The Conversation -- June 24, 2024
Marie: Starting now, I will be mostly unavailable until late Tuesday. I may -- or may not -- be able to post some links during that period of time, but I won't be doing much.
Isabella Ramirez of Politico: "A Donald Trump spokesperson got into a tense exchange with CNN's Kasie Hunt over debate hosts Dana Bash and Jake Tapper on Monday morning -- just days before the former president is set to face off against President Joe Biden on the cable network this week. Hunt cut Karoline Leavitt's mic after an interview with the national press secretary on 'This Morning' aboutTrump's prep for Thursday's debate spiraled into an argument.... Leavitt called Bash and Tapper 'biased' and said Trump is 'knowingly going into a hostile environment.'... 'Ma'am, we're going to stop this interview if you're going to keep attacking my colleagues,' Hunt replied as the two spoke over each other."
Devlin Barrett & Perry Stein of the Washington Post: "U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon dived into the minutiae of the Justice Department budget at a morning hearing about ... Donald Trump's indictment for allegedly mishandling classified documents.... Cannon showed a particular interest in how much special counsel appointments cost the government, at one point calling it a 'significant' amount of money, even though the totals represent a drop in the bucket of Justice Department spending.... Trump lawyer Emil Bove decried the proposal to limit Trump's ability to make such allegations, calling it 'a truly extraordinary effort to gag his ability to speak at a debate' and on the campaign trail.... Bove argued that the Justice Department had fundamentally erred by running a stand-alone special counsel investigation without sufficient oversight.... Cannon has shown an eagerness to delve into a host of legal issues raised by the defense, including some that are more commonly raised on appeal in other cases." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Cannon's inquiry into DOJ finances is preposterous. It's as if the Supremes heard a ridiculous claim of presidential immunity in a specific case that could be easily dismissed -- and instead pulled their chinny-chin-chins & opined that their decision would be so far-reaching and consequential it would be "a rule for the ages." Oh, wait. ~~~
~~~ ** That Time Trump Sneaked down to Mar-a-Lago. Katherine Faulders of ABC News: "A trip to Mar-a-Lago taken by ... Donald Trump that aides allegedly 'kept quiet' just weeks before FBI agents searched the property for classified materials in his possession raised suspicions among special counsel Jack Smith's team as a potential additional effort to obstruct the government's classified documents investigation, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News. The previously unreported visit, which allegedly took place July 10-12 in the summer of 2022, was raised in several interviews with witnesses..., as investigators sought to determine whether it was part of Trump's broader alleged effort to withhold the documents after receiving a subpoena demanding their return. At least one witness who worked closely with the former president recalled being told at the time of the trip that Trump was there 'checking on the boxes,' according to sources familiar...."
Lisa Mascaro of the AP: "Tom Jones and his American Accountability Foundation are digging into the backgrounds, social media posts and commentary of key high-ranking government employees, starting with the Department of Homeland Security. They're relying in part on tips from his network of conservative contacts, including workers. In a move that alarms some, they're preparing to publish the findings online. With a $100,000 grant from the Heritage Foundation, the goal is to post 100 names of government workers to a website this summer to show a potential new administration who might be standing in the way of a second-term Trump agenda -- and ripe for scrutiny, reclassifications, reassignments or firings.... The effort, focused on top career government officials who aren't appointees within the political structure, has stunned democracy experts and shocked the civil service community in what they compare with the red scare of McCarthyism."
Tom Sullivan of Hullabaloo caught up on a few of Trump's latest deranged musings. Thanks to RAS for the link.
** Texas. Kaitlin Sullivan & Jason Kane of NBC News: "A Texas law that banned abortions in early pregnancy is associated with a stark increase in infant and newborn deaths, a study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics found.... Infant deaths in Texas rose by nearly 13% the year after SB8 was passed, from 1,985 in 2021 to 2,240 in 2022. During that same period, infant deaths rose by about 2% nationwide. Babies born with congenital anomalies also increased in Texas, by nearly 23%, but decreased by about3% nationwide. 'This is pointing to a causal effect of the policy; we didn't see this increase in infant deaths in other states,' said Alison Gemmill ... of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who led the research."
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Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "For decades, the Social Security Administration has denied thousands of people disability benefits by claiming they could find jobs that have all but vanished from the U.S. economy -- occupations like nut sorter, pneumatic tube operator and microfilm processor. On Monday, the agency will eliminate all but a handful of those unskilled jobs from a long-outdated database used to decide who gets benefits and who is denied, ending a practice that advocates have long decried as unfair and inaccurate. Commissioner Martin O'Malley's decision to jettison federal labor market data that was last updated 47 years ago follows a Washington Post investigation in December 2022 that revealed how the antiquated list of jobs was blocking many claimants who could not work from receiving vital monthly disability checks."
Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Postal Service has shared information from thousands of Americans' letters and packages with law enforcement every year for the past decade, conveying the names, addresses and other details from the outside of boxes and envelopes without requiring a court order. Postal inspectors say they fulfill such requests only when mail monitoring can help find a fugitive or investigate a crime. But a decade's worth of records, provided exclusively to The Washington Post in response to a congressional probe, show Postal Service officials have received more than 60,000 requests from federal agents and police officers since 2015, and that they rarely say no.... The practice is legal, and the inspectors said they share only what they can see on the outside of the mail; the Fourth Amendment requires them to get a warrant to peek inside."
Presidential Race
Peter Alexander, et al., of NBC News: "The Biden campaign and its allies plan to hold 1,600 events and run a new slate of TV and digital advertisements ahead of Thursday's presidential debate, which they called 'one of the first moments ... where a larger slice of the American electorate' will tune in to the campaign, according to a new memo obtained first by NBC News. The events will include a nationwide mobilization of surrogates, events targeting groups the campaign sees as crucial to its coalition, like members of the LGBTQ community and college students, and 300 debate night watch parties.... [President] Biden is spending several days at Camp David preparing for Thursday's debate, including going toe-to-toe with his personal lawyer Bob Bauer, who is role-playing as Trump. Bauer also played Trump during debate preparation in 2020. Bauer is joined by a slew of Biden confidants who are working to prepare the president ahead of the debate, including former chief of staff Ron Klain, campaign chair Jennifer O'Malley Dillon and White House senior adviser Anita Dunn."
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld in a New York Times op-ed: "Recent headlines suggest that our nation's business leaders are embracing the presidential candidate Donald Trump.... That is far from the truth.... Mr. Trump continues to suffer from the lowest level of corporate support in the history of the Republican Party.... Not a single Fortune 100 chief executive has donated to the candidate so far this year, which indicates a major break from overwhelming business and executive support for Republican presidential candidates dating back over a century.... Their legitimate misgivings about [President] Biden are overwhelmed by worries about Mr. Trump, version 2024. Mr. Trump's primary conduits to the business community in his first term ... are gone, replaced by MAGA extremists and junior varsity opportunists.... Mr. Trump and his team are doubling down on some of his most anti-business instincts, including proposing draconian 10 percent tariffs on all imports; unorthodox monetary and fiscal policies, including stripping the Federal Reserve Board of its independence;... and devaluing the dollar -- all of which would drive inflation much higher."
Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story: "During an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday morning, a former executive vice president of the Trump Organization revealed that her former boss thought it was funny to make jokes about the Nazi ovens around Jewish employees. Speaking with host Ali Velshi, attorney Barbara Res, who worked for the former president for years before reportedly leaving because she refused to tolerate his 'explosive moods' any longer, was asked if the 'weird rants' he has been going on lately are something new.... [Res recalled] '... a time when we had just hired a residential manager, a German guy, and he [Trump] was bragging amongst executives about how great the guy was and he was a real gentleman and so neat and clean and then he looked at a couple of our executives who happen to be Jewish, and he said "Watch out for this guy, he sort of remembers the ovens," and then smiled.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: There was always something terribly wrong with Trump.
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Fenit Nirappil of the Washington Post: "State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinin protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among covid-cautious Americans. Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper's (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident where masked protesters on a train shouted, 'Raise your hands if you're a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.' Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with arrest for covering their faces. Decades-old laws against masking -- often crafted in response to the hooded terror of the Ku Klux Klan -- are on the books in at least 18 states and D.C., according to the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law. Lawmakers in some areas passed legislation to create health exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic while other authorities vowed not to enforce the statutes."
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E.U. Adam Satariano & Tripp Mickle of the New York Times: "Apple is imposing unfair restrictions on developers of applications for its App Store in violation of a new European Union law meant to encourage competition in the tech industry, regulators in Brussels said on Monday. The charges further escalated a tussle between Apple, which says its products are designed in the best interest of customers, and E.U. regulators, who say the company is unfairly using its size and considerable resources to stifle competition."
Israel/Palestine, et al.
The New York Times' live updates of developments Monday in the Israel/Hamas war are here.
Michael Schwartz, et al., of CNN: "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his decision to go public about delays in the supply of weapons from the United States, saying months of private discussions did not yield any results.... Netanyahu claimed on Tuesday that the Biden administration was 'withholding weapons' in a video posted to X, claiming that Secretary of State Antony Blinken 'assured me that the administration is working day and night to remove these bottlenecks.' In response, US envoy Amos Hochstein told Netanyahu that his comments were 'unproductive' and 'more importantly, completely untrue.'... Amid the dispute, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday reiterated the importance of Israel's relations with Washington ahead of a visit where he is scheduled to meet his US counterpart, Lloyd Austin, Blinken and other senior US officials. 'The United States is our most important and central ally. Our ties are crucial and perhaps more important than ever, at this time,' Gallant told reporters, according to a statement from the Israeli defense ministry."
Russia. Anton Troianovski & Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "Gunmen attacked synagogues and churches in two cities in southern Russia on Sunday, killing multiple police officers and a priest, in an apparently coordinated assault that underscored Russia's vulnerability to extremist violence. Officials said six of the gunmen were killed after shootouts in the two cities, Makhachkala and Derbent, in the predominantly Muslim region of Dagestan on the Caspian Sea. Wielding rifles and Molotov cocktails, they attacked a synagogue and a church in each of the two cities, according to the authorities and religious organizations."
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Reader Comments (17)
I've missed, or closed my eyes to, a series in the New York Times named "At the Brink " "about the threat of nuclear weapons in an unstable world." The most recent in the series by W.J. Hennigan
describes, in video, photos, and text, post WW2 testing and testing consequences around the world, noting, for instance,
"In the United States alone, a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that every person in the continental United States who has been alive since 1951 has had some exposure to radioactive fallout from nuclear testing.
...
As tensions deepen in America's relations with Russia and China, satellite images reveal all three nations are actively expanding their nuclear testing facilities, cutting roads and digging new tunnels at long-dormant proving grounds, including in Nevada.
...
Biden administration is adamant that technological advances have made it unnecessary to resume full-scale testing, but in May it began the first in a series of subcritical tests to ensure America’s modern nuclear warheads would still work as designed."
And in another reason to fear a trump presidency,
"this week his former national security adviser offered a possible preview of Mr. Trump’s second term by publicly urging him to restart the nuclear testing program."
The Toll
Some things are terribly wrong with Trump.
Attack the weak bully.
David Corn
"How Biden Could Rattle Trump in Their First Debate
[Some examples]
Hey, Mr. Master Builder[...]
Remember all the times you bragged that you only hire the best people?
I’ve never fallen asleep in the middle of a criminal trial[.]
You promised Americans a health care plan that would be cheaper and better than the Affordable Care Act. But you never delivered one.
On January 6, while rioters attacked the Capitol, you sat there, did nothing, and watched television."
Emptywheel
"a bank owned by Egypt said it couldn’t comply with a subpoena seeking information on a suspected [$10 million dollar] payment to Trump during the 2016 election, in part, because China’s laws would prevent that"
@Laura Hunter: If you have Amazon movie streaming, see
Oppenheimer (2023). Development of the bomb, or bombs,
atomic and hydrogen.
Thanks Forrest. While I don't have Amazon, perhaps I can find it elsewhere, along with that classic The Atomic Cafe.
laura hunter,
You may also be interested in checking out two books by historian and journalist Richard Rhodes, “The Making of the Atomic Bomb” and “Dark Sun: the Making of the Hydrogen Bomb”. Both are exhaustively researched and very well written, with a wealth of first person accounts of scientists, technicians, and policy experts who were part of these projects.
Speaking of nuclear arms, as there is such a tsunami of crap spewing out of the orange caldera, or revelations of past declarations. it’s easy to miss such astounding pronouncements as Trump promising to “shoot first” if there is a possibility of nuclear war.
So much of what this dangerous idiot says is complete bullshit, but can we take a chance on which are true and which are not?
Drug test for thee but not for me!
The latest pivot by Team Trump prior to either his total humiliation at the upcoming debate, or yet another cowardly decision to turn tail and waddle away, is the adoption by everyone in MAGA World, including Trump TV—Fox—that Biden, who up til a short time ago was described as a doddering idiot, will be a debate genius due to being “jacked up” on performance enhancing drugs, perhaps provigil, or cocaine, or adderal
And because, as they say without a shred of proof, this will be a surety, Trump hacks like Doc Ronny (Candyman) Jackson and Sean Hannity are demanding Biden be drug tested.
Interestingly, there’s no similar demand that actual doddering idiot Trump be drug tested.
But don’t forget who is making these demands, and remember, pretty much everything spewing out of Magastan is projection of some sort:
“Attorney Jeffrey Evan Gold wrote on X on Sunday, ‘Wait...The same Dr. Ronny who was drunk on the job wildly prescribing drugs inappropriately to White House staff? That Doc Ronny?’
Gold's comments come in reference to a 2021 Pentagon report that found Jackson made ‘sexual and denigrating statements about one of his female medical subordinates’ and noted instances in which he ‘engaged in alcohol-related misconduct, including wrecking a government vehicle while intoxicated.’”
Former Trump White House staffers routinely referred to Doc Ronny as the “Candyman”. You want a controlled substance without a proper prescription? Go see the Candyman.
“Sarah Reese Jones, a White House and political analyst at PoliticusUSA, wrote in an X post: ‘Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), who an IG report found was drunk and on drugs while serving as White House physician, claims that Biden is on PEDs [performance-enhancing drugs] and wants Biden to 'Submit to a drug test before and after this debate specifically looking for performance-enhancing drugs.'
X user Russell Drew also wrote on Sunday, ‘Always keep an eye on Congressman Ronny Jackson. If he's not handing out prescription pills like Pez candy, he's slyly taking a swig from his flask. The man is well known as a drunkard who can't be trusted around female coworkers. Unfit for office.’”
Doc Ronny goes on to outline what he sees as the sort of plan necessary to get a doddering idiot candidate ready for the upcoming debate with just the right mix of drug cocktails. He was suspiciously very precise about what he claims is being done for Biden. So precise, it’s not hard to consider that this is exactly what Fatty’s people are up to.
Projection is confession for these cheating liars.
The Hill
"Young voters backing Biden over Trump by 23-point margin: Poll
The CBS News/YouGov poll found 61 percent of likely voters younger than 30 surveyed support Biden while 38 percent support Trump. These voters are more likely to say abortion, climate change, and race and diversity issues would impact their vote than those older than 30."
Thanks for the suggestions, Akhilleus. Titles noted. Looking through the library catalog for Richard Rhodes, I noticed he wrote Hedy's Folly about celebrity and inventor Hedy Lamarr. Now that sounds like it would make an interesting and inspiring Greta Gerwig film!
Though Mr. Sonnenfeld doesn't make this distinction, the way I'd put it is to distinguish between business leaders, those who devote their hours to make their businesses function well, and oligarchs, who have little to do but use their vast wealth to destroy the government that taxes them.
The NYT chose to run two stories about looming economic crises: supply chain disruptions and banks offloading bad commercial real estate loans three days before the debate?
David Feldman,
Look for additional spurious ammunition offered to the Trump camp from the Times prior to the debate.
AG, still stung by not being treated by Biden as a media god whose demands for one on one interviews cannot be denied, needs to show the President who is in charge here. You diss AG, he will screw you, democracy be damned. If that means screwing the entire country into the bargain, so be it. Sulzberger has clearly indicated that preserving democracy, rule of law, and truth itself are not his concern.
AP
"A U.S. bankruptcy court trustee is planning to shut down conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ Infowars media platform and liquidate its assets to help pay the $1.5 billion in lawsuit judgments Jones owes for repeatedly calling the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a hoax."
Huffpost
"U.S. companies have created more than 300,000 clean energy jobs since President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law in August 2022, according to a detailed new analysis from an environmental advocacy group.
Other researchers have projected the law will create more than 5 million clean energy jobs over the next decade."
laura,
Great idea. Hedy Lamarr’s frequency hopping hypothesis was ingenious. She, of course, didn’t make a cent off that idea. By the time the military realized what a useful concept it was, the patent had run out so they got to use it for nothing. Nice, huh?
Anyway, a Greta Gerwig film based on Lamarr’s idea, which developed the theory that became WiFi, would be très intéressant, as we non-real ‘mericans might say. I loved her film “Lady Bird”. Her take on “Little Women” is without a doubt the best version of that novel ever shot. Louisa May, methinks, would have approved.
The link to that story about Jake Tapper and Dana Bash being biased? I’m thinking now of Trump Official Testicle Holder (tweezers will suffice) Sean Hannity, who has been yelping like an animal caught in a trap, that Tapper and Bash are “fake hosts”. Just think about those claims for a second.
First, they’re either hosts or they’re not. There’s no “fake” here. Employing that word is pure MAGA laziness and stupidity, used to whip up Fatty’s sub-room temperature IQ drooling MAGAts: “Fake hosts??? Aieeee!!!”
Jesus. Fuck off, okay?
Then the idea that the hosts are “biased”. They pose questions and the candidates answer. To a really sharp, smart respondent, biased hosts wouldn’t matter. In fact, a smart candidate could flip an obviously biased query around and smack the questioner upside the head, because the hosts are not there to debate, merely to pose a question. Just imagine a quick wit like Obama being hit with a stupid question. He’d smile, then tie the questioner in knots.
The suggestion that the hosts MUST be biased is an acknowledgement that the Dear Leader is helpless without the usual softball questions kindly (and TRULY biased) ball suckers like Hannity feed him on a silver spoon, and so having to think for himself would be manifestly unfaaaiiirr!
Waaaah! Poor Donald.
Again: fuck off.