The Conversation -- December 4, 2023

Please, Please, Let Me Keep Doxxing & Dissing the Clerk. ABC News is live-updating developments in the Trump Organization's civil fraud trial in New York: "... Donald Trump's request for an expedited grant of leave to appeal the gag orders in his civil fraud trial was denied Monday afternoon. The gag order is now likely to still be in effect on Monday when Trump takes the witness stand in his own defense. Trump's lawyers requested that Judge David Friedman, who initially lifted the gag order, permit them to appeal the final decision that reinstated the gag order to New York's Court of Appeals. 'You had a decision by a panel of judges. A single judge cannot undo a panel's decision,' Lauren Holmes, a court attorney, said during a scheduling meeting Monday afternoon at the Appellate Division First Department. Dennis Fan, a lawyer for the New York Attorney General, also declined to consent to expediting the briefing schedule."

Pennsylvania. Olafihimihan Oshin of the Hill: "Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have publicly condemned the antisemitic protest that took place outside a restaurant that serves Israeli food in Philadelphia. Demonstrators supporting Palestinians gathered outside of Goldie, which is part of a restaurant group co-owned by Israeli-born Michael Solomonov, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war Sunday night, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Protesters were seen chanting 'Goldie, Goldie you can't hide, we charge you with genocide.' They also marched through the Center City neighborhood, calling out Philadelphia Eagles fans who were watching their team play in local bars.... 'Tonight in Philly, we saw a blatant act of antisemitism -- not a peaceful protest," Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) wrote on X.... 'A restaurant was targeted and mobbed because its owner is Jewish and Israeli.'... The Biden administration also condemned the demonstrators in front of Goldie's, calling it 'completely unjustifiable.'"

Kierra Frazier of Politico: "North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum dropped his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination on Monday after repeatedly polling in the single digits and failing to qualify for the third and fourth GOP debates. Burgum is the latest candidate to drop out of the race, following former South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, Vice President Mike Pence, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, former Rep. Will Hurd and businessperson Perry Johnson."

     ~~~ Thanks to D in MD for the link.

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Joshua Goodman & Eric Tucker of the AP: "A former American diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested in a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, accused of secretly serving as an agent of Cuba's government, The Associated Press has learned. Manuel Rocha, 73, was arrested in Miami on Friday on a criminal complaint.... [A person] said the Justice Department case accuses Rocha of working to promote the Cuban government's interests.... Rocha's 25-year diplomatic career was spent under both Democratic and Republican administrations, much of it in Latin America during the Cold War, a period of sometimes heavy-handed U.S. political and military policies."

Scenes from an Expulsion. Kara Voght, et al., of the Washington Post: "This is the paradox of [George] Santos's downfall. His falsehoods and alleged crimes have been bold enough to be galling, yet frivolous enough to be funny. Unlike a certain other Republican politician whom the Justice Department recently charged with federal crimes, Santos is not a presidential contender with an army of supporters.... America may disagree on the political villains of our time, but a mostly powerless political villain is a court jester at best." ~~~

~~~ Jorge, the Movie. Edward Helmore of the Guardian: "A book about the improbable rise and rapid fall of former congressman George Santos has been optioned by HBO Films, it was reported Saturday, and will be produced under the guidance of Frank Rich, a former New York Times columnist known for executive production credits on Emmy awards-winning Succession and Veep. HBO reportedly optioned the rights to Mark Chiusano's The Fabulist: The Lying, Hustling, Grifting, Stealing, and Very American Legend of George Santos, published last week."

Presidential Election 2024

Caleb Howe of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump on Saturday said at a rally that he believes he would win California [and other states] in a presidential election if Jesus and God came down to oversee the ballots." MB: Apparently, the evil elections officials and voting machines are the collective anti-Christ.

God's Favorite Candidate Is a Confused Liar. Phillip Nieto of Mediaite: "... Donald Trump claimed he saved Obamacare after calling the Affordable Care act a 'disaster' and bragging about his efforts to remove it. During a rally a campaign rally in Iowa on Saturday, the Republican frontrunner started bragging to his supporters about how he nearly took down Obamacare while also invoking the name of deceased Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona). Trump attempted to pressure Congressional Republicans to repeal Obamacare during his first year in office when the GOP maintained a majority in the House and Senate. However, on July 27, 2017, McCain, the deciding vote in the matter, famously gave a thumbs down during the floor vote on its repeal. 'Obamacare is a disaster. And I said we're going to we're going to do something about it. I saved Obamacare when we got John McCain's negative vote,' Trump told the crowd." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Nieto doesn't say so, but after failing to repeal Obamacare, Trump did manage to sabotage it six way from Sunday. That's not exactly "saving" Obamacare.

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Florida. Stephanie Saul of the New York Times: Many liberal-leaning professors at Florida's universities "are giving up coveted tenured positions and blaming their departures on Governor [Ron] DeSantis and his effort to reshape the higher education system to fit his conservative principles.... They raised concerns that the governor's policies have become increasingly untenable for scholars and students." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Not exactly breaking news. My mother went to Florida State in the early 1940s, when it was Florida State College for Women. The board harassed her journalism teacher, Earl Vance, and a decade later tried to remove him from his job even though (I think) he had tenure. His offense? Too liberal. The board failed, even though they made life miserable for him. I recall seeing a teevee news report in which he was pictured climbing to his fourth-floor cubbyhole of an office via a fire escape because the board had removed him from a "normal," comfortable office in the department's HQ. What saved "Mistavance," as my mother called him, was that graduates of his classes worked as reporters all over Florida, and they raised a public fuss, exposing the board's antediluvian bias. Florida, and no doubt many other states, have a history of tensions between fatcat college board members and "egghead" faculty members.

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Israel/Palestine

The Washington Post's live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israel's military is expanding its ground operation against Hamas across the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said. As the hostilities resume, many civilians already displaced by the conflict are again being forced to flee as the fight moves south. An estimated 1.8 million people -- or 80 percent of the population of Gaza -- are now internally displaced, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Aid groups and Palestinian families say maps posted online by Israel directing them to 'safer' areas are sowing confusion because they lack specifics or those areas are overcrowded or under attack. The death toll continues to rise, with at least 316 people killed in the past day, the Gaza Health Ministry said Sunday, adding that more are likely buried under the rubble."

Peter Baker & Karoun Demirjian of the New York Times: "The U.S. government is making an intense effort to persuade Israel and Hamas to resume negotiations so they can once again pause hostilities and exchange more prisoners for hostages, a White House spokesman [John Kirby] said on Sunday.... In appearances on several Sunday talk shows, Mr. Kirby emphasized that Hamas was to blame for the breakdown in talks, saying that it had not lived up to the terms of its original agreement to begin handing over captives held in Gaza.... Israel has since resumed its attacks on Hamas, and Mr. Kirby urged it to avoid civilian casualties, while crediting its forces with making efforts to do so. He said Israeli authorities had been open to U.S. advice about how to make their assault more precise." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I wish newspapers would stop citing Republicans as experts on anything. For instance, in this article, they cite Lindsey Graham, who said Sunday that he had "lost confidence" in Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Or, if the reporters insist upon quoting these doofuses, they would describe them as, say, "Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), whose opinions and concerns are premised on whatever will get him on the teevee."

The Conversation -- December 3, 2023

** David French of the New York Times: "[The Insurrection Act] is a land mine embedded in the United States Code, one that Donald Trump, if re-elected president, could use to destroy our republic. But it's not too late for Congress to defuse the mine now and protect America.... Some version of the Insurrection Act is probably necessary.... [The act has] been used rarely, and when it has been used, it's been used for legitimate purposes.... That historical restraint has been dependent on a factor that is utterly absent from Trump: a basic commitment to the Constitution and democracy.... It will be difficult if not impossible for any reform bill to pass Congress. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the Republican-led House of Representatives, was a central player in Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election. Many of Trump's congressional allies share his thirst for vengeance. But it's past time ... to strip unilateral authority from the president." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Once again, the reason Congress won't curb the raw presidential power encoded in the Insurrection Act is that one of the two major political parties is opposed to democracy and the rule of law. I don't suggest that all of our political ills are the fault of Republicans, but I'd say about 90% of them are. A democratic republic cannot function when one party believes in nothing but power and nutty conspiracy theories.

Jon Gambrell of the AP: "Commercial ships came under attack Sunday by drones and missiles in the Red Sea and a U.S. warship there opened fire in self-defense as part of an hourslong assault claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels, officials said. The attack potentially marked a major escalation in a series of maritime attacks in the Mideast linked to the Israel-Hamas war as multiple vessels found themselves in the crosshairs of a single Houthi assault for the first time in the conflict."

Damian Carrington & Ben Stockton of the Guardian: "The president of Cop28, Sultan Al Jaber, has claimed there is 'no science' indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is needed to restrict global heating to 1.5C, the Guardian and the Centre for Climate Reporting can reveal. Al Jaber also said a phase-out of fossil fuels would not allow sustainable development 'unless you want to take the world back into caves'. The comments were 'incredibly concerning' and 'verging on climate denial', scientists said, and they were at odds with the position of the UN secretary general, António Guterres. Al Jaber made the comments in ill-tempered responses to questions from Mary Robinson, the chair of the Elders group and a former UN special envoy for climate change, during a live online event on 21 November." Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

     ~~~ Valerie Volcovici of Reuters: "Climate advocate and former U.S. Vice President Al Gore on Sunday slammed the UAE - host of the COP28 climate summit.... The comments, made to Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the conference in Dubai, reflected skepticism among some delegates that COP28 President Sultan al-Jaber, head of the UAE's national oil company ADNOC, can be an honest broker of a climate deal. 'They are abusing the public's trust by naming the CEO of one of the largest and least responsible oil companies in the world as head of the COP,' Gore said. At a presentation at the COP's main plenary hall before the interview, Gore unveiled data showing that the UAE's greenhouse gas emissions rose by 7.5% in 2022 from the previous year, compared to a 1.5% percent rise in the entire world."

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Joe Versus the Stinkers. Ben Lefebvre, et al., of Politico: "The Environmental Protection Agency unveiled sweeping new regulations targeting methane emissions from the oil and gas sector on Saturday, a significant milestone for President Joe Biden's strategy for curbing the pollution driving up the Earth's temperatures. The rule's 3 a.m. rollout was timed to coincide with the ongoing U.N. climate talks in Dubai, where the U.S. has sought to play a leading role in global efforts to reduce emissions of the powerful planet-heating gas. But its biggest test will be in the legal arena at home, where conservatives on the Supreme Court have slapped down regulations the justices viewed as White House overreach." ~~~

     ~~~ Jim Tankersley & Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "Vice President Kamala Harris pledged at a United Nations climate summit on Saturday that the United States would spend billions more to help developing nations fight and adapt to climate change, telling world leaders that 'we must do more' to limit global temperature rise. Her remarks followed an announcement by U.S. officials at the summit the same day that the federal government would, for the first time, require oil and gas producers to detect and fix leaks of methane. It was the most ambitious move to reduce fossil fuel emissions that President Biden's administration was expected to unveil at the summit...."

Emily Steel & Sydney Ember of the New York Times: "Air traffic controllers, who spend hours a day glued to monitors or scanning the skies with the lives of thousands of passengers at stake, are a last line of defense against crashes. The job comes with high stakes and intense pressure, even in the best of conditions. Yet the conditions for many controllers are far from ideal. A nationwide staffing shortage -- caused by years of employee turnover and tight budgets, among other factors -- has forced many controllers to work six-day weeks and 10-hour days.... In the past two years, air traffic controllers and others have submitted hundreds of complaints to a Federal Aviation Administration hotline describing issues like dangerous staffing shortages, mental health problems and deteriorating buildings, some infested by bugs and black mold. There were at least seven reports of controllers sleeping when they were on duty and five about employees working while under the influence of alcohol or drugs."

Wherein George Santos announces he will be "filling" ethics complaints against some House members who led the charge to oust him. Thanks to Ken W. for the link.

Marie: So I figured Trump's many last-minute pardons of slimeballs were a cash-in-your-chips project the Little Prince of Corruption Jared managed. But it turns out Trump had another use for many of said slimeballs: ~~~

~~~ Beth Reinhard, et al., of the Washington Post: "Experts say [Donald] Trump's abuse of the pardon power while in office was unprecedented in modern times.... Never before had a president used his constitutional clemency powers to free or forgive so many people who could be useful to his future political efforts.... Trump's clemency record offers critical insights into how he might wield one of the presidency's most unfettered powers if he is elected to a second term -- potentially to undo the work of a Justice Department he scorns, to eliminate the threat of criminal prosecution against him and his allies, and to continue to build an army of indebted supporters he can call on as needed to back him.... Many of the campaign donors, Republican operatives and media pundits who made his clemency list were well-positioned to return the favor.... [Clemency expert Jeffrey Crouch said,] '... Put simply, Trump regularly abused clemency for his own personal reasons.'"

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "When I interviewed them at their makeshift San Francisco headquarters back in 2016, the OpenAI founders -- Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman -- presented themselves as our Praetorian guard against the future threat of runaway, evil A.I.... But ... Musk is gone, and Altman is no longer casting himself as humanity's watchdog. He's running a for-profit outfit, creating an A.I. cookbook. He's less interested in peril than investors, less concerned about existential danger than finding A.I.'s capabilities.... The government has nibbled the edges of regulation, but the quicksilver A.I. has already leaped ahead of the snaillike lawmakers and bureaucrats. Nobody, even in Silicon Valley, has any clue how to control it.... We are totally at the mercy of Silicon Valley boys with their toys, egos crashing, temperaments colliding, ambition and greed soaring." Dowd sort of explains all the hoohah over the ousting and restoration of Altman in the top job at OpenAI.

Presidential Race 2024. The Orwellian Candidate. Michael Gold of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump ... repeatedly claimed to supporters in Iowa on Saturday that it was President Biden who posed a severe threat to American democracy. While Mr. Trump shattered democratic norms throughout his presidency..., the former president in his speech repeatedly accused Mr. Biden of corrupting politics and waging a repressive 'all-out war' on America.... 'Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy,' [he said]. Mr. Trump has made similar attacks on Mr. Biden a staple of his speeches in Iowa and elsewhere.... Mr. Trump has a history of accusing his opponents of behavior that he himself is guilty of, the political equivalent of a 'No, you are' playground retort.... Even as he was insisting that Mr. Biden threatens democracy, Mr. Trump underscored his most antidemocratic campaign themes....

"At an earlier event on Saturday, where he sought to undermine confidence in election integrity well before the 2024 election, he urged supporters in Ankeny, a predominantly white suburb of Des Moines, to take a closer look at election results next year in Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta, three cities with large Black populations in swing states that he lost in 2020.... 'We're like a third-world nation,' he [said]." The AP's report is here.

Tom Sullivan, on digby's Hullabaloo, looks down the rabbithole of conspiracy world. MB: My favorite bit: "'If you don't buy into a conspiracy theory, that means you're part of the conspiracy,' one former Twitter user posted Thursday. 'And lack of evidence for the conspiracy is proof that the conspiracy is WORKING,' replied Lindsay Beyerstein." So not only do these people live in make-believe world, they have realized a dandy self-rationalizing proof that fake is real. Thanks to RAS for the link.

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Israel/Palestine. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Top U.S. officials warned Israel to protect civilian lives as it resumed aerial attacks on Gaza after a week-long pause in fighting, including in the south, where the majority of the Strip's population is now crowded after Israel instructed people in the north to evacuate. 'Too many Palestinian civilians have been killed,' Vice President Harris said Saturday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he 'personally pushed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian casualties,' saying that a failure to do so would drive Palestinians 'into the arms of the enemy,' undermining its war efforts against Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military was determining 'safe areas' for Gazan civilians.: ~~~

     ~~~ The New York Times' live updates for Sunday are here. CNN's live updates are here.

The Conversation -- December 2, 2023

This Week in History: The first woman Supreme Court Justice died. The GOAT American war criminal died. The House expelled, for the first time, a member who was neither a traitor nor a convicted criminal. And a federal judge ruled for the first time that the POTUS* does not have absolute immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office.

Linda Greenhouse of the New York Times: "Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the United States Supreme Court, a rancher's daughter who wielded great power over American law from her seat at the center of the court's ideological spectrum, died on Friday in Phoenix. She was 93." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Clare Foran & Haley Talbot of CNN: "The House voted Friday to expel GOP Rep. George Santos, a historic vote that makes the New York congressman the sixth lawmaker ever to be expelled from the chamber. The vote brings an end to a scandal-plagued and tumultuous tenure on Capitol Hill for the freshman New York congressman.... The resolution passed 311 to 114, with 105 Republicans voting with the overwhelming majority of Democrats in favor of expulsion. Two Democrats voted 'no,' and two Democrats voted present.... 'To hell with this place,' [Santos] said [after the vote]." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Most stories on Santos' expulsion emphasize its "historic" nature. But one reason it's unique is that a number of previous Congressmembers and senators who had been charged but not convicted did not wait for expulsion. (Perhaps because of its messy nature, the stories don't account for the expulsion of Rep. Adam Clayton Powell.) They resigned -- often under pressure from fellow legislators -- if the charges against them were serious and credible. Of course, since they're essentially crooks, others have waited till they're convicted and some have refused to resign altogether.

Nothing Says "Get Out!" Like ~~~

Changing the locks in George Santos former office ... pic.twitter.com/ZpfcnLLTGp

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) December 1, 2023

~~~ Adeus, Jorge. The New York Times liveblog of the vote to expel George Santos from the House is here. (Also linked yesterday.) See also yesterday's Conversation for some of the entries. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's Santos liveblog, also linked yesterday, is here.

Liz Skalka of the Huffington Post:"Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) accused his now-former GOP colleague George Santos of stealing his and his mother's personal credit card information to make illegal contributions to his campaign -- the latest shocking allegation leveled against the indicted ex-New York House member who was expelled from Congress Friday. 'Late yesterday on the floor, I alluded to a personal impact of Rep. Santos' conduct,' Miller wrote in a letter to colleagues Friday morning. 'Earlier this year, I learned that the Santos campaign had charged my personal credit card -- and the personal credit card of my mother -- for contribution amounts that exceeded FEC limits. Neither my mother nor I approved these charges nor were aware of them. We have spent tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees in the resulting follow-up.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: A few teevee reporters & commentators opined yesterday that Miller's letter swayed some GOP Congressmembers to switch from "nay" to "yea" on expelling Jorge. That sounds about right: it's fine if a member of Congress scams everybody else, but oh, don't try it on us!

Marie: Quite a few Republicans House members claimed Santos' never-ending lies were just too much, and they voted to expel him because he debased "the dignity of the House," or something like that. Bear in mind that their high dudgeon is as fake as any Trump utterance. The same Congressmen who feign shock, shock at Santos' fables kneel at the feet of the Father of All Fabulists, the Orange Jesus, who himself got his government job based on the laughable fable that he was a brilliant businessman who alone could "fix" the ills of Washington. One Congressman among 435 cannot bring down the House, but a Fat Fascist in the White House can destroy the country. And these House phonies are happy to aid and abet him. ~~~

~~~ Update. I do feel as if [George Santos'] offenses, his fraud, his lies, pale in comparison to the lies and fraud of Donald Trump, whose big lie that he won the presidential election, which he lost by more than seven million votes, 306 to 232 in the Electoral College then led to his incitement of a violent insurrection against the Union. And so all those Republicans who voted to expel Santos should drop their support for Donald Trump immediately, who certainly engaged in far bigger lies than anything Jorge Santos ever attempted. -- Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on MSNBC Friday ~~~

~~~ Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "With the 118th Congress on pace to pass the fewest bills of any Congress in decades, some House Republicans have begun describing the state of their party as an international embarrassment. Through it all, Mr. Santos has been his own symbol of chaos.... But in the end, it was Republicans' raw political interest that was Mr. Santos's undoing.... Many Republicans ultimately calculated that the clear evidence [laid bare in a scathing Ethics Committee report] of Mr. Santos's lies and fraud was more damaging to the party than the value of his single vote."

A Trumpity Doo-Dah Day

Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy, the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong "get-out-of-jail-free' pass.... Former presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability. Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office.... Defendant's four-year service as commander in chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens. -- Judge Tanya Chutkan, ruling against Donald Trump's claim of absolute immunity ~~~

~~~ Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A federal judge [-- Tanya Chutkan --] on Friday rejected claims by ... Donald J. Trump that he enjoyed absolute immunity from criminal charges accusing him of seeking to reverse the 2020 election, slapping down his argument that the indictment should be tossed out because it was based on actions he took while he was in office.... The former president's lawyers essentially claimed that all the steps he took to subvert the election he lost to President Biden were not crimes, but rather examples of performing his presidential duties to ensure the integrity of a race that he believed had been stolen from him.... [Friday's ruling] offered a sweeping condemnation of what Judge Chutkan called Mr. Trump's attempts to 'usurp the reins of government' and cited foundational American texts like the Federalist Papers and George Washington's farewell address.... The decision by Judge Chutkan was the first time a federal court had ruled that a former president did not enjoy the protections of immunity from criminal prosecution. Then again, Mr. Trump is the only former president to have been charged with any crimes...." Feuer points out that the purpose of the motion really is to delay the trial by filing appeals up to the Supreme Court. ~~~

     ~~~ The order, via the federal court system, is here.

Rachel Weiner & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Donald Trump can be held civilly liable for the actions of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, an appeals court ruled Friday in a long-awaited decision that could clear the way for lawsuits seeking financial damages from the former president.... Trump and his lawyers have argued that he is protected from both the lawsuit and the criminal charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith because of the absolute immunity conferred on a president for anything done as part of his official duties.... [But the judges] compared former presidents to judges, who enjoy protection from lawsuits but are 'subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens.' Trump is 'not above the law,' they wrote.... The unanimous decision by a federal appeals court in Washington is expected to be appealed...." CNN's report, by Katelyn Polantz, is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The way Lisa Rubin, appearing on MSNBC, explained the rationale behind this order was thus: A president* has immunity for acts he performed in service of his job as president*. But a president is not president 24 hours a day, and acts he performs in some private capacity -- like, say, trying to ensure a second term after he lost an election -- are not protected by presidential immunity. Trump can still argue in the civil case at issue here that the acts he performed to injure the plaintiffs (police officers and members of Congress) were performed as part of his official duties, and it will up to the judge and jury to decide if the facts support his argument. Got that? I paraphrased wildly here, but I think that's the idea.

Catch Me if You Can. Richard Fausset & Danny Hakim of the New York Times: "A lawyer for ... Donald J. Trump argued in an Atlanta courtroom on Friday that putting his client on trial in the final stages of the 2024 presidential contest would be 'the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.' Steven H. Sadow, Mr. Trump's lead lawyer in Georgia, also asserted that if his client were to win the election, Georgia could not try him in the case until after he left the White House again. He cited the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law 'supreme' over contrary state laws. Whether a president would in fact be shielded from prosecution while in office is not a settled legal matter. Mr. Sadow's comments, which were challenged by prosecutors, came during a hearing in the election interference case against Mr. Trump and 14 co-defendants that was brought in August by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga." Politico's story is here.

Marie: I still think the courts should get over the idea that running for public office supersedes the business of the justice system. Many people have decided not to run for public office because they had other obligations that precluded them from running an effective campaign. Usually those obligations are not "sitting in court because you're under criminal indictment." but the point is that responsibilities have a way of curtailing aspirations. This is also true for people who already hold office. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, for instance, had a job way better than president*: (1) it was a lifetime appointment, so no campaigning every four years; and (2) she could (and did) order around the president or even decide who would be president. But when her husband became severely ill and needed her care, O'Connor quit her fabulous day job. Courts should not accommodate Donald Trump's desire to run for re-election any more than they would accommodate your desire to keep your job or go on vacation if you were facing 91 criminal charges.

Jeremy Barr of the Washington Post: "Rupert Murdoch formally handed over the reins of Fox News' parent company in mid-November, but that did not end his legal obligations in the long-running fallout over how the network covered the 2020 presidential election. This week, the 92-year-old media mogul sat for a sworn deposition in the second major defamation lawsuit from an election-technology company that accused Fox of smearing it with false claims of vote rigging.... In recent weeks the Smartmatic case has stirred to life, putting Murdoch's company once again in legal peril."

Orlando Mayorquin of the Washington Post: "An inmate stabbed Derek Chauvin 22 times last week at a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., the U.S. Attorney's Office in Arizona said on Friday in announcing attempted murder charges. The inmate, John Turscak, 52, who is accused of stabbing Mr. Chauvin with an improvised knife on Nov. 24, told investigators that he had been thinking about attacking Mr. Chauvin for about a month because Mr. Chauvin ... is a high-profile inmate, according to charging documents. Mr. Chauvin survived the attack."

Worst Debate Moderator Ever. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "Fox News billed the clash between [Govs. Gavin Newsom] and [Ron] DeSantis as the 'Great Red vs. Blue State Debate,' a chance to compare the governing philosophies of two prominent governors of large states who could both plausibly be president one day. What we instead got was largely a food fight over relative statistics [Sean] Hannity selected that, almost without fail, put California in a more negative light than Florida. Newsom was repeatedly pressed on the disparities, with the questions framed in unfavorable ways. DeSantis faced difficult questions only from his debate opponent, with Hannity repeatedly tossing him softballs and even volunteering him defenses. A sampling: The first question was about Americans 'leaving blue states in droves in favor of red states.' The second topic began with Hannity asking about how Newsom 'obviously' has a 'philosophy which is higher taxes.' Hannity set up a segment on Florida's so-called 'don't say gay' law by asking DeSantis, 'Should schools be focusing on reading, writing, math, science, history, computers and maybe leaving values ... to the parents?' (This is effectively the talking point DeSantis has long used to justify the law.) Hannity summarized President Biden's approach to illegal immigration during the 2020 campaign as 'Let them come.'" And so on. ~~~

~~~ Now, here's how a real debate goes. In the wake of Henry Kissinger's untimely passing at the age of 100, Daily Show reporters debate: "Who was the greatest American war criminal of all time?" Thanks to RAS for the link:

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Florida. Gary Fineout of Politico: "A state appeals court on Friday overturned a ruling that declared Gov. Ron DeSantis' congressional map unconstitutional, setting the stage for the legal battle to finally head to the conservative-leaning state Supreme Court. The map pushed by the governor dismantled the North Florida seat of former Rep. Al Lawson, a Black Democrat, and resulted in Republicans gaining four seats that helped the GOP flip the U.S. House during the 2022 midterm elections.... Lawmakers initially planned to preserve Lawson's district until DeSantis objected and contended that the existing district was an illegal race-based gerrymander. The Legislature came back with another map that shifted it eastward around Jacksonville, but still contained a substantial number of Black voters. DeSantis responded by vetoing the map and instead pressured the Legislature to enact one drawn up by his staff."

Florida. Bob Norman of the Florida Trident (Center for Government Accountability): "The sexual battery investigation of Florida GOP chairman Christian Ziegler began with a 911 call from a friend of the alleged victim who was worried about her well-being, according to a recording of the call obtained by the Florida Trident. The 911 call, made on October 4 at 2:46 p.m., reveals the caller was concerned about the mental health of the woman, who isn't being identified due to the nature of the investigation.... A copy of the search warrant involved in the case was released late Friday that substantiated much of the Trident's earlier reporting and added a wealth of new information.... In an interview with detectives attended by his attorney, Christian Ziegler admitted he had sex with [the woman on October 2] but said it was consensual sex.... He also admitted that he shot video of the sex, which he said he initially deleted, but later uploaded to a Google Drive. When the affidavit was filed with the court on November 15, police had yet located the video.... According to the affidavit, Bridget Ziegler told detectives she was involved in a sexual encounter with her husband and the woman once over a year ago. News of the criminal investigation led [Gov. Ron] DeSantis to publicly call for Ziegler to step down from his role at the top of Florida's Republican Party...."

Texas. Andrew Zhang of Politico: "A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that Texas must remove a series of buoys in its river border with Mexico that had generated a wave of backlash from immigration advocates and Democratic lawmakers. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Texas' request to overrule a federal district judge, who ordered the state in September to remove the controversial barrier. Judge Dana Douglas, an appointee of President Joe Biden, wrote in the panel's majority opinion that the district judge had appropriately 'considered the threat to navigation and federal government operations on the Rio Grande, as well as the potential threat to human life the floating barrier created.'"

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Israel/Palestine

The Washington Post's live updates of developments in the Israel/Hamas war are here: "Israel ramped up airstrikes on Gaza, and directed residents to evacuate some neighborhoods, after a seven-day pause in hostilities ended and fighting resumed with Hamas. The Israeli military said Saturday it had hit hundreds of targets and was 'preparing for the next stage -- southern Gaza,' adding that warplanes had hit over 50 targets in the Khan Younis area there.... At least 193 people were killed and 652 injured in Gaza after fighting resumed between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry said Saturday. Earlier, Israel's military said it had hit more than 400 targets in Gaza over the previous day -- bringing the level of military activity back to pre-pause levels. The Israel Defense Forces called on residents in parts of north and southern Gaza to evacuate. The United Nations has criticized a numbered 'evacuation zone map' issued by the IDF, saying it 'does not specify where people should evacuate to' and may not be seen by Gaza residents given the regular electricity and communications blackouts." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Israel is treating these evacuations orders like a game of musical chairs -- only the Israelis pull many chairs, not just one, during each round of the game, and the penalty for not grabbing a chair is death. ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's live updates for Saturday are here.

Anthony Faiola, et al., of the Washington Post: "As bombs fell and tanks penetrated deep into Gaza in late October, Israeli President Isaac Herzog held a fraught phone call with Pope Francis. The Israeli head of state was describing his nation's horror over the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 when the pope issued a blunt rejoinder. It is 'forbidden to respond to terror with terror,' Francis said, according to a senior Israeli official familiar with the call.... Herzog protested.... The pope continued, saying those responsible should indeed be held accountable, but not civilians.... On Nov. 22, in the hours before his general audience and 'terrorism' comment, Francis held two emotional meetings: one with relatives of people killed in Gaza and the other with families of hostages taken by Hamas. In the session with the Palestinians, the pope wept as they spoke of the massive death toll, said Shireen Hilal, a professor who lost two family members. She and others in attendance said Francis used the word 'genocide' in English."