Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

As I mentioned last month, Donald Trump's quixotic quest to block the Justice Department's investigation into his trove of illegally held classified documents will now be going to the Supreme Court, or it would, if Trump's lawyers were actually arguing that.

 

Former President Donald J. Trump asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to intervene in the litigation over sensitive documents that the F.B.I. seized from his Florida estate, saying that an appeals court had lacked jurisdiction to remove them from a special master’s review.

But Mr. Trump’s lawyers did not ask the Supreme Court to overturn the most important part of the appeals court’s intervention: its decision to free the Justice Department to continue using documents with classification markings in its criminal investigation of Mr. Trump’s handling of government records.

The new filing was technical, saying that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, had not been authorized to stay aspects of a judge’s order appointing a special master to review all materials that the F.B.I. had seized in its search of Mr. Trump’s residence, Mar-a-Lago.

“The 11th Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review the special master order, which authorized the review of all materials seized from President Trump’s residence, including documents bearing classification markings,” the application said.

The court requested a response from the Justice Department by 5 p.m. next Tuesday.

Even were Mr. Trump to prevail, his victory would be distinctly modest. It would merely allow the special master to review those documents even as the Justice Department continues its work.

Although the Supreme Court is dominated by six conservative justices, three of them appointed by Mr. Trump, it has rejected earlier efforts to block the disclosure of information about him, and legal experts said Mr. Trump’s new emergency application faced significant challenges.

Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, said Mr. Trump was pursuing a limited and curious litigation strategy in trying to reinstate part of a ruling from Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the Southern District of Florida.

Mr. Trump’s application, Professor Vladeck said, presented “technical procedural questions on which the justices may be even less likely to be sympathetic to the former president.”

In other words, the Trumpies are arguing over how much should be included in Special Master Raymond Dearie's review, not over blocking the investigation. The former is likely to grant Trump additional months to delay the investigation, and the latter means nothing's going to happen until after the midterms.

We'll see how this shakes out, but don't be surprised if we get a shadow docket unsigned order from SCOTUS next week in Trump's favor.

Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Con't

A key race for Democrats to hold the Senate is Georgia, where Sen. Raphael Warnock is locked in a tight race with Republican and former NFL running back all-star Herschel Walker.

Having said that, I don't think it's going to remain tightly locked much longer after the week Walker has had, as AJC's Greg Bluestein assesses the damage.

Republican Senate nominee Herschel Walker has weathered crises that have leveled other campaigns and still remained within striking distance of Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock thanks to relatively unshakable support from many in the GOP base.

But the one-two punch on Monday of a Daily Beast story that accused Walker of paying for his then-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009 coupled with his adult son’s stunning attacks on his father’s candidacy may pose the greatest threat yet to the Republican’s bid.

Just weeks before the midterm election, the shocking developments have some GOP figures despondent about Walker’s chances of defeating Warnock in a November race that could determine control of the U.S. Senate.

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson said the fallout is “probably a KO” for Walker’s midterm chances. Nicole Rodden, a former Republican House contender, blamed party leaders for backing a candidate who has “cost the GOP the US Senate for a second time.”

Walker reacted by condemning the Daily Beast report as a “flat-out lie” and said on Fox News he “never asked anyone to get an abortion, I never paid for an abortion.” His attorney has pledged to file a defamation lawsuit against the publication, which stands by the story.

The Republican and his allies had a more muted response toward his son Christian Walker’s claims that his father threatened to kill his family members and entered the race despite opposition from “every single one” of his relatives.

“I LOVE my son no matter what,” Walker tweeted.

The developments complicate Walker’s campaign at a pivotal time.

Already struggling to consolidate Republican support, Walker now stands accused of brazen hypocrisy over one of his campaign’s signature issues.

An avowed opponent of abortion, Walker called for a “total ban” on the procedure even in cases of incest or rape throughout his campaign. And he endorsed a 15-week federal abortion restriction proposed by U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham even as other Republicans in key races distanced themselves from the measure.

His son’s sudden outspoken treatment of his father amounts to a different sort of blow. Christian Walker’s mother, Cindy Grossman accused Herschel Walker of choking her and putting a gun to her head when they were married. She obtained a restraining order against him in 2005 in response to the threats.

Warnock’s ads feature wrenching footage of Grossman recounting his abusive relationship, and the Republican has refused to directly address the allegations on the campaign trail beyond attributing his behavior to a mental health illness.

Though he runs influential social media accounts with droves of followers, Christian Walker hasn’t used his platform to advance his father’s campaign. His arms-length approach was an ongoing concern for his father’s supporters -- and the subject of ongoing fascination in political circles.

 

Now nationally, Republicans don't care about hypocrisy, and every single Republican will tell you that the end of legalized abortion in two dozen states means more voters will turn out for them to make the ban national than Democrats to stop it.

National Republicans have stayed focused on the Georgia race’s impact in the broader contest for control of the Senate. “This election is about the future of the country,” Mr. Law said. “Herschel Walker will make things better, Raphael Warnock is making it worse. Anything else is a distraction.”

Mr. Warnock, who won the seat in a runoff election in January 2021, is seeking a full six-year term and is seen as one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the nation, running in a state with a long Republican lineage but that Democrats carried in 2020.

Since Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, many Christian conservatives have chosen to overlook a politician’s personal failings for the sake of achieving broader policy goals.

Ralph Reed, the prominent social conservative leader based in the state, dismissed the latest report, saying that he expected “100 percent” that evangelical Christians would stick with Mr. Walker.

He compared the report’s timing to that of the “Access Hollywood” recording that threatened Mr. Trump’s bid in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. “We’ve seen this movie before,” Mr. Reed said. “They’re trying to take down a good man.”

The statements of support from fellow Republicans came quickly on Tuesday.

Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said on Tuesday, “Herschel has denied these allegations and the N.R.S.C. and Republicans stand with him."

Except, locally, Georgia Republicans are running from Walker as fast as they can.

Gov. Brian Kemp’s office issued a statement Tuesday backing the Republican ticket after a cascade of revelations threatened Walker’s bid. But he stopped short of specifically pledging his support for the former football star.

“As he has said repeatedly throughout this campaign, the governor is laser-focused on sharing his record of results and vision for his second term with hardworking Georgians,” spokesman Cody Hall said, “and raising the resources necessary to fund the advertising, ground game and voter turnout operation needed to ensure Republican victories up and down the ballot on Nov. 8.”

And Attorney General Chris Carr would not say whether he continues to back Walker’s campaign, instead through a spokesman taking a shot at Kemp’s opponent, Stacey Abrams,without answering a question about the Republican Senate nominee.

 

Walker is, granted, only in trouble because there are so many undecided Georgia voters still.  Fox News and Marist College both have Warnock up by five points for example, but with double digit undecided voter percentages in both.

Then again, if you're still undecided about Republican candidates like Walker...this isn't going to change anything at all.

We'll see

Climate of Emergency, Con't

As millions of Florida residents try to put their lives aback together after Hurricane Ian last week, several things are becoming increasingly clear. The death toll will go up. The most marginalized in the path of the storm have the fewest resources to recover. More, and more powerful storms like Ian will hit Florida in the years to come. Insurance companies will help to rebuild and replace, but not infinitely. The mental and emotional health of storm victims will be just as important as physical.

And Republicans will do absolutely nothing about any of those problems.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz is calling for the US to send aid to Floridians in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian — but he also voted "no" to a bill that carved out cash for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, to do just that.

In a tweet on Sunday, Gaetz appealed for help after Hurricane Ian battered Florida. Ian was a Category 4 storm when it made landfall and pummeled the Florida coast, killing at least 76 people.

"Dear Congress: On behalf of my fellow Florida Man in grave need of assistance…. Just send us like half of what you sent Ukraine. Signed, Your Fellow Americans," Gaetz wrote on Twitter.

Gaetz's appeal for funding came two days after he — and 200 other Republicans — voted against a stopgap measure that sought to fund the government through December. Among other provisions, the bill also gave $18.8 billion to FEMA's disaster relief fund, $12 billion in aid for Ukraine, and $112 million to beef up security at federal courts.

Speaking on the House floor in support of the bill last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that passing the bill would free up disaster recovery funding that would "go toward supporting Florida as well as Puerto Rico, Alaska and other communities hit by disaster."

In the roll-call vote on Friday, 10 Republicans joined 220 Democrats in voting for the bill. It was signed into law by President Joe Biden on September 30.

In a video posted to his Twitter page on October 1, Gaetz said he voted against the bill because it had other spending priorities tagged to it as well.

"This was a piece of legislation regarding insulin prices. And they attached the entire funding of our government and Ukraine's to that bill so that these programs and these policy choices would not be subjected to committee review, and to hearings, and to markups and amendments," Gaetz said in the video.

 

Every single Florida Republican, including Gaetz and both Sens. Scott and Rubio, voted against every penny of the $18 billion in FEMA aid.  Ian is easily going to be the most expensive storm in Florida history, costing $60 billion or more by some estimates and the true cost will be far higher.

But Florida Republicans, given the opportunity to show that they support the federal government when it comes to giving the people the aid they need, said "go to hell, Florida" instead.

Oh, and GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis doesn't care either. He made sure the state's insurance providers would get rich off a multi-billion dollar slush fund for the next hurricane to hit. Now that Ian has devastated the state, rebuilding will now be impossible for tens of thousands. The insurance companies gave $700K to DeSantis's campaign war chest in return.

Republicans know climate change exists. They're happily profiting from the misery.

Keep that in mind.

Oil's Well That Does Not End Well, Con't

Looks like OPEC is weighing in on the 2022 midterms, with a "historic" production cut a month before US voters go to the polls, a cut big enough to drive oil well above $100 a barrel.

An influential alliance of some of the world’s most powerful oil producers is reportedly considering their largest output cut since the start of the coronavirus pandemic this week, a historic move that energy analysts say could push oil prices back toward triple digits.

OPEC and non-OPEC producers, a group often referred to as OPEC+, will meet in Vienna, Austria, on Wednesday to decide on the next phase of production policy.

The oil cartel and its allies are considering an output cut of more than a million barrels per day, according to OPEC+ sources who spoke to Reuters.

“The OPEC ministers are not going to come to Austria for the first time in two years to do nothing. So there’s going to be a cut of some historic kind,” Dan Pickering, CIO of Pickering Energy Partners, said, referring to the group’s first in-person meeting since 2020.

However, Pickering said he expects the actual number of barrels coming off the market will likely be around 500,000, which is “going to be enough to support the market in the near term.”

Oil prices rose around 4% on Monday morning.

International benchmark Brent crude futures popped 4% to $88.54 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures climbed 4.2% to trade at $82.83 per barrel.

 

The production cut could put gas prices well above $4 a gallon just in time for midterms, not to mention the price will drive global economies downward, including the US.

 

Seems like extortion to me, but there's not a lot President Biden can do about it.

 

You know, unless he wants to cut the Saudis loose completely.

 

We'll see, but this definitely seems like OPEC wants more Republicans.

 

Brazil, Nuts, Con't

Brazil's presidential election between current right-wing fascism-curious President Jair Bolsonaro and former President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva just got a whole lot more interesting as Bolsonaro, trailing by double digits, has suddenly found new life and new hope as he has forced a runoff in Sunday's first round.

Brazil's top two presidential candidates will face each other in a runoff vote after neither got enough support to win outright Sunday in an election to decide if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world's fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office.

With 99.5% of he votes tallied on Sunday's election, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had 48.3% support and President Jair Bolsonaro had 43.3% support. Nine other candidates were also competing, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.

The tightness of the result came as a surprise, since pre-election polls had given da Silva a commanding lead. The last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

"This tight difference between Lula and Bolsonaro wasn't predicted," said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said: "It is too soon to go too deep, but this election shows Bolsonaro's victory in 2018 was not a hiccup."

Bolsonaro outperformed in Brazil's southeast region, which includes populous Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states, according to Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.

"The polls didn't capture that growth," Cortez said.

Bolsonaro's administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.

But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values, rebuffing political correctness and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.

While voting earlier Sunday, Marley Melo, a 53-year-old trader in capital Brasilia, sported the yellow of the Brazilian flag, which Bolsonaro and his supporters have coopted for demonstrations. Melo said he is once again voting for Bolsonaro, who met his expectations, and he doesn't believe the surveys that show him trailing.

"Polls can be manipulated. They all belong to companies with interests," he said.

 

To recap, Brazil's version of Trump managed to avoid a blowout in the last week or so, with his popularity in the shitter, constantly questioning the accuracy of the polls and the integrity of the election itself for more than a year now., claiming his assured victory would be stolen by rigged voting machines.

But astonishingly, the election results find him able to force a runoff election when a total loss was expected, against the skyrocketing fortunes of Lula, whose conviction for corruption was thrown out by the country's Supreme Court as biased and political.

Imagine if Trump ran against Hillary Clinton again after having her locked up, and then her conviction overturned by SCOTUS, and you get the idea.

The runoff election will be held in 4 weeks on October 30.

It's a runoff that many folks, including myself, think should not be necessary, but here we are.

Last Call For The Road To Gilead Goes Through Arizona

The point of Arizona's abortion ban isn't just abortion, it's to make women and their families miserable, compliant, and to wipe out the most marginalized among us with the fewest resources in order to resist. 

 

A 14-year-old Tucson girl was denied a refill of a life-saving prescription drug she had been taking for years just two days after Arizona’s new abortion law had taken effect.

14 year old Emma Thompson has debilitating rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis which has kept her in and out of the hospital for most of her life. She relies on methotrexate to help tame the effects of the disease.

But methotrexate can also be used to end ectopic pregnancies, to induce an abortion and that’s where the problem arises.

“As a mother who has had to deal with my child being very ill most of her life, I was scared, I was really worried,” said her mother Kaitlin Preble. “I was shaking. I was in tears. I didn’t know what to do.”

The young girl’s physician, Dr. Deborah Jane Power said “this was the first pediatric patient that had been denied her medication.”

She admits she was angry which spilled over into a Twitter post where she said “welcome to Arizona, she was denied because she’s female” and she said she was “livid.”

The treatment for Emma has been years in the making.

“This child’s care has taken a lot of work to get her to a place her pain is totally manageable, she can attend school in person,” said Dr. Power.

Which is echoed by her mother.

“It’s her first year and she’s in high school and it feels like a dream,” Preble said. “She’s not in a wheelchair, she has a social life and friends for the first time and a life all young people should have.”

Which is why there was so much anxiety for the 24 hours between being denied until finally getting the prescription approved.

“I was scared, I was really scared,” Preble said. “I’m like if they deny this then we’ll have to find a different medication and we don’t know if it’s going to work.”

Dr. Power says a refusal has happened to some older patients but never someone so young and so quickly after the territorial abortion law written in 1864 had taken effect.

“My concern was the pharmacist chose to not refill because methotrexate could be used to cause an abortion,” Dr. Power said. “And then the pharmacist would be responsible.”

 

And in state after state with these bans, pharmacists are risking felony prison time if they fill the "wrong" prescription, and people who use drugs that could be used to tend a pregnancy are facing life without them.

But the majority of white women are still going to vote for the people who did this, because they're scared too of the controlling men in their lives. Ladies, find the courage or your daughters are doomed.

Republicans hate women across the board.

Never forget that.

Sunday Long Read: Getting Schooled By TV

As Scalawag Magazine's Eteng Ettah reminds us in our Sunday Long Read, the most powerful and impactful fantasy show of 2022 isn't HBO's House of the Dragon, or Amazon's Ring of Power, but ABC's Abbott Elementary, where the fantasy is a Philadelphia elementary school that isn't swarming with "school resource officers" giving Black kids hundreds of dollars in fines each month.

 

Just like when the bus shows up as soon as you make it to the stop, Abbott Elementary came into my life right on time. Last fall, in addition to navigating the general crisis-laden state of the world, I had also been binge watching and tuning in to so many heavy and brooding dramas (think Succession, Scenes from a Marriage, Squid Game) that I desperately needed a change in pace. With Abbott Elementary, what I got was not only a cheerful single-camera mockumentary, but also an unexpectedly abolitionist storyline.

Abbott is easily among the best shows that premiered in this current TV season, and the Emmys are rewarding it with seven nominations. The show boasts a predominantly Black cast, with Quinta Brunson at the helm as the show's creator, executive producer, writer, and lead actress. Brunson builds a universe set in her hometown of Philly, offering a window into the low-resourced settings Black children often find themselves in.

Schools in the greater Philadelphia area are among the most segregated in the country. Although Black students comprise 56 percent of the study body attending public schools in Philadelphia, they receive 74 percent of in-school suspensions and 72 percent of out-of-school suspensions. Black schools are also heavily policed. According to data from the 2017-2018 school year, in 46 states, the rate at which Black students were referred to law enforcement was higher than the rate for all students. Last year, A Center for Public Integrity analysis of U.S. Department of Education data found that nationally, 4.5 students are referred to law enforcement for every 1,000 students enrolled in school.

According to the Pennsylvania Advisory Committee of the U.S. Commission on Human Rights, from 2015 to 2016, Pennsylvania ranked second in the nation in arrest rates for both Latinx and Black students. In Pennsylvania, Black students are three times as likely to be arrested as their white classmates with Black girls being five times as likely to be arrested as white girls.

But instead of giving cops a role in this storyline, Brunson bakes in abolitionist-aligned themes, like offering care, grace, and protection to the most marginalized members of a community (i.e. the Black children who attend Abbott Elementary); relying on community to improve and increase material resources in the school; and keeping school resource officers and cops out of the schoolhouse entirely. The latter is a significant choice by the writers, considering that poor, Black schools are mired by extensive police presence.

Abbott Elementary won 3 Emmys this year, for casting, writing, and for Best Supporting Actress in Sheryl Lee Ralph. The fantasy is that this is what American schools should be like, rather than the juvenile prisons most of them are.

The Elonator: Rise Of The Machines

Richest guy in the universe Elon Musk continues his slew of successful tax write-off projects that will not only fail spectacularly, but set yet another field back decades as it crashes and burns.

Tesla revealed on Friday a prototype of a humanoid robot that it says could be a future product for the automaker.

The robot, dubbed Optimus by Tesla, walked stiffly on stage at Tesla’s AI Day, slowly waved at the crowed and gestured with its hands for roughly one minute. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the robot was operating without a tether for the first time. Robotics developers often use tethers to support robots because they aren’t capable enough to walk without falling and damaging themselves.

The Optimus’ abilities appear to significantly trail what robots from competitors like Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics are capable of. Boston Dynamics robots have been seen doing back flips and performing sophisticated dance routines without a tether.

“The robot can actually do a lot more than we just showed you,” Musk said at the event. “We just didn’t want it to fall on its face.”

Tesla also showed videos of its robot performing simple tasks like carrying boxes and watering plants with a watering can.

Musk claimed that if the robot was produced in mass volumes it would “probably” cost less than $20,000. Tesla maintains that Optimus’ advantage over competitors will be its ability to navigate independently using technology developed from Tesla’s driver-assistance system “Full Self Driving,” as well as cost savings from what it has learned about manufacturing from its automotive division. (Tesla’s “Full Self Driving” requires a human that is alert and attentive, ready to take over at any time, as it is not yet capable of fully driving itself.)

Tesla has a history of aggressive price targets that it doesn’t ultimately reach. The Tesla Model 3 was long promised as a $35,000 vehicle, but could only very briefly be purchased for that price, and not directly on its website. The most affordable Tesla Model 3 now costs $46,990. When Tesla revealed the Cybertruck in 2019, its pick-up truck that remains unavailable for purchase today, it was said to cost $39,990, but the price has since been removed from Tesla’s website.

Tesla AI Day is intended largely as a recruiting event to attract talented people to join the company.

 

Let's keep in mind that Musk's Hyperloop nonsense was designed from the ground up to destroy mass transit and in particular high-speed rail, so that people would buy more cars. Tesla cars, you see. Now we have Tesla robots as the company goes after competitors like Boston Dynamics, Samsung, and Honda.

The M.O. is the same: overpromise, destroy the stock prices of the competition, then present a flop making the entire sector barren.  Tesla is finally making a profit, but that's because it stomped all over the EV market, one that Ford, GM, and Stellantis Chrysler are coming on like gangbusters now.

Elon's just a greedy ass.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorist Problem, Con't

MAGA terrorists continue to try to assassinate government officials in order to stop January 6th prosecutions of MAGA terrorists.

Shortly before midnight on July 21, police arrived at the home of a federal judge set to preside the next day over a plea hearing in Washington in a high-profile Jan. 6 prosecution.

In what law enforcement later described as a “swatting” incident, an unknown person had placed a call to an emergency services line pretending to be US District Judge Emmet Sullivan. The caller claimed a violent situation was unfolding at the judge’s home. Local police responded to the scene.

The officers found no threat and no one was injured. They determined the call was a hoax, albeit a dangerous one -- when armed police respond to an emergency call on high alert, it escalates the risk of someone getting hurt or killed. The following day, the US Marshals Service sent an email to all of the judges who serve in the federal courthouse in the nation’s capital describing the incident, offering tips to judges on how to stay safe, and noting a possible connection to the Jan. 6 case before Sullivan, according to a copy viewed by Bloomberg News.

The previously unreported incident illustrates the stakes of the rising threats that judges are facing in Washington as well as across the country. In the aftermath of a New Jersey federal judge’s son being killed in 2020, the federal judiciary urged lawmakers to take steps to make it harder for personal information -- such as their addresses -- to fall into malicious hands but legislation has stalled in Congress.

In Washington, federal judges are handling hundreds of cases linked to the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol. The prosecutions, some of which involve far-right figures with large online followings, have presented their own particular set of security challenges.

Acting Marshal Lamont Ruffin wrote judges in the July 22 email that his office believed whoever called in the swatting hoax may have been trying to “intimidate” Sullivan into postponing a plea hearing that day. Ruffin didn’t name the defendant, but court records show the only plea on Sullivan’s calendar at that time involved Anthime “Tim” Gionet, a far-right internet personality also known as “Baked Alaska.” Gionet, who live-streamed his entry into the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense and is scheduled to be sentenced in January.

Ruffin noted the defendant had a “significant social media following” and had used his online platforms to call “attention” to his case. While stressing there was no evidence the defendant who appeared before Sullivan was responsible for the call, Ruffin wrote that there had been other security incidents when that person had a previous court date.

 

So a January 6th terrorist with a huge social media following identified the judge in his case and brought attention to it, and his followers did the rest. Classic stochastic terrorism. 

And remember, in Texas, the 5th Circuit has all but guaranteed that there can be no efforts whatsoever to regulate these kinds of social media terrorism attacks because of "free speech".

 

If Judge Sullivan was Black, for instance, would he have been "mistaken for a suspect" and killed by police?

Understand that there's a concerted effort by the right to kill people on the left, stoking anger to destroy, and the victims will be the most marginalized among us.

We live in dangerous times, and they are only getting more dangerous.

Last Call For Ukraine On The Membrane, Con't

As Russian President Vladimir Putin declared in a fiery speech earlier today that the Donbas region is now part of Russia, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has all but been assured of a fast track to NATO membership, the US is trying even more economic sanctions in the hope they'll cause some pain.

 

The US is imposing what it describes as “swift and severe costs” on Russia, including sanctions on a figure the Biden administration says is key to Russia’s economy, after President Vladimir Putin announced the annexation of regions of Ukraine following what the West casts as “sham referenda.”

Putin signed documents on Friday to formally begin the process of annexing four regions of Ukraine during a ceremony in the Kremlin, a clear violation of international law amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began seven months ago.

US officials have been working behind the scenes to coordinate their response with allies over the course of the last several days and deploy it immediately after Putin’s official action, people familiar with the process said. The response marks an escalation and expansion of the most sweeping sanctions regime ever to target a major economy, one that has been steadily ramped up throughout the more than seven months since Russia’s invasion.

The US, a Biden administration official said, is “targeting additional Russian government officials and leaders, their family members, Russian and Belarusian military officials, and defense procurement networks, including international suppliers supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex” through announcements from the Departments of Treasury, Commerce, and State.

The US actions, which include a combination of export controls, visa restrictions and asset freezes, serve as an effort to further clamp down on Russian supply chains – and the individuals directing the efforts - critical to maintaining the war effort. US officials and their allies have closely monitored real-time Russian efforts to circumvent sanctions already in place to curtail access to critical components for the defense industry, and many of the new targets come from that effort.

That includes sanctions from the Treasury Department on a key player in keeping the Russian economy afloat: Elvira Nabiullina, an economist who has been leading Russia’s central bank since 2013.

President Joe Biden sharply condemned Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory in a statement Friday.

“The United States condemns Russia’s fraudulent attempt today to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory. Russia is violating international law, trampling on the United Nations Charter, and showing its contempt for peaceful nations everywhere,” Biden said, adding that those actions have “no legitimacy” and will continue to “always honor Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.”

He also urged “all members of the international community to reject Russia’s illegal attempts at annexation and to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday that the “United States unequivocally rejects Russia’s fraudulent attempt to change Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders.”

“We will continue the United States’ powerful, coordinated efforts to hold Russia to account, cut Russia’s military off from global commerce and severely limit its ability to sustain its aggression and project power,” he said.

 

The problem is, Putin has been planning this for a long time.

Putin has spent years building up his defenses, amassing hundreds of billions in foreign currency reserves, bringing much of Russia’s industrial base under state control and selling Russia’s vast energy resources to the world. US officials grudgingly acknowledge that Nabiullina has done an effective job managing Russia through this initial phase of the sanctions, just as she did in 2014 after Putin’s Crimea annexation triggered a much less severe round of sanctions from the West.

This time, Nabiullina has deftly raised interest rates, imposed capital controls, and sought holes and workarounds to float an economy under siege – an effort that came even as the US and allies took the unprecedented step of targeting the central bank directly with sanctions shortly after the invasion.

“A good central banker can do things to buoy the currency,” one senior US official said earlier this year. “They have a very good central banker. We knew that then; we know it now.”

 

So yes, sanctions have not wrecked the Putin economy just yet, but it has done a lot of damage to the US and EU. Putin is hoping he can force Ukraine to sue for peace with his newly annexed territories intact, especially if energy prices remain sky high.

He may not be wrong. At the very least, we see what the result of that damage has achieved: recent elections in Sweden, Italy, and the Baltics have meant to the rise of Russia-friendly fascism there, and the same is happening here in the US.

Would a GOP controlled Senate block any more aid to Ukraine?

I would say that's a very good possibility.

Orange Meltdown, Con't

Trump's personal federal court judge, Aileen "Loose" Cannon, continues to be a national embarrassment and enduring symbol of Trump corruption, this time proving beyond any doubt that the Trump regime's odious "Special Master" plan was just a delay tactic to prevent Trump from being indicted before the midterm elections.

Judge Aileen M. Cannon told Donald Trump’s lawyers Thursday that they did not need to comply with an order from special master Raymond J. Dearie and state in a court filing whether they believe FBI agents lied about documents seized from the former president’s Florida residence.

Thursday’s ruling was the first clash between Cannon, a Trump appointee who has generally shown the former president deference in litigation over the Mar-a-Lago investigation, and Dearie, a federal judge she appointed as an outside expert in the case, who appears to be far more skeptical of Trump.

After Trump’s lawyers requested a special master, Cannon chose Dearie to review approximately 11,000 documents seized Aug. 8 from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club and residence and determine whether any should be shielded from investigators because of attorney-client or executive privilege.

An appeals court separately overruled Cannon’s decision that about 100 additional documents that the government says are classified — some of them top-secret — should be part of Dearie’s review.

Dearie last week told the former president’s legal team that it couldn’t suggest in court filings that the government’s description of the seized documents — including whether they were classified — was inaccurate without providing any evidence. He ordered them to submit to the court by Oct. 7 any specific inaccuracies they saw in the government’s inventory list of seized items.

It would have been a key test of Trump’s legal strategy, as his lawyers decided whether to back up Trump’s controversial public claims that the FBI planted items at his residence and that he had declassified all the classified documents before leaving office — or whether they would take a more conciliatory approach.

 

Dearie told the Trump team to submit evidence that the FBI "planted" documents at Mar-a-Lago during the August search because the main argument from Trump's legal eagles is that the FBI permanently tainted the investigation by doing so, and that Special Master Dearie was there to serve up justice for this foul misdeed.

 

Judge Cannon simply threw that order out.

 

But according to Cannon, who has the authority to overrule Dearie’s orders, such a decision is not required right now.

“There shall be no separate requirement on Plaintiff at this stage, prior to the review of any of the Seized Materials, to lodge ex ante final objections to the accuracy of Defendant’s Inventory, its descriptions, or its content,” Cannon wrote.

The Justice Department could appeal.

Trump’s legal team has argued that answering questions about the inventory list and whether the documents are classified could put them at a disadvantage in the face of a possible future criminal prosecution, or a future legal fight over getting the seized documents returned to Trump.

When Trump defense attorney James M. Trusty told Dearie earlier this month that he should not be forced to disclose declarations and witness statements yet, Dearie replied: “My view is you can’t have your cake and eat it.”

Cannon also addressed ongoing disputes Thursday over deadlines set by Dearie as part of his review, siding with Trump’s team and extending the special master review deadline to Dec. 16. She had originally said Dearie could have until around Thanksgiving to settle any disagreements the two parties had over privilege issues.

Dearie had suggested he could work on a more expedited schedule and told the parties they would need to finish their portions of the review by Oct. 21. Trump’s team had pushed back against that deadline, saying it was too fast and that they couldn’t find a vendor to scan the documents that was willing to work on that timeline.

“This modest enlargement is necessary to permit adequate time for the Special Master’s review and recommendations given the circumstances as they have evolved since entry of the Appointment Order,” Cannon wrote in her order.

 

Cannon is going to such stretching extremes for Trump, it's a wonder Disney isn't looking to cast her a Helen "Elastigirl" Parr for a live-action adaptation of The Incredibles. 

 

And now the investigation may be delayed into next year, where Trump is hoping a GOP Congress will interfere with, block, or even eliminate the investigation completely somehow.

All the while, Judge Cannon will do everything she can to bog the investigation down. It's the kind of thing that should lead to her removal as a judge, but the GOP will never allow that.

So on the farce goes, music, pratfalls, and all.

The Loan Arranger Heads For The Hills

As Republican Attorneys General in six states are suing the Biden Administration over student loan relief, the Department of Education is drastically cutting back on who qualifies for the program because of fears it will be eliminated altogether by the Supreme Court.

In a remarkable reversal that will affect the fortunes of many student loan borrowers, the U.S. Department of Education has quietly changed its guidance around who qualifies for President Biden's sweeping student debt relief plan.

At the center of the change are borrowers who took out federal student loans many years ago, both Perkins loans and Federal Family Education Loans. FFEL loans, issued and managed by private banks but guaranteed by the federal government, were once the mainstay of the federal student loan program until the FFEL program ended in 2010.

Today, according to federal data, more than 4 million borrowers still have commercially-held FFEL loans. Until Thursday, the department's own website advised these borrowers that they could consolidate these loans into federal Direct Loans and thereby qualify for relief under Biden's debt cancellation program.

On Thursday, though, the department quietly changed that language. The guidance now says, "As of Sept. 29, 2022, borrowers with federal student loans not held by ED cannot obtain one-time debt relief by consolidating those loans into Direct Loans."

An administration official tells NPR this change will not affect all 4 million borrowers with commercially-held FFEL loans. The official said many FFEL borrowers also have Direct Loans and so can still qualify to consolidate those FFEL loans, though that detail was not included in the department's updated guidance.

Ultimately, this administration official says, roughly 800,000 borrowers would be directly affected.

It's unclear why the department reversed its decision on allowing FFEL borrowers with commercially-held loans to consolidate and then qualify for debt relief.

In a statement to NPR, a department spokesperson says, "Our goal is to provide relief to as many eligible borrowers as quickly and easily as possible, and this will allow us to achieve that goal while we continue to explore additional legally-available options to provide relief to borrowers with privately owned FFEL loans and Perkins loans, including whether FFEL borrowers could receive one-time debt relief without needing to consolidate. Borrowers with privately held federal student loans who applied to consolidate their loans into Direct Loans before September 29, 2022 will obtain one-time debt relief. The FFEL program is now defunct and only a small percentage of borrowers have FFEL loans."

The tell in that statement is "legally-available."

Multiple legal experts tell NPR the reversal in policy was likely made out of concern that the private banks that manage old FFEL loans could potentially file lawsuits to stop the debt relief, arguing that Biden's plan would cause them financial harm.

When FFEL borrowers consolidate their old loans into federal Direct Loans, these private banks essentially lose business. If these banks' financial health depends, at least in part, on the assumption that they would be holding and profiting from these debts over the long-term, then losing borrowers to Biden's debt relief plan could, possibly, constitute harm.

In fact, a new lawsuit filed Thursday by six state attorneys general, makes this very argument. One of the plaintiffs, Missouri, is home to MOHELA, which manages both federal Direct Loans and these old FFEL program loans.

"The consolidation of MOHELA's FFELP loans harms the entity by depriving it of an asset (the FFELP loans themselves) that it currently owns," says the complaint. "The consolidation of MOHELA's FFELP loans harms the entity by depriving it of the ongoing interest payments that those loans generate."

 

As I mentioned on Wednesday, the issue is standing. In order to sue the government over government policy, you have to show that you are being directly and negatively affected by that policy. Banks being out billions like this definitely seems like something that qualifies, and yes, I expect the courts will side with the banks and the GOP, and this program will end up in the scrap heap.

The people who told you "Biden can cancel all student debt with a stroke of a pen" didn't bother to add "and would be sued for damages and lose in the courts".

Republicans are more than happy to force you to pay back your student loans, too.  They care about banks, not people.

Might want to keep that in mind.

Last Call For Vote Like Your Country Depends On It

The biggest failure in political punditry in the last two decades has been "Demography as Destiny" fronted by people like Ruy Teixeira and John Judis, that Latino voters would flood states like Texas and Florida and make them blue. The thing is though, the Latino community, like the Black community, is not monolithic. A lot of Latino folks consider themselves as white, and vote reliably Republican. What gains Democrats have made with non-white Latino voters in the Trump era have been offset by white Latino Trump voters...and white voters in general.

But the whole "Democrats are going to lose Latino voters to the GOP" thing is a lie too.

Nearly two years after former President Donald Trump won more Latino votes than he did in 2016, a new Pew Research Center survey of Latino adults finds that most say the Democratic Party cares about Latinos and works hard to earn their vote. Significantly fewer say the same of the Republican Party. At the same time, fewer than half of Latinos say they see a major difference between the parties, despite living in a deeply polarized era amid growing partisan hostility.

When it comes to the Democratic Party, the survey finds majorities of Latino adults express positive views of it. Some 71% say the Democratic Party works hard for Latinos’ votes, 63% say it “really cares about Latinos,” and 60% say the Democratic Party represents the interests of people like themselves. By contrast, shares of Latinos say the same of the Republican Party on each statement, though a somewhat greater share (45%) say that the GOP “works hard to earn the votes of Latinos.”

While the majority of Latinos have positive views of the Democratic Party, not all do. For example, about a third (34%) say the statement “the Democratic Party really cares about Latinos” does not describe their views well, and a similar share says the same about the statement “the Democratic Party represents the interests of people like you.”

Negative assessments extend to both parties. According to the survey, about one-in-five Latinos (22%) say neither of these statements describe their views well: “The Democratic Party really cares about Latinos” and “The Republican Party really cares about Latinos.”

In addition, substantial minorities of Hispanic partisans say they have at least a somewhat favorable view of the opposing party on several measures, though sharp differences exist by party affiliation among Hispanics.

Roughly a third of Latino Republicans and GOP leaners (36%) say “the Democratic Party really cares about Latinos” describes their views at least somewhat well, while 21% of Latino Democrats and Democratic leaners say “the Republican Party really cares about Latinos” describes their views at least somewhat well.

Meanwhile, more than half of Hispanic Republicans and Republican leaners (56%) say “the Democratic Party works hard to earn Latinos’ votes” describes their views at least somewhat well, while about a third of Hispanic Democrats and Democratic leaners (35%) say “the Republican Party works hard to earn Latinos’ votes” describes their views at least somewhat well.

At the same time, about half of Hispanics do not see a great deal of difference between what the Democratic and Republican parties stand for, with 36% saying there is a fair amount of difference and 16% saying there is hardly any difference at all between the parties.

Meanwhile, 45% see a great deal of difference between the parties. About equal shares of Hispanic Democrats and Democratic leaners (47%) and Hispanic Republicans and Republican leaners (48%) say there is a great deal of difference between the parties.

These findings emerge from the 2022 National Survey of Latinos by Pew Research Center. The bilingual, nationally representative survey of 3,029 Latino adults was conducted online from Aug. 1-14, 2022. It explores Latinos’ views about U.S. political parties and key issues leading up to November’s midterm elections.

 

Increasingly, Latinos are becoming America's most important swing voter category. Right now, Democrats still hold a large lead with Latino voters, but that's not a guarantee anymore. With half of Latinos seeing no difference between the parties, Democrats do have to work hard to show that there is.

And the abortion issue may finally be the thing that does it.

 

A majority of Hispanics (57%) say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, a slightly smaller share than among the U.S. public overall (62%). Four-in-ten Hispanics say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

Views on abortion diverge sharply by party, reflecting the diversity of attitudes among Hispanics. About two-thirds of Hispanic Democrats (68%) say abortion should be legal in most or all cases. By contrast, about six-in-ten Hispanic Republicans (62%) say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. Hispanic independents and those who do not identify as partisans have more evenly divided views. However, opinions among Hispanic independents who lean toward a party closely resemble those of partisans: 69% of Democratic leaners say abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 58% of Republican leaners say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases.

Among Latino Democrats and Democratic leaners, 84% of liberals say abortion should be legal in most or all cases while six-in-ten conservatives and moderates say the same. Meanwhile, among Latino Republicans and GOP leaners, 69% of conservatives say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, compared with 53% of moderates and liberals.

Views on abortion are also sharply divided by religion. About two-thirds of Latino evangelical Protestants (69%) say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases, while most Latino Catholics (58%) and Latinos with no religious affiliation (73%) say abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

 

There's been a lot of talk about how the Dobbs decision has motivated women to register to vote over the last three months, but I think a lot of pundits are sleeping on the number of Hispanic voters who have been motivated to register and vote over Dobbs as well. 

In a big turnout midterm year like I'm expecting in 2022, Latino voters may be the difference in Dems keeping and losing the House.

Vote like your country depends on it.

Spies Like Us, Con't

A married pair of American doctors, one from John Hopkins, the other an US Army Major, have been indicted for trying to sell US military medical info to an FBI Agent posing as a Russian embassy official.

 

A Johns Hopkins anesthesiologist and her spouse, a doctor and major in the U.S. Army, were federally indicted for attempting to provide medical information about members of the military to the Russian government.

Anna Gabrielian and Jamie Lee Henry, who had a secret security clearance as a doctor at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, communicated and met with an undercover FBI agent who they believed was from the Russian embassy, offering sensitive medical information on military members and their family, the indictment alleges.

During an initial Aug. 17 meeting in a Baltimore hotel room, Gabrielian told the undercover agent that “she was motivated by patriotism toward Russia to provide any assistance she could to Russia, even if it meant being fired or going to jail.”

Her spouse had access to not just medical information, she said, but insight into how the U.S. military establishes an army hospital in war conditions and about training the military provided to Ukrainian military personnel. Henry participated in a second meeting later that night.

“My point of view is until the United States actually declares war against Russia, I’m able to help as much as I want,” Henry told the undercover agent, according to the indictment. “At that point, I’ll have some ethical issues I’ll have to work through.”

“You’ll work through those ethical issues,” Gabrielian replied.

In an Aug. 24 meeting with the undercover agent at a Baltimore hotel room, Gabrielian called Henry a “coward” for being concerned about violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA,) a federal law that limits the disclosure of patients’ confidential medical information.

Gabrielian is listed as an instructor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at Hopkins, and her profile page says she speaks Russian. Henry received attention in 2015 after becoming the first known active-duty Army officer to come out as transgender. A Buzzfeed article from that time said she was also to her knowledge and to the knowledge of LGBT advocates the first and only active duty service member who had changed her name and gender within the United States military.

During an Aug. 31 meeting at a hotel in Gaithersburg, Gabrielian provided the agent with medical information related to the spouse of a person currently employed by the Office of Naval Intelligence, and medical information related to someone only described as a veteran of the Air Force.

“Gabrielian highlighted to the [undercover agent] a medical issue reflected in the records of [the military member’s spouse] that Russia could exploit.,” the indictment says.

During the same meeting, Henry also provided medical information related to five patients at Fort Bragg, including a retired Army officer, a current Department of Defense employee, and spouses of active and deceased Army veterans.

This...this is gonna be a hell of a movie.

Trussed Up Like A Turkey

UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has had a very, very bad start to her government, you know with the Queen dying and the power crisis and oh yeah, nearly collapsing the pound this week with her new tax cut scheme.

The Bank of England took emergency action on Wednesday to avoid a meltdown in the UK pensions sector, unleashing a £65bn bond-buying programme to stem a crisis in government debt markets. 

 

The central bank warned of a “material risk to UK financial stability” from turmoil in the gilts market, which was sparked by chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s tax cuts and borrowing plan last week. 

 

 The BoE suspended a programme to sell gilts — part of an effort to get surging inflation under control — and instead pledged to buy long-dated bonds at a rate of up to £5bn a day for the next 13 weekdays.

 

Economists warned that the injection of billions of pounds of newly minted money into the economy could fuel inflation. “This move will be inflationary at a time of already high inflation,” said Daniel Mahoney, UK economist at Handelsbanken. 

 

UK government bond markets recovered sharply after the announcement. The pound rose by 1.4 per cent on the day by evening trading in London, reaching $1.0877 against the dollar.

 

The bank stressed it was not seeking to lower long-term government borrowing costs. Instead it sought to buy time to prevent a vicious circle in which pension funds have to sell gilts immediately to meet demands for cash from their creditors.

 

That process had put pension funds at risk of insolvency, because the mass sell-offs pushed down further the price of gilts held by funds as assets, requiring them to stump up even more cash.

 

 “At some point this morning I was worried this was the beginning of the end,” said a senior London-based banker, adding that at one point on Wednesday morning there were no buyers of long-dated UK gilts. “It was not quite a Lehman moment. But it got close.” 

 

 The most directly affected groups were final salary pension schemes that have hedged to ensure their ability to make future payments — so-called liability-driven investment strategies that are very sensitive to fast-moving gilt yields. 

 

“It appears that some players in the market ran out of collateral and dumped gilts,” said Peter Harrison, chief executive of Schroders, which has $55bn in global LDI business. “We were more conservatively positioned and we had enough collateral to meet all of our margin calls.” 

 

But a senior executive at a large asset manager said they had contacted the BoE on Tuesday warning that it needed “to intervene in the market otherwise it will seize up” — but the bank failed to act until Wednesday. It declined to comment. 

So yes, the UK bond market almost folded in on itself because the merry idiots in the Tory party decided a massive tax cut that would starve the government's income so they could borrow the rest would fix things. It fixed them, alright. Into the ground.

We'll see where this goes, but I can't imagine the misery for British citizens because of this mess endearing everyone to the Tories for much longer. Liz Truss's government may be one of the shortest in UK history.