around 2009, American roads started to become deadlier for pedestrians, particularly at night. Fatalities have risen ever since, reversing the effects of decades of safety improvements. And it's not clear why.... Nothing resembling this pattern has occurred in other comparably wealthy countries. In places like Canada and Australia, a much lower share of pedestrian fatalities occurs at night, and those fatalities -- rarer in number -- have generally been declining, not rising." Experts not only missed this trend, they don't agree on the reasons for it: "Speed limits on local roads are often higher in the U.S., laws and cultural prohibitions against dangerous driving can be weaker, and American infrastructure in many ways has been designed to enable speeding cars.... The most obvious potential risks that have changed in America since 2009 are found inside vehicles == in the drivers there fiddling with smartphones, in the dashboard displays that have grown ever more complex, in the growing weight and force of vehicles themselves.... [Also,] the pervasiveness in the U.S. of automatic transmissions, which help free up a driver's hand for other uses." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I haven't driven a stick-shift since 2009 2008, when a dealer told my husband that stick-shifts were hard to sell because nobody knew how to drive them. But I noticed the other day that I was driving in town with my right hand on the stick, even though my car has an automatic shift and I had no intention of manually shifting gears. And I still, when I have to come to a quick stop, sometimes also bear down on the clutch-that isn't-there with my left foot. Old habits die hard.
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Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "... if you want a real sense of the differences between America's two major parties ... all you have to do is look at the states. Where Republicans have gained this kind of full control over state legislatures and statehouses, they have used that authority in pursuit of policies meant to curtail the ability of people in their states to live as they please.... The state-level Republican agenda also includes efforts to restrict voting or gerrymander political opponents out of representation. Taken all together, you could say that Republicans are engaged in a comprehensive effort to limit the freedom of entire categories of people."
** Texas Horror Story. David Goodman of the New York Times: "The Texas Supreme Court on Monday overturned a lower court order allowing an abortion for a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition, hours after her lawyers said she had decided to leave Texas for the procedure in the face of the state's abortion bans. The court ruled that the lower court made a mistake in ruling that the woman, Kate Cox, who is more than 20 weeks pregnant, was entitled to a medical exception. In its seven-page ruling, the Supreme Court found that Ms. Cox's doctor, Damla Karsan, 'asked a court to pre-authorize the abortion yet she could not, or at least did not, attest to the court that Ms. Cox's condition poses the risks the exception requires.' Texas' overlapping bans allow for abortions only when a pregnancy seriously threatens the health or life of the woman." ~~~
~~~ Earlier Monday. Eleanor Klibanoff of the Texas Tribune: "Kate Cox, a Dallas woman who sued for the right to terminate her non-viable pregnancy, has left Texas to have an abortion outside the state. Last Tuesday, Cox filed a historic lawsuit, asking the courts to allow her to terminate her pregnancy after she learned her fetus had full trisomy 18, a lethal fetal anomaly..., but her doctors refused to perform an abortion due to the state's near-total ban on the procedure. Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble ruled Thursday that neither Cox, nor her husband or OB/GYN, should be criminally or civilly penalized for terminating her pregnancy. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed an emergency petition, asking the state Supreme Court to overturn that ruling. On Friday night, the high court put Guerra Gamble's order on hold while they considered the merits of the case. Meanwhile, though, Cox's condition was deteriorating, and she was in and out of the emergency room, according to her lawyers.... The Center for Reproductive Rights intends to continue litigating this case before the Texas Supreme Court, according to a letter sent to the court clerk Monday." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "An irony here is that if the State Supreme Court had allowed [Kate] Cox to end her pregnancy in Texas, it might have benefited hard-line abortion opponents. Were the state to codify clear exemptions for people in extreme medical distress, offering a sliver of mercy to women like ... Cox, its callous abortion ban might seem slightly more politically palatable. That, after all, is why abortion opponents falsely insist that such clarity already exists. But right-wing politicians and those who support them would rather inflict unimaginable suffering on women than relax the tiniest bit of control over their medical decisions." Goldberg lays out what Cox and another pregnant woman, Amanda Zurawski, who filed an earlier suit against Texas, endured under this disgusting, inhumane abrogation of Texas women's right to obtain urgently medical care. ~~~
~~~ Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "The Texas case undermines the rationale for abortion bans and adds to Republicans' political liability on an issue uppermost in the minds of many voters.... There are hundreds upon hundreds of situations involving fact-specific medical complications for a pregnant woman. These cannot, without violating our fundamental sense of justice and decency, be predetermined by a bunch of politicians (mostly White, mostly male and many medically illiterate) without regard to the wishes of the woman involved. None of this should detract from the rights of any woman to decide with her doctor for reasons she deems fit (e.g., lack of resources, age, other children, emotional turmoil) to end a pregnancy. But it does underscore that a ban that strips virtually all reasons for an abortion is a cruel, inhumane affront to women."
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Israel/Palestine
The Washington Post's live updates of developments Tuesday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israel said it will open a second station to screen aid for Gaza, at the southern Kerem Shalom border crossing, as humanitarian groups call for sending more supplies into the besieged territory. But the crossing will not be open for aid to pass through, with Israel saying that aid would enter Gaza only via Egypt. Houthi militants claimed responsibility for an attack on a ship in the Red Sea, as regional flare-ups prompt fears of a wider war. U.S. officials said a missile launched from Yemen on Monday hit the Strinda, a Norwegian oil and chemical tanker. The White House has pitched to allies a multinational task force to protect commercial ships traveling near Yemen after attacks by the Houthis, a Yemeni militant group aligned with Iran." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Tuesday are here. CNN's live updates are here.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs & Ephrat Livni of the New York Times: "The Biden administration said on Monday that it is looking into reports by Amnesty International and The Washington Post that Israel used white phosphorus supplied by the United States in violation of international law. John Kirby, a spokesman for the U.S. National Security Council, said in an exchange with reporters that the Biden administration was 'certainly concerned' about reports of Israel illegally using U.S.-supplied white phosphorus in October in Lebanon.... White phosphorus is an incendiary, toxic substance used to create light and smoke screens during combat. Using it isn't illegal but deploying it deliberately against civilians or in a civilian setting violates the laws of war." ~~~
~~~ William Christou, et al., of the Washington Post: "Israel used U.S.-supplied white phosphorus munitions in an October attack in southern Lebanon that injured at least nine civilians in what a rights group says should be investigated as a war crime, according to a Washington Post analysis of shell fragments found in a small village. A journalist working for The Post found remnants of three 155-millimeter artillery rounds fired into Dheira, near the border of Israel, which incinerated at least four homes, residents said. The rounds, which eject felt wedges saturated with white phosphorous that burns at high temperatures, produce billowing smoke to obscure troop movements as it falls haphazardly over a wide area. Its contents can stick to skin, causing potentially fatal burns and respiratory damage, and its use near civilian areas could be prohibited under international humanitarian law."
Poland. Good Riddance. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Poland's newly elected Parliament torpedoed a long-shot effort by right-wing forces to stay in power and chose the opposition leader Donald Tusk as the nation's new prime minister on Monday. The decision ushers the biggest and most populous country on the European Union's formerly communist eastern flank into a new era.... As Parliament shot down Law and Justice's effort to keep power, opposition legislators taunted [right-wing Law & Justice caretaker prime minister, Mateusz] Morawiecki and his supporters over their defeat, chanting 'Donald Tusk, Donald Tusk.' Later on Monday, Parliament nominated and confirmed Mr. Tusk, 66, as Poland's new leader, drawing cheers and applause from his allies and a sour denunciation of the new prime minister as a 'German agent' from Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the chairman of Law and Justice and Poland's de facto leader since 2015. Mr. Tusk, a veteran centrist politician who led Poland from 2007 to 2014, is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday by President Andrzej Duda, an ally of Law and Justice." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Rachel Maddow aired footage of Poles who took over a movie theater to watch the parliamentary proceedings on a CSpan-like feed. The citizens stood up and cheered as the right-wing efforts failed.
Russia. This Story Will Not End Well. Francesca Ebel of the Washington Post: "Supporters of jailed Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny said Monday that they had lost contact with him and that they have been unable to ascertain his whereabouts for almost a week. Navalny, who has been convicted on an array of charges widely viewed as political retribution and carrying combined sentences totaling 30 years, was no longer in the prison colony IK-6, in the Vladimir region, about 140 miles east of Moscow where he had been held in recent months, his spokeswoman, Kira Yarmysh, posted Monday on X. Following his conviction last summer on extremism charges, Navalny was due to be transferred to a 'special security' penal colony, a facility with the most severe restrictions in the Russian prison system, but officials from Russia's penitentiary service had not informed Navalny's lawyers or family of his new location." CNN's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Ukraine, et al. Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine began his last-ditch pitch for additional U.S. aid for his country's war effort after arriving in Washington on Monday by declaring that the true winner of the stalled negotiations in Congress is Russia. 'If there's anyone inspired by unresolved issues on Capitol Hill, it's just Putin and his sick clique,' Mr. Zelensky told national security officials at the National Defense University in Washington. The remarks represented a message to Congress, even as its chances of passing an aid deal have become increasingly bleak. They also marked Mr. Zelensky's first appeals in a hastily organized trip to Washington that is also scheduled to include meetings with members of Congress and President Biden on Tuesday."
News Lede
CNBC: "Prices across a broad range of goods and services edged higher in November but were mostly in line with expectations, further easing pressure on the Federal Reserve. The consumer price index, a closely watched inflation gauge, increased 0.1% in November, and was up 3.1% from a year ago, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for no gain and a yearly rate of 3.1%. While the monthly rate indicated a pickup from the flat CPI reading in October, the annual rate showed another decline after hitting 3.2% a month earlier."
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