Last Call For Dispatches From Gunmerica

Open, permitless carry of firearms has been legal in Texas for over a year now, and the results are pretty scary. Violent crime and shootings are up, and homicide deaths have exploded.

Tony Earls hung his head before a row of television cameras, staring down, his life upended. Days before, Mr. Earls had pulled out his handgun and opened fire, hoping to strike a man who had just robbed him and his wife at an A.T.M. in Houston.

Instead, he struck Arlene Alvarez, a 9-year-old girl seated in a passing pickup, killing her.

“Is Mr. Earls licensed to carry?” a reporter asked during the February news conference, in which his lawyer spoke for him.

He didn’t need one, the lawyer replied. “Everything about that situation, we believe and contend, was justified under Texas law.” A grand jury later agreed, declining to indict Mr. Earls for any crime.

The shooting was part of what many sheriffs, police leaders and district attorneys in urban areas of Texas say has been an increase in people carrying weapons and in spur-of-the-moment gunfire in the year since the state began allowing most adults 21 or over to carry a handgun without a license.

At the same time, mainly in rural counties, other sheriffs said they had seen little change, and proponents of gun rights said more people lawfully carrying guns could be part of why shootings have declined in some parts of the state.

Far from an outlier, Texas, with its new law, joined what has been an expanding effort to remove nearly all restrictions on carrying handguns. When Alabama’s “permitless carry” law goes into effect in January, half of the states in the nation, from Maine to Arizona, will not require a license to carry a handgun.

The state-by-state legislative push has coincided with a federal judiciary that has increasingly ruled in favor of carrying guns and against state efforts to regulate them.

But Texas is the most populous state to do away with handgun permit requirements. Five of the nation’s 15 biggest cities are in Texas, making the permitless approach to handguns a new fact of life in urban areas to an extent not seen in other states.

In the border town of Eagle Pass, drunken arguments have flared into shootings. In El Paso, revelers who legally bring their guns to parties have opened fire to stop fights. In and around Houston, prosecutors have received a growing stream of cases involving guns brandished or fired over parking spots, bad driving, loud music and love triangles.

“It seems like now there’s been a tipping point where just everybody is armed,” said Sheriff Ed Gonzalez of Harris County, which includes Houston.

No statewide shooting statistics have been released since the law went into effect last September. After a particularly violent 2021 in many parts of the state, the picture of crime in Texas has been mixed this year, with homicides and assaults up in some places and down in others.

But what has been clear is that far fewer people are getting new licenses for handguns even as many in law enforcement say the number of guns they encounter on the street has been increasing.

Big city police departments and major law enforcement groups opposed the new handgun law when it came before the State Legislature last spring, worried in part about the loss of training requirements necessary for a permit and more dangers for officers.

But gun rights proponents prevailed in the Republican-dominated Capitol, arguing that Texans should not need the state’s permission to exercise their Second Amendment rights.

Recent debates over gun laws in Texas have not been limited to handgun licensing. After the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, gun control advocates have pushed to raise the age to purchase an AR-15-style rifle. And after the Supreme Court struck down New York’s restrictive licensing program, a federal court in Texas found that a state law barring adults under 21 from carrying a handgun was unconstitutional. Gov. Greg Abbott has suggested he agreed, even as the Texas Department of Public Safety, which oversees the state police, is appealing.

 

As the article says, 24 US states now offer open, permitless carry, with Alabama joining those states in January. America is awash in firearms, with more guns than people in the US. Everyone is getting armed, because everyone else is getting armed.

 

It's insanity. The rest of the world must think we're mad, and that we constitute a threat to them. 

At some point, the rest of the planet is going to do something about us, if only for their own survival.

 

Ridin' With Biden, Con't

No, we're not in a recession and we really haven't been. You have Biden mistaken for Trump when we lost 20 million jobs.

 

The U.S. economy grew at a 2.6% annual rate from July through September, snapping two straight quarters of contraction and overcoming high inflation and interest rates just as voting begins in midterm elections in which the economy’s health has emerged as a paramount issue.

Thursday’s better-than-expected estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation’s gross domestic product — the broadest gauge of economic output — grew in the third quarter after having shrunk in the first half of 2022. Stronger exports and consumer spending, backed by a healthy job market, helped restore growth to the world’s biggest economy at a time when worries about a possible recession are rising.

Consumer spending, which accounts for about 70% of U.S. economic activity, expanded at a 1.4% annual pace in the July-September quarter, down from a 2% rate from April through June. Last quarter’s growth got a major boost from exports, which shot up at an annual pace of 14.4%. Government spending also helped: It rose at a 2.4% annual pace, the first such increase since early last year, with sharply higher defense spending leading the way.

 

That's the good news. The not as good news:

Housing investment, though, plunged at a 26% annual pace, hammered by surging mortgage rates as the Federal Reserve aggressively raises borrowing costs to combat chronic inflation. It was the sixth straight quarterly drop in residential investment.

Overall, the outlook for the overall economy has darkened. The Fed has raised interest rates five times this year and is set to do so again next week and in December. Chair Jerome Powell has warned that the Fed’s hikes will bring “pain” in the form of higher unemployment and possibly a recession.

“Looking ahead, risks are to the downside, to consumption in particular, as households continue to face challenges from high prices and likely slower job growth going forward,” Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a research note.

With inflation still near a 40-year high, steady price spikes have been pressuring households across the country. At the same time, rising loan rates have derailed the housing market and are likely to inflict broader damage over time. The outlook for the world economy, too, grows bleaker the longer that Russia’s war against Ukraine drags on.

The latest GDP report comes as Americans, worried about inflation and the risk of a recession, have begun to vote in elections that will determine whether President Joe Biden’s Democratic Party retains control of Congress. Inflation has become a signature issue for Republican attacks on the Democrats’ stewardship of the economy.

Economists noted that the third-quarter gain in GDP can be traced entirely to the surge in exports, which added 2.7 percentage points to the economy’s expansion. Export growth will be difficult to sustain as the global economy weakens and a strong U.S. dollar makes American products pricier in foreign markets.

 

The problem is a real recession, the job-losing and market-crashing kind, is still a very real possibility, and given the rapid rise in interest rates by Jerome Powell and the Fed, that may only be a matter of time.  Luckily, we're nearing the point where inflation is dropping.

Thursday’s report offered some encouraging news on inflation. A price index in the GDP data rose at a 4.1% annual rate from July through September, down from 9% in the April-June period — less than economists had expected and the smallest increase since the final three months of 2020. That figure could raise hopes that the Fed might decide it can soon slow its rate hikes.

 

I hope that this continues. More rate hikes will eventually crash the economy, that's a guarantee.

Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap, Con't

Arizona Democratic Secretary of State and gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs's office was broken into and ransacked this week as police continue to search for the burglar.

The Phoenix campaign headquarters of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Hobbs was burglarized earlier this week, Phoenix police and a campaign official said Wednesday.

Police responded to a commercial burglary call at the office in midtown Phoenix on Tuesday afternoon.

"Information was learned that items were taken from the property sometime during the night," a police statement said. "No suspects have been identified. This is still an active investigation with detectives checking all security cameras in attempts to identify and locate the subject involved."

The campaign released photographs of a person it said was identified as the suspect by the Phoenix Police Department after police reviewed the surveillance footage. The images show a younger man wearing shorts, a short-sleeved T-shirt and a backpack.

The Phoenix Police Department said it "has not released any images or video relating to this investigation and cannot confirm any suspects or investigative leads."

Nicole DeMont, campaign manager for Hobbs, said, "We continue to cooperate with law enforcement as they investigate, and we are thankful to the men and women of the Phoenix Police Department for their work to keep us safe."

“Secretary Hobbs and her staff have faced hundreds of death threats and threats of violence over the course of this campaign. Throughout this race, we have been clear that the safety of our staff and of the secretary is our No. 1 priority."

No one was at the office at the time of the break-in and several items were taken, said Sarah Robinson, spokeswoman for the Hobbs campaign.

 

The first person I'd question is Hobbs's Republican opponent in next month's election for Governor, election denier, conspiracy theorist, and nutjob Kari Lake, whose first act as the state's chief executive she says will be to "declare Arizona under invasion" by migrant workers and to militarize the border, and besides, she won't accept a loss anyway.

This stinks to high heaven.

 

Last Call For Unimpeachable Facts

epublican leaders in Pennsylvania's GOP-controlled legislature says it will proceed with impeachment and removal of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner for the heinous crime of executing prosecutorial discretion while being a progressive Democrat.

Pennsylvania Republicans announced Wednesday plans to impeach and potentially remove from office Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, a national leader among progressive prosecutors who was overwhelmingly re-elected last year.

Krasner is not accused of committing a crime. Nor do his critics allege corruption. Instead, they accuse him of dereliction of duty for what they say is a failure to adequately enforce criminal laws, leading to rising crime rates and declining quality of life for Philadelphians.

The extraordinary move — the state Legislature has impeached only two officials in its entire history, in 1994 and 1811 — comes just two weeks before a midterm election in which Republicans have focused on crime while Democrats have highlighted threats to democracy from politicians willing to defy elections.

It also comes as progressive prosecutors and recent criminal justice reforms have faced blowback due to rising crime.

“I recognize the unprecedented nature of what must be done and am confident our members are up to the task,” Republican Rep. Martina White said at a news conference Wednesday announcing articles of impeachment at the state Capitol in Harrisburg.

Republicans control both chambers of the Legislature, but White is the only GOP member from Philadelphia, which is on pace to break last year’s record-setting homicide rate.

The rest hail from other, largely rural parts of the state.

“There should be a war on crime. But due to the failed vision and his idea of criminal justice, crime is allowed to wage war on the good people and the great beautiful city of Philadelphia," Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff said of Krasner at the news conference.

Pennsylvania’s Constitution gives the Legislature broad power to impeach “all civil officers” for “any misbehavior in office,” though it has almost never exercised that authority.

“It’s clear under the Constitution that 'misbehavior in office' is the standard,” said Republican Rep. Torren Ecker, when asked by reporters what impeachable offense Krasner had committed. “Failing to do his duty and uphold the law — that is the very definition of misbehavior.”

The Legislature is scheduled to recess the Wednesday before the Nob. 8 election, but Republican leaders said they will add extra days to the calendar if necessary to make sure an impeachment vote happens as soon as possible.

They insisted the move against Krasner and its timing is not about politics, but about the need to offer some relief to Philadelphians struggling against crime every day.

“Our caucus has been constantly concerned with crime. It has nothing to do with the election,” Benninghoff said.

 

Here's how we know that's bullshit.

Krasner traveled to Harrisburg Friday to try to meet with GOP leaders and protest the anticipated impeachment articles.

"This is an effort to impeach someone for political purposes who has done nothing corrupt and nothing illegal because they want to erase Philadelphia’s votes, straight up," he said. "They want to impeach our ideas."

Krasner noted that the state Legislature has taken no action against a Republican district attorney in western Pennsylvania's Somerset County who was arrested last year on rape charges (he has pleaded not guilty and a trial is expected in January) and then again this year in an alleged road rage incident targeting a witness in the first incident (he pleaded guilty to lesser charges).

"There is no effort whatsoever to even look at the possibility of an impeachment of this man," Krasner said of the Somerset prosecutor, who was suspended last year but is now suing the county for back pay because his lawyer argues he can only be terminated by impeachment.

 

A Republican who has actually committed crimes while in office?  Why would he be impeached?  Impeachment isn't for actually dealing with criminals, it's for using against Democrats.

It's for making liberalism illegal.

Our Little White Supremacist Domestic Terrorism Problem, Con't

The second of the Michigan state trials against the terrorist group that plotted the kidnapping and murder of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has resulted in all three terrorists being convicted and facing decades in prison for their actions.

 

Three men have been found guilty by a Jackson County jury of materially aiding a terrorist and being a member of a gang as part of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

This verdict comes after a three-week trial where the Michigan Attorney General's Office had to prove that Paul Bellar, Joseph Morrison and Pete Musico provided aid to Adam Fox or Barry Croft, both of whom were convicted in an August federal trial of being ringleaders in the Whitmer kidnapping plot. Jurors spent two weeks listening to each side present testimony in the largest domestic terrorism case in a generation that has shed light on political extremism in Michigan.

It also was the first state trial connected to the Whitmer kidnapping plot allegations. Croft and Fox are appealing their convictions.

The jury spent about five hours deliberating before coming back with the verdict. They found Musico, 43; his son-in-law, Morrison, 27; and acquaintance Bellar, 22, guilty of providing material support to a terrorist, being a member of a gang and a felony weapons charge.

The men each face up to 42 years in prison — 20 years for the charges of providing material support and gang membership and an additional two years for a felony weapons charge. The gang membership sentence may run consecutively to other sentences. Sentencing for all three men is scheduled for Dec. 15.

Bellar looked down at the table as the verdict was read but had no visible response. His attorney, Andrew Kirkpatrick, said he was very nervous in the period leading up to the verdict and was practically hyperventilating in the elevator on the way up to the courtroom.

Morrison tested positive for COVID-19 Sunday and Musico showed symptoms, so neither was in the courtroom while the verdict was read. Over Zoom, both Musico and Morrison closed their eyes, and Morrison appeared to cry.

 

Not an ounce of sympathy, and I hope all three men get the maximum 42 year sentence. These terrorists -- convicted terrorists, I might add -- need to serve as a very public lesson to these MAGA white supremacist killers who want to assassinate their "political enemies".

 

More of this will be in the months ahead, however. We are only careening towards more political violence, not less.

The Big Lie, Con't

NBC finds that nearly two years later, the vast majority of Republicans remain election deniers who believe that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump, and the Joe Biden is not President.

 

New polling from NBC News shows just 22% of registered Republican voters believe in the legitimacy of Biden's election, with 65% viewing his election illegitimate.

That makes Republicans an outlier — overall, 60% of registered voters believe Biden's election was legitimate and 33% do not. One-hundred percent of Democrats and 74% of independents view his election as legitimate, along with a majority of white voters, voters of colors, independents, voters in cities and suburbs, as well as voters across all regions and age groups.

The only subgroups in the new poll that don't believe in the legitimacy of Biden's election are those who are correlated with stronger support for Republicans.

Just 19% of those who voted for former President Trump in 2020 believe that election was legitimate, along with 22% who want the GOP to win control of Congress this fall, 22% of white evangelicals, 34% of rural voters and 43% of white working-class voters.

Overall, confidence in Biden's election has stayed virtually stagnant since the Jan. 2021 poll. Democratic belief in the election's legitimacy rose 4% points from 96% to 100%, as the share of independents rose from 62% to 74%.

But Republicans remained steady — just 21% said in Jan. 2021 that Biden's election was legitimate, and 22% said so in the Oct. 2022 poll.

 

This is not a "both sides" issue. Republican election deniers are a direct thereat to American democracy. Two-thirds of Republicans don't believe Biden is legitimately President, which means they will support whatever GOP "remedies" to "stop the steal" they believe are necessary, up to and including voter intimidation, false election results, and violence. 

The problem isn't Trump. The problem isn't all the GOP election deniers running for office. The problem are the tens of millions of people denying the results of the 2020 election, and most likely the 2022 and 2024 elections as well.

And they will act accordingly.

We are nowhere near ready as a nation to deal with what's coming next month.

Last Call For Seven Nutjob Army

Our old friend Mike Flynn is recruiting military veterans to serve as the GOP's heavily armed poll worker "task force" to "secure" polling locations on Election Day.

 

Military planes dropping bombs, battleships at the ready, scores of soldiers marching in the streets -- and across the screen flashes the words, "Your country needs you once again."

"Beat the cheat," the video urges viewers.

The footage is from a new recruitment video released by The America Project, an organization led by prominent election deniers Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO, and retired general Michael Flynn, a former Trump national security adviser, who have joined forces in the final weeks leading up to the midterm elections to recruit ex-military and first responders to staff polling locations around the country.

The operation, fueled by false election claims and using recruitment material featuring images of war, has been dubbed "One Last Mission" by Byrne and Flynn, who emerged as leading figures in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.

"The America Project has spun up the coup de grâce on the enemy," Byrne said in a separate video announcing the campaign, telling viewers he believes the "bad guys are going to come at us with another rig"-- despite there being no evidence that the 2020 election was rigged or stolen.

Poll workers, who set up voting equipment, sign-in and process voters, and report results, are typically apolitical positions for which applicants must affirm that they won't act for the benefit of any candidate or party.

"AMERICA NEEDS YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER," read an October post on the group's Instagram account. "You took an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. And defending it means ensuring election integrity."

 

Thousands of these armed and dangerous assholes are going to show up and "patrol" polling places in key battleground states, in what amounts to a conspiracy to coordinate mass voter intimidation.

 

"This is the most important thing I think going on in America right now," Byrne said in a recent interview promoting the effort on a conservative internet show. "We're asking you to save the country again."

He said in another interview that the recruiting campaign has been "going like gangbusters" after launching in September.

The "One Last Mission" campaign is the latest effort launched by The America Project, which has announced a slate of programs aimed at impacting future elections, many fueled by baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The group has also conducted poll worker "training" around the county, called "Operation Eagle's Wings," which is targeting key battleground states including Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The America Project has so far trained almost 6,000 poll workers in just Pennsylvania alone, according to Flynn's brother Michael Flynn, who is the group's president. The training is separate and additional to training from election officials.

"They won't be able to steal this election the same way they stole 2020!" he tweeted. 

 

If you're not white, these guys are going to challenge your right to vote at gunpoint. I'm telling you, this is going to be an absolute disaster. Voter intimidation all over the TV on Election Day? Maybe you decide to stay home. 

We're nowhere near ready for this.

It will be far worse in 2024.

 

Ukraine In The Membrane, Brainless Edition

The House Democratic Progressive Caucus strikes again, and not in a good way, as Josh Marshall analyzes.

Yesterday thirty members of the House Progressive Caucus signed a letter urging President Biden to pursue direct negotiations with Russia and a diplomatic settlement to the Russo-Ukraine war. Given the fairly united support for Ukraine in the US political class and fairly broad support among the public in general, the letter was bound to spur some controversy. But the letter itself was an incoherent mass of contradictions. It pressed for immediate negotiations and a ceasefire while also insisting on defending Ukraine and not taking any steps without Ukraine’s support. For the moment at least these are irreconcilable positions. Ukraine’s war aim is to drive Russia from most and likely all of its territory. Russia’s position is to annex large parts of Ukraine and force it into a permanently subordinate position to Russia. One side or another has to substantially shift its demands or there’s little to talk about. The letter could have said, ‘The threat of escalation and the danger to the global economy is so great that US needs to make Ukraine shift its goals.’ But it didn’t. It stated two irreconcilable positions at once.

Then things got weird.

Soon the leader of the Progressive Caucus Pramila Jayapal put out a statement “reaffirming support for Ukraine and clarifying the position of a letter to President Biden. Her clarification amounted to a recantation of the initial letter: “We are united as Democrats in our unequivocal commitment to supporting Ukraine in their fight for their democracy and freedom in the face of the illegal and outrageous Russian invasion, and nothing in the letter advocates for a change in that support.” Another signer, Rep. Mark Takano, put out a statement again basically recanting or disavowing the letter.

Next Rep. Mark Pocan went on Twitter and said that the letter was being misinterpreted and wasn’t sure why it was dated 10/24 “as it was July.” What? Responding to criticism he said told one person on Twitter, Pocan said “I agree the timing makes little sense. It was from July.” In other comment he appeared to suggest that he wasn’t even aware in advance that the letter was being released.

Clearly the whole episode had become something of a debacle as at least three of the signers, including the head of the Progressive Caucus, were distancing themselves from it or recanting its contents within hours of its appearance. But Pocan’s comments raised real questions about whether the signatories had actually read the letter or even knew in advance that it was going to be released. Again, Pocan suggested it was something he and his colleagues had done in July – in other words, three or four months ago.

Rep. Ro Khanna defended the letter and suggested that the reaction to the letter was an effort to “silence or shout down debate.”

My own initial read of the letter was that one group of signatories had worked with the outside group Quincy Institute on a letter calling for a push for a ceasefire. Others among the signatories weren’t really prepared to do that and insisted on adding various commitments to Ukraine’s independence and no actions not supported by Ukraine. Unable to agree on these points they piled both conflicting positions into one letter and signed it. More generally, I think there are people in the Progressive Caucus who simply weren’t comfortable with a position indistinguishable from the rest of their party and indeed from many more mainstream Republicans. But the fallout from the release of the letter shows a clumsiness and obtuseness I would not have expected from members like Rep. Jayapal or Jamie Raskin or Ro Khanna. And here I want to distinguish between positions I might disagree with versus position statements that are simply logical contradictions or ones that need to be recanted or explained or abandoned within hours.

The truth is that Biden administration has and continues to pursue diplomacy. There are no public negotiations because the two sides are simply two far apart for them to make any sense. Taken on its face the letter calls on the administration to do what it’s actually already doing (using diplomacy to find a settlement) while not doing what the letter says it shouldn’t do (act without Ukraine’s support) and has actually not done.

 

There are serious questions about whether or not the Progressive Caucus members even read the letter, as incoherent and contradictory as it is, as Marshall points out.

 

Personally, this smells like deliberate application of the coital functions of the common rattus rattus to me. Somebody in the Caucus sure seems like they are trying to cause trouble two weeks before the damn midterms and doing so on purpose.

 

Jayapal scrambled today to retract the letter completely.

The about-face comes as some Democratic lawmakers vent their fury that the letter backing talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin — originally drafted and signed in June — wasn’t recirculated before its public release on Monday. That release made it appear that the 30 House Democrats who signed on, all lawmakers in the roughly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus, were urging the Biden administration to push for diplomacy immediately despite Russia’s engagement in war crimes and indications of a military escalation against Ukraine.

Making the timing of the letter even more politically perilous: Ukraine is not ready for negotiations at this point, especially because its months-long counteroffensive has been successful to date, and there’s no indication Putin is ready to deal either.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” the caucus’ chair, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), said in a statement after POLITICO first reported that the retraction was imminent. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”

Jayapal said she accepts “responsibility” for the embarrassing flub, adding that the timing of the letter caused a “distraction” and was “conflated” with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s recent suggestion that Republicans might pull back on Ukraine funding if they win control of the House.

“The proximity of these statements created the unfortunate appearance that Democrats, who have strongly and unanimously supported and voted for every package of military, strategic, and economic assistance to the Ukrainian people, are somehow aligned with Republicans who seek to pull the plug on American support for President [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian forces,” Jayapal added.

I'm disappointed the most in Pramila Jayapal, who handled both the Democrats' infrastructure bill and budget negotiations with Sen. Joe Manchin so well earlier this year only to walk directly into the jet intake and look like a fool. If she can't handle it then maybe somebody else should be running this circus.

I mean we've already got the clowns, kids.

Sunak Sunak Fun

The UK Tories have elected a new leader, Rishi Sunak, who will be Britain's third PM in less than 60 days and the first non-white PM in British history.

Rishi Sunak’s campaign had a simple slogan when he ran for prime minister of Britain earlier this year: “Ready for Rishi.”

The answer was: No, sorry.

He competed against Liz Truss to lead Britain’s Conservative Party after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his scandal-induced resignation in July.

With Truss out, it appears Britain’s Conservatives are indeed ready for Sunak — or at least any chance of a reprieve from the chaos at 10 Downing Street.

Sunak won the Conservative Party’s leadership contest Monday, making him the country’s third leader in less than two months and Britain’s first prime minister of South Asian descent.

The 42-year-old former finance minister is one of Britain’s wealthiest politicians. He was born in Southampton, England, to parents of Indian origin who had emigrated from East Africa.

Educated at one of Britain’s most prestigious private schools, as was his former boss Boris Johnson, he has a glittering résumé, with degrees from the University of Oxford and Stanford University and a stint at the Goldman Sachs investment bank. Sunak is married to the Indian tech heiress Akshata Murty, whose tax affairs caused the former finance minister some political discomfort during his leadership campaign in the summer.

A video clip from a 2007 BBC documentary, in which Sunak suggests he doesn’t have any “working-class friends,” is recirculating online as some Britons frown upon the array of upper-class Conservative contenders.

Nonetheless, he remains popular among politicians of his own party, although he fares less well among the Conservative Party’s national membership, who favored Truss in September by 57.4 percent to 42.6 percent.

 

This is the guy that lost to Liz Truss., and by 15 points, because he was literally a Goldman Sachs economist married to a tech millionaire in an era of unprecedented austerity in post-Brexit Britain.

It'll be a miracle if he makes it to the end of the year as PM still.

Last Call For Defending Democracy, Con't

The Biden administration says it is "tracking multiple threats" from China, Russia, and "non-state actors" to US midterm elections.

Top Biden national security officials are tracking multiple threats to the nation’s election security infrastructure ahead of the midterms and are set to issue warnings, including in an internal intelligence bulletin this week, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The bulletin will lay out details of cyber threats posed by China and Russia, as well as other non-state actors, and potential physical threats to election officials in jurisdictions across the country, the people said. The warnings come as the midterm elections near and amid increasing reports of intimidation at ballot drop boxes. The people requested anonymity to talk freely about sensitive national security and election matters.

Elsewhere on Monday, the Department of Justice addressed several malign influence schemes and alleged criminal activity by non-state actors. While those charges were unrelated to the intelligence bulletin warning, FBI Director Christopher Wray acknowledged during a press conference that foreign governments continue to pose a major threat to U.S. elections.

“Malign foreign influence — whether it’s from the Chinese government, the Russian government or other governments — is not just an election-cycle issue, but a 365-day-a-year problem,” Wray said.

The internal administration concerns about election threats come days after a call was held between federal officials and local law enforcement personnel about the midterms, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Those on the call discussed the potential for violence in response to the spread of false narratives regarding the election process. Officials said election workers, including those working at polling stations, are likely to face threats and harassment from extrements both online and offline, the person familiar with the matter said.

“We are now hearing reports of people surrounding ballot drop boxes, some even wearing tactical gear, and questioning people,” said John Cohen, the former counterterrorism chief at DHS. “Are the police prepared for that? They need to be. All of this is being driven by the false narrative that the 2020 election was stolen.”

The FBI, DHS and DOJ did not respond to requests for comment. 

 

Spoilers: "Non-state actors" here means white supremacist domestic terrorism groups, driven by the Big Lie, to stake out early voting drop boxes in overt, heavily armed voter intimidation efforts in Arizona.

Arizona officials on Saturday sounded alarms about voter safety after two armed individuals deemed “vigilantes” dressed in tactical gear were found outside a Maricopa County ballot drop box Friday evening.

“We are deeply concerned about the safety of individuals who are exercising their constitutional right to vote and who are lawfully taking their early ballot to a drop box. Uninformed vigilantes outside Maricopa County’s drop boxes are not increasing election integrity. Instead they are leading to voter intimidation complaints,” said Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates and Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer in a joint statement.

“Although monitoring and transparency in our elections is critical, voter intimidation is unlawful. For those who want to be involved in election integrity, become a poll worker or an official observer with your political party. Don’t dress in body armor to intimidate voters as they are legally returning their ballots,” the statement continued.

The two armed individuals left the Mesa ballot drop box after Maricopa County law enforcement responded, according to the elections officials.

The incident comes after the Arizona secretary of state last week referred a case of possible voter intimidation to the Justice Department and the state’s attorney general after a voter attempting to cast their ballot in Maricopa County was reportedly “approached and followed by a group of individuals.”

 

Expect a lot more of this in the days to come, with two weeks to go.

Be careful out there when you vote.

The Clarence And Huckleberry Show

The most corrupt six conservatives in Supreme Court in US history continue apace, this time starring Clarence Thomas.

 

Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday agreed to temporarily freeze a lower court order requiring the testimony of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham in front of an Atlanta-area special grand jury that is investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Thomas acted alone because he has jurisdiction of the lower court that issued the original order.

Thomas’ move is an administrative stay that was most likely issued Monday to give the Supreme Court justices more time to consider the dispute.

The court has asked for a response from the Georgia investigators by Thursday.

 

At this point, I fully expect five votes to rule that sitting members of Congress cannot be subpoenaed for any reason as they are above the law. Understand that this will not apply to Democrats when they are dragged into state investigations over 2020 voter fraud, I'm sure those are coming soon, especially if any of the GOP election denier crackpots running for governor, secretary of state, or AG win.

And Clarence Thomas is blocking this to stop Lindsey Graham from being questioned under oath about Thomas's right-wing seditionist leader wife Ginni, and in turn, himself.

That's some quality corruption right there.

Angry Angry Voters

Voters are angry, motivated, and wary of the 2022 midterms, and both Republicans and Democrats say that they are ready to vote in order to prevent the other party from being in charge.

Less than three weeks before Election Day, voter interest has now reached an all-time high for a midterm election, with a majority of registered voters saying that this election is “more important” to them than past midterms.

What’s more, some 80% of Democrats and Republicans believe the political opposition poses a threat that, if not stopped, will destroy America as we know it.

And two-thirds of reliable Democratic and Republican voters say they’d still support their party’s political candidate, even if that person had a moral failing that wasn’t consistent with their own values.

These are some of the major findings of a brand-new national NBC News poll, which also shows a competitive contest for November and offers positive signs for both major political parties.

For Democrats, President Joe Biden’s approval rating remains steady at 45%; congressional preference continues to be relatively even (with 47% of registered voters preferring Democrats to control Congress, versus 46% who want Republicans in charge); and “threats to democracy” is voters’ No. 1 issue for the third-straight NBC News poll.

For Republicans, the positive signs are that Biden’s approval with independents and swing-state voters is in the 30s and low 40s; that the GOP once again holds the enthusiasm advantage; and that Republicans lead in congressional preference among the smaller set of likely voters, 48% to 47%, though that’s well within the survey’s margin of error.

Yet beyond the horserace numbers and the high interest in the upcoming election, what stands out in the NBC News poll is the bipartisan anger from Democratic and Republican voters when they were asked which one message they’d like to send with their vote.

“Tell Biden to resign,” said a Republican male respondent from Missouri.

“Save this country,” answered a Republican female from New York state.

“Democracy is in jeopardy,” replied a Democratic male from Massachusetts.

“Don’t mess with reproductive rights,” said a Democratic female from California

“We know that many voters will be casting ballots with anger on their minds,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican Bill McInturff and his team at Public Opinion Strategies.

“We just don’t know who which side will be angrier,” Horwitt added.

 

Record early voting numbers from states like Georgia and Michigan confirm this scenario. We're looking at turnout that may even surpass 2018's record numbers. That means it will take longer to count the votes, and that's where Republicans are already planning to attack the 2022 vote as fraudulent, starring Donald Trump.

IN EARLY SEPTEMBER, Donald Trump welcomed a handful of Republican allies to Manhattan’s Trump Tower with an urgent message: He saw a “scam” happening with midterm election voting in Philadelphia and elsewhere in Pennsylvania, and he wanted conservatives to do something about it.

“During our briefing, he was concerned that 2020 is going to happen again in 2022,” says former senior Trump administration official Michael Caputo, referencing Trump’s debunked assertion that voter fraud in Philadelphia helped win Pennsylvania for Joe Biden. Caputo — who attended the meeting alongside Bradford County Commissioner Doug McLinko and retired CIA officer Sam Faddis — says they had a message back to the former president: “Our team encouraged him to be concerned … [Furthermore], I’m advising Republicans to recruit and train election observers and a team of attorneys to oversee historically problematic precincts.”

But it’s not just one meeting, and it’s not just Philly.

In recent months, Trump has convened a series of in-person meetings and conference calls to discuss laying the groundwork to challenge the 2022 midterm election results, four people familiar with the conversations tell Rolling Stone. In these conversations, pro-Trump groups, attorneys, Republican Party activists, and MAGA diehards often discuss the type of scorched-earth legal tactics they could deploy.

And they’ve gamed out scenarios for how to aggressively challenge elections, particularly ones in which a winner is not declared on Election Night. If there’s any hint of doubt about the winners, the teams plan to wage aggressive court campaigns and launch a media blitz. Trump himself set the blueprint for this on Election Night 2020, when — with the race far from decided — he went on national television to declare: “Frankly, we did win this election.”

Trump has been briefed on plans in multiple states and critical races — including in Georgia. But Pennsylvania has grabbed his interest most keenly, including in the Senate contest between Democrat John Fetterman and the Trump-endorsed GOP contender Mehmet Oz. If the Republican does not win by a wide enough margin to trigger a speedy concession from Fetterman — or if the vote tally is close on or after Election Night in November — Trump and other Republicans are already preparing to wage a legal and activist crusade against the “election integrity” of Democratic strongholds such as the Philly area.

Trump’s focus on Pennsylvania, however, seems to be more about his own political future than about party allegiance or fealty to his celebrity endorsee. As he hosts meetings on possible 2022 election challenges, he’s also been laying the groundwork for a run in 2024 — where Pennsylvania again promises to be critical and competitive. As one source who has spoken to Trump several times about a potential post-election-day legal battle over the Oz-Fetterman race puts it, Trump views a potential midterm challenge as a “dress rehearsal for Trump 2024.”

 

As I've said before on several occasions, the country is just not ready for the GOP lying blitz that's going to take place around the country. Like Steve M., I'm not worried about Trump declaring Dr. Oz to be the winner in November, for example. I *am* worried about Pennsylvania's GOP state legislature doing so, and what may follow as a result.

I'm worried about Republican crackpot Kari Lake refusing to accept a loss in Arizona's governor's race, or Adam Laxalt doing the same in Nevada's.

In an interview on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Arizona Republican gubernatorial nominee Kari Lake would not explicitly commit to accepting the outcome of her upcoming election if she loses to her Democratic opponent.

"Let me ask you why it is that you have not said -- or maybe you'll do it now -- you have not said that you will accept the certified results of this election, even if you lose this election?" ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl asked Lake in the interview.

"I will accept the results of this election if we have a fair, honest and transparent election. Absolutely, 100%," said Lake, a former TV anchor who has become one of the Republican Party's most prominent election deniers this cycle. "As long as it's fair, honest and transparent."

In a previous interview with CNN's Dana Bash, Lake only said she would accept the results if she won, after being asked three times whether she would accept the election's outcome.

"If you lose, will you accept that?" Bash ultimately asked, to which Lake replied again: "I'm going to win the election, and I will accept that result."

 

And as Republicans all over the country have made very clear, any election that doesn't result in a Republican win cannot be fair, honest, or transparent.  They've been telling us they will steal as many elections as possible in 2022 as a test run for doing the same with the electoral college in 2024.

Vote in numbers too big to manipulate.

Sundar Long Read: Less Is Moore

Our Sunday Long Read this week is M.H. Miller's GQ interview with absolute comic industry legend Alan Moore, the genius behind Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and more, whose works elevated comics from mere four-color adventures to critical works on life and culture itself, his ur-heroes asking the questions about what humanity would do if given powers and abilities far beyond mortal men, and how superheroes are the most flawed of us all. 

 

Alan Moore, who is perhaps the greatest comic book writer to ever live, does not give many interviews. “No offense, but I am unused to publicizing my own work,” he told me from his home in Northampton, in England’s East Midlands, during one of two Zoom interviews in September, around the time of Queen Elizabeth II’s death. He was dressed, both times, in a red sweater, and occasionally dragged on an enormous rolled cigarette that smoked up the screen. Behind the couch he was sitting on were reproductions of the Enochian Tables, texts from a 16th century form of magic founded by the occultist John Dee. “Whereby,” Moore said, “he was convinced that he was capable of speaking to a range of entities that he had to describe as angels, because describing them as anything else would have probably got him burned.”

When Moore made his debut in the American comics industry in the early ’80s, taking over the little-read Swamp Thing for DC Comics, he instantly made the medium more literary and expressive, injecting it with postmodern techniques that offered a self-awareness and seriousness that previously didn’t exist in the realm of superheroes. Over the following years, he created some of the most enduring works to ever grace the comics form: Miracleman, which took an obscure British knock-off of DC’s Captain Marvel from the 1950s, and transposed him, convincingly, onto Thatcher’s England; Watchmen, a nightmarish parable that imagines how a group of masked vigilantes would actually function in the real world (not very well, it turns out); V for Vendetta, about London after a nuclear war has plunged the government into outright fascism, and the anarchist revolution that emerges as a result (a series that, among other things, popularized the Guy Fawkes mask as a contemporary symbol of dissent); From Hell, a meticulously researched account of Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel murders; and the late-period masterpieces Neonomicon and Providence, which posit that the Cthulhu Mythos, the universe in which H.P. Lovecraft’s horror fiction was set, was not altogether fictional.

Moore will likely always be best remembered for these works, but he has since abandoned comics. Long before superhero stories became the bread and butter of Hollywood, studio executives were exploiting Moore’s writing. The 2001 film of From Hell, starring Johnny Depp, was especially derided, but Moore purists would argue all adaptations of his work—including the critically acclaimed, Emmy-winning Watchmen limited series from HBO, which diverges rather boldly from its source material—are at best reductive misinterpretations and at worst offensively awful. Not only has Moore had nothing to do with these adaptations—he famously hasn’t watched any of them. It’s no wonder, then, that Moore has been a tireless advocate for creators’ rights. After failing to maintain ownership of the characters and stories he created for mainstream comics publishers (predominantly DC) he’s disowned much of his most beloved material.

But he remains a prolific author. His 2016 novel Jerusalem, largely set in Northampton’s Boroughs neighborhood, where Moore was born and raised and where he’s spent the majority of his life, is over 1,200 pages of shifting perspectives, styles, and timeframes. It is both a kind of cosmic autobiography and, taking inspiration from William Burroughs, an attempt by Moore to write his way around death. A collection of stories, Illuminations, was released this month, and includes the novel-length “What We Can Know About Thunderman,” a vicious satire of the comics industry, dedicated to Kevin O’Neill, Moore’s collaborator on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, another classic comic with a disastrous adaptation (Sean Connery, its star, never acted in a feature film again).

The times Moore has talked to the press, he has been outspoken, railing against the absurdities of superhero fandom and the rapaciousness of the comics industry. “When I first protested having my intellectual properties stolen,” Moore says, “the reaction from a lot of the fans was, ‘He’s a crazy, angry guy.’ He’s just inexplicably angry about absolutely everything. He wakes up in the morning, angry with his pillow. He eats his breakfast cereal while being angry with it. He’s angry about everything, so, therefore, nothing that he seems to be upset about is of any consequence. This is just an angry person. Alan Moore says, ‘Get off my lawn.’”

 

And that's really the point. More than anyone else on Earth, Alan Moore hates superheroes and breaks them down into their component foibles, follies and all too human failures. Heroes have been a cautionary tale to him, tales worth reading if only to armor ourselves against the world we live in now.

 

I enjoyed this one immensely.

 

Ukraine In The Membrane, Con't

Russian missile strikes in Ukraine on Saturday knocked out power to 1.5 million people as Moscow is warning civilians in occupied Kherson to leave or face consequences.

 

Ukraine said it defended itself against a “barrage” of 36 rockets that Russian forces fired at areas including Kyiv, Volyn, Kirovograd and Odessa on Saturday, wiping out power for almost 1.5 million people. Its air force said it had shot down at least 18 Russian cruise missiles. Odessa regional governor Maksym Marchenko said two rockets hit energy infrastructure, wiping out power in some areas, while Ukraine’s electricity company Ukrenergo said repair crews were working to restore power to networks in the west of the country. In Kyiv, air raid sirens sounded in the capital as Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged civilians to stay indoors and seek shelter. Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba decried the “barrage of Russian missiles aimed at critical civilian infrastructure.”

Meanwhile, Russian authorities in illegally annexed Kherson urged civilians to leave the city “immediately” Saturday afternoon in an effort to portray Kyiv as an aggressor in southern Ukraine. Ukrainian troops have been pushing out Russian forces in the country’s south and east, with clashes in cities it seeks to liberate.

Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Moscow of seeking to blow up a major hydroelectric dam in Nova Kakhovka near Kherson, potentially flooding southern areas. “Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster,” he warned in a television address, urging the West to act “powerfully and quickly” to prevent such an outcome. Russia has denied the accusations.

There's a lot going onas nighttime temperatures are dropping below freezing and millions remain without power or heat thanks to Russian missile strikes on power plants and substations.

Concern is growing about the Kakhovka dam this weekend as a potential target. Earlier in the week, Zelensky accused Russian forces of mining the hydroelectric plant, one of Ukraine’s largest power facilities, in preparation for a “false flag” attack. He did not provide evidence of the Russian plot but told European Council leaders that the infrastructure attack could lead to flooding in 80 settlements and destroy much of southern Ukraine’s water supply. Kremlin-backed officials have instead claimed that Ukraine is planning to blow up the 1956 dam on the Dnieper River to flood Russian-occupied Kherson and has evacuated thousands of people from the city in preparation. The Washington Post could not independently verify the claims.

Occupying Russian authorities told residents to flee Kherson Saturday afternoon, urging them to take “documents, money, valuables and clothes.” Ukrainian troops have been advancing toward the city in an effort to upend the Russian-backed administration that was installed there under an orchestrated annexation violating international law. In an effort to lure Kherson residents into places with stronger Kremlin footholds, Russian cities and the occupied Crimean region were offering incentives such as payments and housing assistance, according to Moscow-backed authorities’ Telegram accounts.

Washington sees no evidence of Moscow ending the war soon, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Friday alongside his French counterpart. Instead, he said the Kremlin was “doubling and tripling down” on its aggression in Ukraine. “Every indication is that far from being willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy, President [Vladimir] Putin continues to push in the opposite direction,” Blinken said.

A bipartisan congressional delegation met Zelensky in Kyiv, including Reps. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), Jim Himes (D-Conn.) and Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). The group “talked about financial support, about our political interaction, about what new anti-European and anti-democratic steps to expect from Russia,” Zelensky said. The visit came after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) this week signaled that the GOP would oppose more aid to Ukraine. President Biden said this week said he was worried that Republicans may cut aid to Ukraine if they win back the House.

 

Another 30 or 40 Republicans in the House would not only give the GOP control, it would certainly give them the votes to defund everything Biden has accomplished and hold the country hostage, causing tremendous damage to the economy while doing it.

Putin is counting on a GOP win.

Last Call For Orange Meltdown, Con't

As many have suspected, the stolen classified documents Trump kept in his Mar-a-Lago pool closet contained sensitive national security information about both Iran and China.

Some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and private club included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China, according to people familiar with the matter. If shared with others, the people said, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the United States wants to keep hidden from the world.

At least one of the documents seized by the FBI describes Iran’s missile program, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation. Other documents described highly sensitive intelligence work aimed at China, they said.

Unauthorized disclosures of specific information in the documents would pose multiple risks, experts say. People aiding U.S. intelligence efforts could be endangered, and collection methods could be compromised. In addition, other countries or U.S. adversaries could retaliate against the United States for actions it has taken in secret.

The classified documents about Iran and China are considered among the most sensitive the FBI has recovered to date in its investigation of Trump and his aides for possible mishandling of classified information, obstruction and destruction of government records, the people said. The criminal probe is unfolding even as the Justice Department and a district attorney in Georgia investigate alleged efforts by Trump and others to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, and as a House select committee has subpoenaed the former president seeking documents and testimony related to those allegations.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in having the documents at Mar-a-Lago, claiming in a recent television interview that he declassified any documents in his possession, and that a president can declassify information “even by thinking about it.” National security lawyers have derided those claims.

A spokesman for the former president did not respond to requests for comment Friday morning. But after this article published online, Trump posted on social media, decrying what he called leaks “on the Document Hoax” and suggesting that the FBI and the National Archives and Records Administration were trying to frame him.

“Who could ever trust corrupt, weaponized agencies, and that includes NARA,” Trump wrote. “ … Also who knows what NARA and the FBI plant into documents, or subtract from documents — we will never know, will we?”

 

Foreign agents certainly have seen these documents. There's no way they were kept secure with known Chinese, Russian, and Saudi nationals running around the place as Trump's guests, and probably even more infiltrating the resort as staff.

Even if Trump didn't sell these documents to the highest bidder, he almost certainly showed them off to brag. Trying to blame this on the FBI is just silly.

Trump is in real trouble, and even he knows it.