Oct. 2021 News, Views

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Editor’s Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative October 2021 news and views

Note: Excerpts are from the authors’ words except for subheads and occasional “Editor’s notes” such as this. 

 

Oct. 2

Top Headlines

Chris Mora of California sits amid the art installation “In America: Remember,” which features flags representing every death from covid-19 in the United States, on the National Mall on Sept. 24. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)

 

Virus Victims, Responses

 

 U.S. Elections, Politics, Governance

 

Jan. 6 Pro-Trump Insurrection

 

U.S. Courts, Police, Civil Rights

 

U.S. Media

 

World News

 

Top Stories

vaxxers headlights

Logic of the Anti-Vaxxers (illustrated).

ny times logoNew York Times, U.S. Covid Death Toll Surpasses 700,000 Despite Wide Availability of Vaccines, Julie Bosman and Lauren Leatherby, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.).  An overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months were unvaccinated, with the latest Covid-19 deaths concentrated in the South. The new and alarming surge of deaths this summer means that the coronavirus pandemic has become the deadliest in American history.

The United States surpassed 700,000 deaths from the coronavirus on Friday, a milestone that few experts had anticipated months ago when vaccines became widely available to the American public.

An overwhelming majority of Americans who have died in recent months, a period in which the country has offered broad access to shots, were unvaccinated. The United States has had one of the highest recent death rates of any country with an ample supply of vaccines.

The new and alarming surge of deaths this summer means that the coronavirus pandemic has become the deadliest in American history, overtaking the toll from the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919, which killed about 675,000 people.

“This Delta wave just rips through the unvaccinated,” said Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan. The deaths that have followed the wide availability of vaccines, he added, are “absolutely needless.”

Justice Integrity Project Editor’s Note: This site has been tracking U.S. and global death totals on a daily basis for more than a year, with the U.S. death total surpassing 700,000 a week ago, according to the Worldometer calculations that we cite below in our ongoing “Virus Victims, Responses” segment. Researchers in such statistics have long noted that precise daily totals vary somewhat between research organizations but that trends and major landmarks, such as the 700,000 U.S. death figure cited above, are nonetheless worth highlighting as important news.

 

Chris Mora of California sits amid the art installation “In America: Remember,” which features flags representing every death from covid-19 in the United States, on the National Mall on Sept. 24. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post)

Chris Mora of California sits amid the art installation “In America: Remember,” which features flags representing every death from covid-19 in the United States, on the National Mall on Sept. 24. (Craig Hudson/For the Washington Post). The symbolic heart of Washington has been covered by nearly 700,000 white flags, each about a foot tall, representing the American lives lost to covid-19 and holding written memories from loved ones. The flags have been packed tightly into 60-foot-by-60-foot quadrants on 20 acres near the Washington Monument and the National Museum of African and African American History and Culture.

washington post logoWashington Post, Opinion: What the 700,000 flags I put on the National Mall really mean, Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg (a social practice artist), Oct. 1, 2021. Twenty-five years of hospice volunteering has taught me that the most important thing we can afford people is their dignity.

That lesson formed the backbone of “In America: Remember,” my art installation that for the past three weeks blanketed Washington’s National Mall with 700,000 fluttering white flags, each one representing an American lost to the coronavirus pandemic. The art is an effort to reclaim the dignity of 700,000 people who have become reduced to a single number, a number too large to fathom.

My project began with outrage. I was outraged we had elected officials who would devalue the lives of the elderly, the poor and people of color in their approach to managing the pandemic. I was outraged we had allowed the death toll here in the United States to become so large as to be incomprehensible.

But the deeper meaning came when I heard the stories. In person, they poured out. Many visitors used the Sharpies we offered them to write their own dedications directly onto the flags. With each of their stories, my anger gave way to their outcries of grief.

washington post logoWashington Post, Biden urges patience as he seeks to unite Democrats on infrastructure, Tony Romm, Mike DeBonis and Marianna Sotomayor, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.). President Biden attempted to quell an internal Democratic rebellion on Friday, pleading with lawmakers to compromise and stay patient as he tried to revive a $1.2 trillion infrastructure proposal and salvage his broader economic agenda from imminent collapse.

Biden made the overture during a rare meeting on Capitol Hill in the midst of an intense, acrimonious fight over two pieces of legislation that Democrats were struggling to untangle. The first bill would fix the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. A second package would authorize roughly $3.5 trillion to expand Medicare, combat climate change and boost a wide array of federal aid programs.

Democrats did not appear to have an immediate way to advance either tranche of spending, stymied by internecine conflicts among their own divided liberal and centrist ranks. For the second time in as many days, party leaders also delayed a planned House vote on the measure to improve the nation’s infrastructure.

nancy pelosi horizontal uncredited older Custom

ny times logoNew York Times, Hitting a Blockade Over His Agenda, Biden Tacks Left, Jonathan Martin and Jonathan Weisman, Oct. 2, 2021. When President Biden ventured to the Capitol to help House Democrats out of their thicket this week, he effectively sided with progressives. The outcome of Democrats’ internecine battle could determine their fate in the midterms and the success of the Biden presidency.

For well over a year now, President Biden’s vaunted negotiating style largely boiled down to this: I’m with you.

After he vanquished Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in the Democratic primary, he brought the liberal icon’s ardent supporters into the fold by embracing much of the senator’s platform even as he ran on unifying the country. When moderate Democrats came to call, he used the tones of centrism to assure them of his conciliatory bona fides.

But when Mr. Biden ventured to the Capitol on Friday to help House Democrats out of their thicket, he had to choose sides. He effectively chose the left.

Since the president claimed his party’s nomination last year, he has nurtured the fragile peace between his party’s fractious center and left by convincing both sides he is their ally. Unified first by their shared disdain for former President Donald J. Trump, and then by Mr. Biden’s adoption of an expansive platform, the two factions remained in harmony into this year. They responded to the pandemic by passing a sweeping stimulus package in the spring.

Now, the two factions are at loggerheads — one flexing its power but as yet is empty-handed, the other feeling betrayed, both claiming they have the president on their side — and the outcome of their battle over Mr. Biden’s proposals could determine Democrats’ fate in the midterms and the success of his presidency.

That agenda consists of two sweeping domestic proposals resembling a modern Great Society: the “American Jobs Plan,” spending $1 trillion over 10 years on traditional infrastructure like roads, bridges and tunnels, and a bigger and more controversial “American Family Plan,” which the Democrats labeled “soft infrastructure” — including universal prekindergarten and community college, paid family and medical leave, child care and elder care support, and an expansion of Medicare.

But liberals feared that moderate Democrats would vote for the infrastructure bill, claim victory, and peel away from the social policy measure, so they refused to support the smaller infrastructure bill until the larger social-policy package had been passed.

 

Virus Victims, Responses

merck logony times logoNew York Times, Merck Says Covid Antiviral Pill Is Effective in Trial, Staff Reports, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.). The pill, which would be the first of its kind, was shown to halve the risk of hospitalization or death in some high-risk patients. The drug maker says its pill was shown in a clinical trial to cut the risk of hospitalization or death from the virus in half.

  • Australia is accelerating plans to ease international travel restrictions for its citizens and permanent residents.

washington post logoWashington Post, New York sees rise in vaccination rates for health-care workers after mandate, Andrew Jeong and Adela Suliman, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.). A New York state mandate that took effect this week, requiring health-care workers to be vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus, has boosted the immunization rates of care providers, to the relief of officials who had worried that the order could lead to mass walkouts and staff shortages.

As of Wednesday, 87 percent of hospital staff were fully vaccinated, up from 84 percent the previous week, the state reported. Between 89 and 92 percent of staff working in hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, it added.

The state’s mandate has not been without protest — some doctors, nurses and other providers filed lawsuits, arguing that the state didn’t provide sufficient exemptions. However, the rise in vaccination rates suggests that New York has so far succeeded in rolling out the requirement without bringing about severe staffing shortages.

New York was the state with the earliest vaccination deadline for health-care workers and its experience will be watched closely by other states that have instituted vaccine mandates for the sector.

  • Australia to ease travel ban in November, shedding ‘Hermit Kingdom’ tag
  • School boards are ‘under an immediate threat,’ organization says in request for federal help
  • Amid lawsuit, Montgomery County schools will allow religious exemption for staff coronavirus vaccine mandate

covad 19 photo.jpg Custom 2Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Oct. 2, 2021), with some governments reporting lower numbers than the totals here and some experts saying the numbers are far higher, as the New York Times reported in India’s true pandemic death toll is likely to be well over 3 million, a new study finds:

World Cases: 235,174,426, Deaths: 4,807,896
U.S. Cases:    44,443,405, Deaths:    718,984
India Cases:    33,791,061, Deaths:    448,605
Brazil Cases:   21,445,651, Deaths:    597,292

washington post logoWashington Post, At least 214.3 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Oct. 2, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 185.6 million people fully vaccinated.

The United States reached President Biden’s target of getting at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine to 70 percent of adults just about a month after his goal of July 4.

Related Recent Headlines:

 

Jan. 6 Pro-Trump Insurrection

ny times logoNew York Times, Whistle-Blower to Accuse Facebook of Contributing to Jan. 6 Riot, Memo Says. Mike Isaac, Oct. 2, 2021. In an internal memo, Facebook defended itself and said that social media was not a primary cause of polarization.

Facebook, which has been under fire from a former employee who has revealed that the social network knew of many of the harms it was causing, was bracing for new accusations over the weekend from the whistle-blower and said in a memo that it was preparing to mount a vigorous defense.

facebook logoThe whistle-blower, whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, planned to accuse the company of relaxing its security safeguards for the 2020 election too soon after Election Day, which then led it to be used in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to the internal memo obtained by The New York Times. The whistle-blower planned to discuss the allegations on “60 Minutes” on Sunday, the memo said, and was also set to say that Facebook had contributed to political polarization in the United States.

The 1,500-word memo, written by Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of policy and global affairs, was sent on Friday to employees to pre-empt the whistle-blower’s interview. Mr. Clegg pushed back strongly on what he said were the coming accusations, calling them “misleading.” “60 Minutes” published a teaser of the interview in advance of its segment on Sunday.

“Social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out,” he wrote. “But what evidence there is simply does not support the idea that Facebook, or social media more generally, is the primary cause of polarization.”

Facebook has been in an uproar for weeks because of the whistle-blower, who has shared thousands of pages of company documents with lawmakers and The Wall Street Journal. The Journal has published a series of articles based on the documents, which show that Facebook knew how its apps and services could cause harm, including worsening body image issues among teenage girls using Instagram.

Facebook has since scrambled to contain the fallout, as lawmakers, regulators and the public have said the company needs to account for the revelations. On Monday, Facebook paused the development of an Instagram service for children ages 13 and under. Its global head of safety, Antigone Davis, also testified on Thursday as irate lawmakers questioned her about the effects of Facebook and Instagram on young users.

A Facebook spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for “60 Minutes” did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Inside Facebook, executives including Mr. Clegg and the “Strategic Response” teams have called a series of emergency meetings to try to extinguish some of the outrage. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer, have been briefed on the responses and have approved them, but have remained behind the scenes to distance themselves from the negative press, people with knowledge of the company have said.

The firestorm is far from over. Facebook anticipated more allegations during the whistle-blower’s “60 Minutes” interview, according to the memo. The whistle-blower, who plans to reveal her identity during the interview, was set to say that Facebook had turned off some of its safety measures around the election — such as limits on live video — too soon after Election Day, the memo said. That allowed for misinformation to flood the platform and for groups to congregate online and plan the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol building.

washington post logoWashington Post, Former Special Forces soldier and onetime congressional candidate arrested in Capitol riot case, Derek Hawkins, Oct. 2, 2021. Congress was days away from certifying the 2020 election results when Jeremy Brown, a retired Special Forces soldier and onetime Congressional candidate, offered others a ride to the U.S. Capitol in an RV he dubbed “GROUND FORCE ONE.”

“Plenty of Gun Ports left to fill,” he wrote on encrypted chat app Signal, according to federal court documents. “We can pick you up.”

Brown, who showed up to the Capitol on Jan. 6 decked out in military gear, was arrested this week in Tampa, in connection with the riot that sought to stop lawmakers from formally tallying President Biden’s victory over Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors charged Brown with knowingly entering restricted grounds and engaging in “disorderly or disruptive conduct.”

Brown couldn’t immediately be reached for comment Saturday. It was not clear if he had hired an attorney.

Roughly 600 people have been charged in the attack, some of them highly trained former military or law enforcement officers. Brown, who is in his 40s, had deployed twice each to Iraq and Afghanistan, Army officials told The Washington Post in January. In 2020, he filed paperwork to run as a Republican in the Florida congressional district that encompasses Tampa but dropped out before the general election.

Five people died as a result of the riot, including a U.S. Capitol Police officer, and many more were wounded. Ashli Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran, was shot and killed by an officer as she tried to force her way through doors inside the building.

According to a statement of facts from the FBI, law enforcement agents spoke with Brown by phone on Jan. 6 and 7. He told them he was in Washington to provide security “for VIPs at the ‘Stop the Steal’ rally.” He made similar statements to The Post in January.

Later in the month, a witness who claimed to have known Brown for “multiple years” gave investigators photos of him in military garb outside the Capitol, according to court documents. Investigators compared the photos with other images and body-camera footage from the riot, saying they showed Brown wearing the same distinctive attire outside the building’s east doors.

At the time, Brown was equipped with a helmet, radio and a tactical vest. He also carried zip ties and had “large surgical trauma shears” tucked into a vest pack, documents state.

Though he was not identified inside the building, images show that Brown was standing more than 100 feet within the restricted grounds law enforcement set up to protect the certification ceremony, investigators said. They said phone location records obtained through a search warrant also showed him in the restricted area.

D.C. police had to push Brown back with their batons as they tried to secure the scene, according to the statement of facts.

“During this encounter, BROWN repeatedly claimed that the officers were, in his opinion, violating the laws and the Constitution of the United States,” the court papers state.

Investigators said they got further details about Brown’s alleged activities from another Capitol riot defendant who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.

According to court documents, the defendant said he used a ride-share to go to Brown’s house on Jan. 4 to prepare for the trip to Washington — an assertion investigators said was backed up by records from the ride-share company. He said Brown and others had discussed travel plans and “rendezvous points” over Signal in the weeks leading up to the riot.

 

U.S. Elections, Politics, Governance

Bad News, Opinion: Ladies and gentleman, we got him — Or, How Gottheimer’s gambit failed, Ryan Grim, right, Oct. 2, 2021. Josh Gottheimer never had a doubt in his ryan grim informal Custommind.

At the end of August, the New Jersey Democrat and a gang of House members that dubbed themselves “the unbreakable nine” used their leverage to force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to schedule a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill on September 27. The group of conservative Democrats hoped to cleave it off from the broader reconciliation package, which includes steep tax hikes on the rich and robust social spending.

The goal was to pass the infrastructure bill, and then be able to train their fire on the bigger bill. Free the hostage, then blow up the insurgents.

josh gottheimer twitterFollowing Pelosi’s concession, Gottheimer, left, and some of his allies huddled with donors to and leaders of the dark-money group No Labels, which finances their campaigns and was instrumental in organizing the opposition. “You should feel so proud, I can’t explain to you, this is the culmination of all your work. This would not have happened but for what you built,” Gottheimer told them, according to a recording of the conversation obtained by The Intercept. “It just wouldn’t have happened — hard stop. You should just feel so proud. This is your win as much as it is my win.”

But House progressives quickly responded, vowing to block the bill — to hold the line — if it came to the floor without the broader spending bill. Gottheimer remained confident over the next several weeks, saying privately he was sure progressives would fold. On September 27, it was clear there weren’t enough votes to pass the bill, and Pelosi pulled it from the floor, rescheduling it for a September 30 showdown.

That’s the topic of this week’s Deconstructed podcast, featuring an interview with Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, who played an unsung role in last week’s showdown.

On CNN Thursday, Gottheimer gave the bill a “1,000 percent” chance of being passed that day. He never got close, and the bill was pulled again, leaving Gottheimer to meekly argue that the House had not been technically adjourned. Friday would still be the same “legislative day,” he tweeted, and negotiations were ongoing and he was grabbing Red Bull and Gatorade and…hey, where’s everybody going?

washington post logoWashington Post, White House confronts grueling choices as it debates major cuts to Biden economic plan, Jeff Stein, Oct. 2, 2021. Inside the West Wing, debate is focused on whether to keep the full range of ambitious proposals but spend less on each of them — or abandon some completely.

Under pressure from centrist lawmakers, White House officials are debating whether to drop many cherished priorities from President Biden’s sprawling economic package or keep a fuller range of initiatives in dramatically reduced form, according to five people with knowledge of internal discussions.

joe manchin kyrsten sinemaEven as Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill haggle over the overall size of the massive budget package, White House officials on the National Economic Council (NEC), the Domestic Policy Council and the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) have begun discussing what policies could be reshaped or jettisoned should Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), shown at right, insist on trimming as much as $2 trillion from the administration’s initial spending proposals, said the people familiar, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Desperate to find a compromise that can win favor in a narrowly divided Congress, White House officials have begun contemplating painful trade-offs that could involve shrinking key parts of their agenda. Biden has pitched lawmakers on a compromise that would include as much as $2.3 trillion in new spending, but Manchin has said the package should top out at $1.5 trillion — a position that would slash the administration’s original agenda by more than half.

Biden urges Democrats to compromise, have patience as he tries to revive economic agenda

The choices are stark: Should tackling rising rates of homelessness be dropped in favor of confronting climate change? Should Democrats prioritize seniors over the poor? Is it more important to reduce the cost of child care or the cost of a school lunch?

While many senior Democrats are urging Biden to choose a handful of programs and execute them well, this option is complicated by a lack of consensus about which priorities should prevail. Meanwhile, no lawmaker wants to see his or her favored program cut entirely from the legislation.

But keeping a larger number of policy initiatives also would entail difficult trade-offs to bring down the overall price of the package. Programs would have to be made temporary or sharp limits would have to be placed on who qualifies. Even Biden’s $2.3 trillion offer would require more than $1 trillion in cuts from his initial plan.

“The president and his team have to make some very tough decisions here. There will have to be some real serious cuts to key priorities,” said Jim Manley, who served as an aide to former Senate majority leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). “The cuts required are going to be really ugly and really painful.”

Either path has major drawbacks. By picking only a few programs to implement, the White House likely would improve its odds of ensuring lasting change through achievements noticed by the public. In private conversations, people close to the White House have argued that choosing a handful of key programs — and making sure they reach tens of millions of people — would help fortify their ability to withstand attack under future GOP administrations.

In an interview, former Obama administration economist Jason Furman argued that “if Congress needs to shrink the legislation, it is much better to drop the lowest priority programs than to try to do everything.”

ny times logoNew York Times, Arizona Vote Review ‘Made Up the Numbers,’ Election Experts Say, Michael Wines and Nick Corasaniti, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.). An analysis found that a hand recount of votes by Republican investigators missed thousands of ballots, and possibly many more.

The circuslike review of the 2020 vote commissioned by Arizona Republicans took another wild turn on Friday when veteran election experts charged that the very foundation of its findings — the results of a hand count of 2.1 million ballots — was based on numbers so unreliable that they appear to be guesswork rather than tabulations.

arizona mapThe organizers of the review “made up the numbers,” the headline of the experts’ report reads.

The experts, a data analyst for the Arizona Republican Party and two retired executives of an election consulting firm in Boston, said in their report that workers for the investigators failed to count thousands of ballots in a pallet of 40 ballot-filled boxes delivered to them in the spring.

The final report by the Republican investigators concluded that President Biden actually won 99 more votes than were reported, and that former President Donald J. Trump tallied 261 fewer votes.

But given the large undercount found in just a sliver of the 2.1 million ballots, it would effectively be impossible for the Republican investigators to arrive at such precise numbers, the experts said. Rod Thomson, a spokesman for Cyber Ninjas, the company hired to conduct the inquiry in Arizona, rejected the experts’ claim. “We stand by our methodology and complete final report,” he said.

Investigators went through more than 1,600 ballot-filled boxes this summer to conduct their hand recount of the election in Maricopa County, the most populous county in the state. Both they and the Republican-controlled State Senate, which ordered the election inquiry, have refused to disclose the details of that hand count.

But a worksheet containing the results of the hand count of 40 of those boxes was included in a final report on the election inquiry released a week ago by Cyber Ninjas.

The three election experts said the hand count could have missed thousands or even hundreds of thousands of ballots if all 1,600 boxes of ballots were similarly undercounted. Their findings were earlier reported in The Arizona Republic.

For months, the Cyber Ninjas effort had been the lodestar of the conservative movement, the foundational investigation that would uncover a litany of abuses and verify countless conspiracies, proving a stolen election. But the review was criticized from the start for unprofessional and unorthodox methods and partisan influence.

Now, the experts’ findings on the vote review compound withering analyses debunking a wide range of questions raised in the review about the counting of votes and conduct of the election. Nonetheless, the review has been embraced by Mr. Trump and his followers even as its findings have been overwhelmingly refuted.

Noting that the leaders of the Arizona review had “zero experience in election audits,” the experts concluded, “We believe the Ninjas’ announcement that they had confirmed, to a high degree of accuracy, the election results” of one of the largest U.S. counties “is laughable.”

katie hobbs headshotLaughable or not, none of it changed the fact that Mr. Biden won the state by about 10,500 votes and Maricopa County by roughly 45,000 in several official tallies of the vote.

Katie Hobbs, left, the Democratic secretary of state in Arizona, said the report’s findings vindicated criticisms about the Cyber Ninjas process.

“It was clear from the start that the Cyber Ninjas were just making it up as they went,” Ms. Hobbs said in a statement. “I’ve been saying all along that no one should trust any ‘results’ they produce, so it’s no surprise their findings are being called into question. What can be trusted are actual election officials and experts, along with the official canvass of results.”

washington post logoWashington Post, Wis. election review ramps up as former judge issues subpoenas to officials, Elise Viebeck and Amy Gardner, Oct. 2, 2021. A former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice issued subpoenas Friday for documents related to the 2020 election, advancing a partisan ballot review sought by former president Donald Trump in a state he lost by 20,682 votes.

Michael Gableman, the former judge leading the effort, sent subpoenas to election officials in Green Bay, Milwaukee, Madison and Racine. Copies of subpoenas reviewed by The Washington Post request “all documents” pertaining to the November 2020 vote and ordering officials to testify at a hearing on Oct. 15. The hearing will focus in part on “potential irregularities and/or illegalities related to the Election,” according to copies of the subpoenas reviewed by The Post.

The subpoenas noted that failure to comply could trigger punishment, including imprisonment. The cover letters also contained several errors, including misspellings of the last name of Green Bay’s city clerk and in a Latin phrase indicating recipients will be required to produce documents. A letter to Jim Owczarski, the city clerk of Milwaukee, who is not responsible for elections, also asked for documents related to the 2020 election in Green Bay, not Milwaukee.

ny times logoNew York Times, Supporters of Abortion Rights Struggle to Gain Marchers and Momentum, Lisa Lerer and Campbell Robertson, Oct. 2, 2021. A nationwide march for abortion rights on Saturday offers an early test of Democratic enthusiasm in the post-Trump era.

The march on Saturday, sponsored by a coalition of nearly 200 civil rights, abortion rights and liberal organizations, offers an early test of Democratic enthusiasm in the post-Trump era, particularly for the legions of newly politically engaged women who helped the party win control of Congress and the White House.

In 2017, the first Women’s March drew an estimated four million protesters into streets across the country to voice their outrage at the inauguration of Mr. Trump. Many listed abortion rights as a motivating issue, according to surveys of participants. Since then, the annual events have drawn smaller crowds, and the organizers have found themselves dogged by controversies and internal strife.

Organizers of the abortion rights march on Saturday are trying to lower expectations, describing the event as the start of their efforts to combat restrictions and citing public health concerns as a reason for an anticipated low turnout. They expect about 40,000 attendees at hundreds of events in cities around the country — a mere fraction of the millions who protested during the Trump administration.

ny times logoNew York Times, A Congresswoman’s Story: Raped at 17, ‘I Chose to Have an Abortion,’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). After a legal setback for abortion rights, three Democrats and one Republican shared their personal stories with a House panel.

Representative Cori Bush, right, a Democrat from Missouri, is known on Capitol Hill as a nurse, a pastor, a Black Lives Matter activist and a member of a “squad” of cori bush oprogressive women lawmakers. On Thursday, she told a House panel that she is also a rape survivor who had an abortion after she was attacked on a church trip when she was 17.

Ms. Bush said she is no longer ashamed. “In the summer of 1994,” she declared, “I was raped, I became pregnant and I chose to have an abortion.”

With the right to abortion under threat after a major Supreme Court setback, Ms. Bush was one of three Democratic congresswomen who sat at a witness table to share their personal experiences with terminating a pregnancy. The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reflected a sharp cultural divide, with Republicans accusing Democrats of “glorifying and normalizing” abortion, and Democrats making their point — that abortion is a decision best left to women and their doctors — in matter-of-fact terms.

pramila jayapal resized oRepresentative Pramila Jayapal, left, Democrat of Washington, got an abortion when she was a young mother caring for a very sick child and struggling to recover from postpartum depression so severe that she considered suicide. Her doctor told her that carrying a second child to term would be extremely risky for both her and the baby.

“I very much wanted to have more children,” she told the panel, “but I simply could not imagine going through that again.”

Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, was the first Black cheerleader in her high school and a promising student with good grades when she got pregnant before abortion was legal in the United States. Her mother sent her to a friend in Texas, who took her for a “back alley” abortion at a clinic in Mexico.

barbara lee“A lot of girls and women in my generation didn’t make it — they died from unsafe abortions,” she said.

But Representative Kat Cammack, a freshman from Florida and the lone Republican member of Congress to testify, offered a starkly different personal story, telling her colleagues that she “would not be here” if her mother, who suffered a stroke after having her first child, had not rebuffed a doctor’s advice to have an abortion.

“You can imagine the feeling, the disappointment, the struggle, the internal anguish that my mother felt,” Ms. Cammack said, adding, “She chose life. That wasn’t an easy decision for a single mom.”

The debate over abortion rights has flared up again on Capitol Hill after the Supreme Court refused earlier this month to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions. With other states rushing to enact similar restrictions, and the court, now dominated by conservatives, preparing to take up a case that could overturn the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, Democrats are making the issue a centerpiece of their campaign strategy for next year’s midterm elections.

ny times logoNew York Times, Opinion: Are We Too Burned Out to Defend Roe v. Wade? Michelle Goldberg, right, Oct. 1, 2021. This Saturday, there will be demonstrations across michelle goldberg thumbthe country to protest Texas’ crowdsourced abortion ban and the Supreme Court’s refusal to enjoin it. It could be a broad mobilization. Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, part of the coalition organizing the protests, told me there are 650 marches planned nationwide. I

I’ll be happily surprised, however, if any of the events are very large. Organizers have applied for a permit for 10,000 people in Washington. That’s about 10 percent of the people who showed up there for the third Women’s March in 2019.

Lara Putnam, a historian at the University of Pittsburgh, told me she was impressed by how many events are being planned in Pennsylvania — more than for the original Women’s March. “But are the numbers of people showing up going to be the same?” she said. “No. There’s no way they’re going to be the same.”

I’ve always assumed that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which I suspect it will next year, it would spark a furious backlash. But it turns out the Supreme Court can functionally suspend Roe without making too many waves. Maybe some people are reluctant to protest because of Delta. But after four years of Donald Trump and a year and a half of a pandemic, a lot of politically committed Americans are burned out.

  • Washington Post, Most of the migrants in Del Rio, Tex., camp have been sent to Haiti or turned back to Mexico, DHS figures show, Nick Miroff, Oct. 2, 2021.

Other Recent U.S. Political Headlines

 

U.S. Courts, Crime, Police, Civil Rights

washington post logoWashington Post, National Women’s Soccer League calls off upcoming games amid allegations of abuse, Molly Hensley-Clancy, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.). The NWSL has recently seen allegations of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse. 

The National Women’s Soccer League on Friday called off all of its weekend games in the face of multiple reports of alleged abuse of players and amid claims that the league has systematically failed to address allegations of sexual coercion by a male coach.

After the players’ union demanded an end to “systemic abuse plaguing the NWSL” on Thursday, the NWSL announced it would suspend the matches.

“This week, and much of this season, has been incredibly traumatic for our players and staff, and I take full responsibility for the role I have played,” NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said in a statement. “I am so sorry for the pain so many are feeling. Recognizing that trauma, we have decided not to take the field this weekend to give everyone some space to reflect.”

The union issued a statement Friday noting that trauma, and saying its goal is to prioritize players’ mental health.

Washington Spirit coach Richie Burke was fired Tuesday following a league investigation into allegations of verbal and emotional abuse that were first reported in The Washington Post. On Thursday, Courage coach Paul Riley was fired following a harrowing account of multiple allegations of sexual coercion published in the Athletic. Riley denied the allegations to the Athletic.

The reporting led to a public outcry of anger and frustration from dozens of NWSL players, including stars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan. The Athletic reported that Riley had been dismissed from a previous team after misconduct allegations, only to be hired by another NWSL team within months.

In total, four NWSL teams have seen their male coaches leave after allegations of misconduct this summer. One coach, OL Reign’s Farid Benstiti, was asked to resign following allegations that he had spoken abusively to players, though at the time, OL Reign’s CEO, Bill Predmore, said only that he had resigned and thanked him for his contributions.

“Men, protecting men, who are abusing women,” Rapinoe said Twitter on Thursday. “Burn it all down. Let all their heads roll.”

washington post logoWashington Post, For years, the voice behind ISIS propaganda was a mystery. Now a Canadian faces criminal charges, Rachel Weiner, Oct. 2, 2021. A Canadian who U.S. prosecutors allege is behind influential English-language propaganda videos for the Islamic State has been brought to Virginia to be prosecuted.

Mohammed Khalifa, 38, was captured by Kurdish forces in Syria in 2019. At that point, according to prosecutors, he had been with the Islamic State for six years. He started as a fighter, according to court documents, before becoming involved in the translation and dissemination of English-language propaganda.

Prosecutors say he narrated over a dozen ISIS recruitment videos, including two of the group’s most influential efforts at luring Westerners: “Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun” in 2014 and “Flames of War II: Until the Final Hour,” in 2017.

In the videos, according to court records, Khalifa encouraged supporters to try to join the Islamic State abroad or, if they could not, to launch attacks in their home countries. One video included a voice recording of the man who declared his allegiance to ISIS before committing a massacre at Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in 2016. Others showed brutal executions, including Syrian prisoners forced to dig their own graves before being executed and a Jordanian pilot being burned alive.

“As alleged, Mohammed Khalifa not only fought for ISIS on the battlefield in Syria, but he was also the voice behind the violence,” Raj Parekh, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who is also one of the prosecutors handling the case, said in a statement. “Khalifa promoted the terrorist group, furthered its worldwide recruitment efforts, and expanded the reach of videos that glorified the horrific murders and indiscriminate cruelty of ISIS.”

Khalifa, who was born in Saudia Arabia, was also responsible for translating material from Arabic to English, prosecutors said. Khalifa is charged with conspiracy to support a foreign terrorist organization resulting in death. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

washington post logoWashington Post, Prosecutors want men accused of plotting ‘race war’ in Va. to be sentenced as domestic terrorists, Katie Mettler, Oct. 2, 2021 (print ed.).  Federal prosecutors have requested that two members of The Base, a white-supremacist group, be sentenced as domestic terrorists after investigators accused them of planning to sow violence at the Virginia Capitol and assassinate the state’s speaker of the house.

On Thursday night, the U.S. attorney’s office in Maryland filed a 45-page memo asking Judge Theodore Chuang to send the men to prison for 25 years each, followed by three years of supervised release — a punishment that factors in the government’s proposed terrorism enhancement.

“The defendants pose a severe risk to public safety,” federal prosecutors wrote. “They are domestic terrorists and should be sentenced accordingly.”

The men — Patrik Mathews and Brian Lemley Jr. — were arrested days before a gun rights rally in Virginia in January 2020. In announcing the charges, the Justice Department said the men planned to spark a “race war” at the event in Richmond.

Mathews, a Canadian national, and Lemley, of Elkton, Md., pleaded guilty to firearms and immigration-related charges in U.S. District Court in Maryland in June. At the time, federal prosecutors described the men’s’ involvement in The Base, which organizes military-style training and supports racist and antisemitic violence, and the men acknowledged their participation in the group.

But prosecutors at the plea hearing did not discuss the gun rights rally or detail any allegations of the men’s plans before the event, laying out new accusations in the sentencing memo filed this week.

Other Recent Headlines:

 

U.S. Media

washington post logoWashington Post, Trump asks court to force Twitter to reinstate his account, Adela Suliman, Oct. 2, 2021. The former president seeks a preliminary injunction while his lawsuit against the social media giant proceeds.

Former president Donald Trump has asked a court to mandate that Twitter restore his social media account.

donald trump twitterIn a filing late Friday, Trump asked a federal district judge for a preliminary injunction enabling his return to Twitter while his lawsuit against the social media giant continues.

“Plaintiff Donald J. Trump respectfully moves for a preliminary injunction directing, inter alia, Defendant Twitter, Inc. and all persons acting in concert with Defendant, to reinstate Plaintiff’s access to Defendant’s social media platform(s),” the filing said.

twitter bird CustomIt argued that Twitter was “censoring” Trump by indefinitely banning him from the platform, adding that the company “exercises a degree of power and control over political discourse in this country that is immeasurable, historically unprecedented, and profoundly dangerous to open democratic debate.”

The filing also argued that Twitter had suspended Trump’s account after being “coerced” by his political rivals in Congress.

Twitter banned Trump from its platform on Jan. 8, stating that two of his tweets had violated the company’s policies and citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” The unprecedented move came after the riot on Jan. 6 in which hundreds of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attack that resulted in five deaths and left about 140 police officers injured.

ny times logoNew York Times, Ozy Media, Once a Darling of Investors, Shuts Down in Swift Unraveling, Ben Smith and Katie Robertson, Oct. 1, 2021. The digital media start-up had come under scrutiny for its business practices after articles in The Times.

The abrupt collapse riveted media observers not because Ozy had a large number of loyal readers — that, in the end, was the problem — but because many had wondered how the company had managed to survive. The answer had to do with a charismatic and relentless founder, a great story and a slick brand that was perfectly tuned to appeal to noted Silicon Valley investors and powerful advertising executives.

Its founder, Mr. Watson, was an investment banker who dreamed of having his own talk show. When that eluded him, after a brief stint in 2009 as a host on MSNBC, he built a media company in his own image as a politically moderate, upwardly mobile son of teachers, one who had gotten degrees at Harvard and Stanford and worked at Goldman Sachs.

Mr. Watson and his partner, another Goldman alumnus, Samir Rao, raised more than $80 million from some of the biggest names in finance. The company debuted in 2013, backed by investors including Emerson Collective, the organization run by the billionaire philanthropist and media entrepreneur Laurene Powell Jobs, and Marc Lasry, a hedge fund manager and a co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks basketball franchise.

Ozy, whose motto was “the new and the next,” had its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., not far from the start-ups that had built themselves into multibillion-dollar giants. It employed roughly 75 people to create articles, videos, podcasts and newsletters on a range of topics, from espionage to the appeal of Grandma’s kitchen. Many of the videos and television shows that Ozy also sold starred Mr. Watson in conversation with politicians and pop culture celebrities, a group that included Joseph R. Biden Jr., Hillary Clinton and John Legend.

While the Times article was being reported, Emerson Collective distanced itself from the company, saying it “did not participate in Ozy’s latest investment round and has not served on its board since 2019.” (Emerson Collective added in a statement on Friday morning that it was “troubled” by the allegations concerning Ozy.)

On Tuesday, the Ozy board said it had hired the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison to investigate the company’s “business activities” and leadership team.

On Thursday, another shoe dropped: Mr. Lasry resigned as the chairman of the Ozy board, saying in a statement, “I believe that going forward Ozy requires experience in areas like crisis management and investigations, where I do not have particular expertise.” Another sign of the end came when Ron Conway, a Silicon Valley investor and an early Ozy backer, said this week that he had returned his shares to the company.

 

World News

ny times logoNew York Times, Duterte Says He Will Retire Rather Than Seek the Vice Presidency, Jason Gutierrez, Oct. 2, 2021. President Rodrigo Duterte of the rodrigo duterte philippines presidentPhilippines said on Saturday that he would retire rather than pursue the vice presidency next year, in a surprise reversal of a plan meant to keep him in national politics after his presidential term ends.

The Philippine Constitution limits presidents to a single, six-year term. But Mr. Duterte, right, had announced that he would run for vice president in the May election, and his former chief aide, Senator Christopher Lawrence Go, had been expected to seek the presidency.

On Saturday, however, Mr. Go submitted papers declaring that he, not Mr. Duterte, would run for vice president. Mr. Duterte raised Mr. Go’s philippines flaghand afterward in a show of unity.

Referring to opinion polls that indicated public opposition to his plan, Mr. Duterte, 76, said that “in obedience to the will of the people, who after all placed me in the presidency many years ago, I now say to my countrymen that I will follow your wishes.”

washington post logoWashington Post, Millions of Indian kids have been out of school for 18 months. The break threatens decades of progress, Niha Masih, Oct. 2, 2021. Malls are open. Restaurants are packed. Markets are buzzing. As coronavirus cases plummet to their lowest levels in months, India’s lockdown feels increasingly like a thing of the past.

But 18 months after the country’s primary school students were sent home in March 2020, tens of millions remain out of school.

In the United States, students began returning to school in August, even as the delta variant surge in parts of the country delayed openings. In India, schools for older children have gradually reopened in recent months, but primary schools in more than half a dozen states have not. In major cities such as Mumbai and Delhi, at one point the country’s coronavirus hot spots, they remain closed.

Education professionals warn that the break in education threatens decades of progress in raising literacy rates.

But recent studies paint a grim picture of the impact of the extended school closures. Students from rural areas, where a majority of the country’s population resides, and those from marginalized communities, faced multiple barriers to continuing their education even before the pandemic.

A survey in August spanning 15 states found that 37 percent of children in grades one through eight in rural areas were not studying at all, and nearly 50 percent could not read more than a few words. Results in urban areas were only marginally better. The survey of nearly 1,400 children focused on students from underprivileged backgrounds who studied in public schools.

 

Oct. 1

Top Headlines

 

Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection, Court Oversight

 

Virus Victims, Responses

 

U.S. Politics, Governance

 

U.S. Courts, Police, Civil Rights

 

World News

 

 

Top Stories

washington post logoWashington Post, Biden Meets With Feuding Democrats and Expresses Confidence a Deal Can Be Reached, Emily Cochrane, Luke Broadwater and Jonathan Weisman, Oct. 1, 2021. Mr. Biden’s visit to Capitol Hill came after a closed-door meeting Ms. Pelosi had called on Friday morning did little to resolve the disputes. In it, lawmakers from swing districts pleaded for passage of the infrastructure bill and liberals in safe Democratic seats said they would not vote yes until the Senate agreed on the larger measure.

Many Democrats had issued public pleas for Mr. Biden to become more personally involved in the negotiations, saying he needed to allay the escalating mistrust and frustration among Democrats.

“I think the president might be the only person that can bridge both the trust gap and the timing gap,” said Representative Dean Phillips, Democrat of Minnesota.

Ms. Pelosi opened the morning meeting with an appeal for unity, telling her troops they could stay strong if they united, according to multiple people familiar with the session who described it on the condition of anonymity.

The infrastructure bill, which would provide $550 billion in new funding, was supposed to burnish Mr. Biden’s bipartisan bona fides. It includes $65 billion to expand high-speed internet access; $110 billion for roads, bridges and other projects; $25 billion for airports; and the most funding for Amtrak since the passenger rail service was founded in 1971. It would also accelerate a national shift toward electric vehicles, with new charging stations and fortifications of the electricity grid that will be necessary to power those cars.

President Biden said progressives and centrists could come to an agreement on an infrastructure bill and a sweeping social spending and climate package, but said, “It doesn’t matter whether it’s in six minutes, six days or six weeks.”

nancy pelosi 8 24 21 cnbc

washington post logoWashington Post, Opinion: The Democrats’ agenda is right. But the strategy’s all wrong, Michael Gerson, Oct. 1, 2021. The Democrats’ agenda is right. But the strategy’s all wrong.

Though I understand that the GOP — having taken leave of its ideological senses — must be beaten and beaten regularly for its own good, I am not yet used to pulling for the other side in American politics. It still has a frisson of badness, like getting a tattoo and joining a biker gang, or rooting for Slytherin at quidditch. But I’m doing my best to master the complex ploys and machinations of my new team.

The first Democratic stratagem: Devalue your own accomplishments.

Senate passage of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package, with the bipartisan support of 69 members, is an achievement that eluded President Biden’s predecessor and a testament to Biden’s negotiating skills. With steady, genial purpose, the president found agreement at a time of unprecedented rancor. The results include one of the largest investments in roads and bridges since Dwight D. Eisenhower’s creation of the National Highway System, the expansion of broadband to millions of the bypassed, the modernization of public transport, the revamping of the electrical grid and the upgrade of water systems.

There is enough prime, grade-A political pork — needed pork, justified pork, moral pork — in this package for members of Congress to claim credit from now till Doomsday, or Election Day (whichever comes first).

So what did Democrats do? They raised the expectation of a $3.5 trillion social spending bill, guaranteeing a public impression of failure if they “only” get the infrastructure package. “Striving to better,” Shakespeare wrote, “oft we mar what’s well.”

  • A second Democratic dictum: Muddy your message.
  • The third Democratic strategy: Take the slimmest possible win as a massive political mandate.

ny times logoNew York Times, House Delays Vote on Infrastructure, in Big Setback for Biden Agenda, Emily Cochrane and Jonathan Weisman, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). The postponement extends the showdown between moderate supporters of the bill and liberals who have said they will bring it down without progress on a separate social policy measure. President Biden signed a short-term spending bill, averting a government shutdown.

President Biden’s trillion-dollar bipartisan infrastructure plan suffered a significant setback late Thursday night when House Democratic leaders, short of support amid a liberal revolt, put off a planned vote on a crucial piece of their domestic agenda.

Democratic leaders and supporters of the bill insisted the postponement was only a temporary setback. The infrastructure vote was rescheduled for Friday, giving them more time to reach agreement on an expansive climate change and social safety net bill that would bring liberals along.

But such a deal appeared far off, and the delay was a humiliating blow to Mr. Biden and Democrats, who had spent days toiling to broker a deal between their party’s feuding factions and corral the votes needed to pass the infrastructure bill. Mr. Biden has staked his reputation as a deal-maker on the success of both the public works package and a far more ambitious social policy bill, whose fates are now uncertain in a Congress buffeted by partisan divides and internal Democratic strife.

Here’s what you need to know:

  • Pelosi declares infrastructure bill on track, setting up a showdown between her party’s feuding factions.
  • Biden signs a short-term spending bill swiftly passed by Congress, averting a government shutdown.
  • Railroads, climate resilience, electrical upgrades: Here’s what the infrastructure bill would fund.
  • Manchin says he’ll support a $1.5 trillion social safety net bill, $2 trillion less than Biden’s sweeping plan.
  • Paring back the $3.5 trillion social policy bill would be tough, but there are possibilities.

washington post logoWashington Post, Congress approves government funding bill hours before midnight deadline to avert shutdown, Tony Romm, Sept. 30, 2021. The House voted Thursday afternoon after the Senate also approved the measure. It now goes to Biden for enactment.

Congress on Thursday approved a measure to fund the government into early December, staving off a shutdown that was set to occur after midnight.

The votes in the House and Senate followed weeks of hand wringing between the two parties, after Democrats initially sought to move the measure along with another proposal to raise the country’s debt ceiling. Senate Republicans blocked that effort, leaving the country’s ability to borrow unresolved just 18 days before the next major fiscal deadline.

The funding stopgap sustains federal agencies’ existing spending until December 3, at which point Congress must adopt another short-term fix, called a continuing resolution, or pass a dozen appropriations bills that fund federal agencies through the 2022 fiscal year.

washington post logoWashington Post, DeJoy’s USPS slowdown plan will delay the mail. What does it mean for your Zip code? Jacob Bogage and Kevin Schaul, Updated Oct. 1, 2021 (interactive and first published in June). Changes taking effect today represent the biggest slowdown in more than a generation, experts say.

Las Vegas, Seattle, San Diego, Orlando and countless communities in between will see mail service slow by as much as a day under the U.S. Postal Service’s strategic restructuring plan, a Washington Post analysis shows.

The new delivery regimen, which takes effect Oct. 1, disproportionately affects states west of the Rocky Mountains and the country’s mainland extremities, including large swaths of southern Texas and Florida.
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The proposed service standards, or the amount of time the agency says it should take to deliver a piece of first-class mail, represent the biggest slowdown of mail services in more than a generation, experts say. It involves significant reductions in airmail — a Postal Service tradition dating to 1918 — and geographic restrictions on how far a piece of mail can travel within a day.

Seventy percent of first-class mail sent to Nevada will take longer to arrive, according to The Post’s analysis, as will 60 percent of the deliveries to Florida, 58 percent to Washington state, 57 percent to Montana, and 55 percent to Arizona and Oregon. In all, at least a third of such letters and parcels addressed to 27 states will arrive more slowly under the new standards.

 

Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection, Court Oversight

capitol riot jan 6 jose luis magana ap

Rioters wave flags in front of the U.S. Capitol. The Pentagon has faced scorching criticism for taking hours to deploy National Guard units to the Capitol on Jan. 6. | Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: Members of the Supreme Court should be investigated for role in insurrection, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 30, 2021. At least two wayne madsen may 29 2015 cropped Smallmembers of the dominant Trump faction on the Supreme Court are worthy of being investigated for their possible roles in the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Justice Samuel Alito was considered the “go-to” member of the court by one-time Donald Trump election challenge attorney Sidney Powell. wayne madesen report logoPowell, whose veracity on a number of issues has been shown to be severely lacking, may have acted out of character by revealing the game plan behind Trump’s encouragement of his supporters halting the congressional certification of the Electoral College count on January 6.

Powell and John Eastman, another Trump election challenge attorney, as well as Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) were attempting to have Alito issue a Supreme Court emergency injunction halting the January 6 certification process by Congress under the provisions of the 12th Amendment of the Constitution.

Then there is Clarence Thomas. The role of his wife, Ginni Thomas, in promoting the January 6th events on her Facebook page, resulted in her apologizing to her husband’s former law clerks.

If need be, Alito, Clarence Thomas, and his wife should be subpoenaed by the House Select Committee on January 6th. If they refuse, they should be charged with contempt of Congress and, of course, they can always just “tell it to the judge.”

 washington post logoWashington Post, Alito defends letting Texas abortion law take effect, says Supreme Court critics want to intimidate justices, Robert Barnes and Mike Berardino, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. on Thursday defended the Supreme Court’s actions in letting a controversial and restrictive Texas abortion law go into effect, and said criticism of the court’s recent decisions in emergency cases was an attempt to intimidate the justices.

samuel alito oIn a speech at the University of Notre Dame, the veteran conservative justice, left, lambasted the use of the term “shadow docket” to describe the emergency applications that come before the court, a process in place for years but which has increased in frequency.

“The catchy and sinister term ‘shadow docket’ has been used to portray the court as having been captured by a dangerous cabal that resorts to sneaky and improper methods to get its ways,” Alito said. “And this portrayal feeds unprecedented efforts to intimidate the court or damage it as an independent institution.”

Observers see trouble ahead as public approval of Supreme Court declines

Just days before Monday’s start of the new Supreme Court term, Alito took aim at the political and media criticism that five members of the court had effectively overturned the constitutional protection of abortion in Texas.

The state’s new law prohibits abortions after six weeks of gestation — months earlier than allowed by the constitutional standards the Supreme Court has endorsed. The law employs a unique system of enforcement by which members of the public can bring civil actions against those who aid and abet the prohibited abortions.

Alito highlighted a recent opinion piece that said the court’s conservative majority was so eager to overturn Roe v. Wade that it didn’t wait for a case from Mississippi to be argued Dec. 1, which presents squarely the issue of whether to overturn the nearly 50-year-old precedent.

“Put aside the false and inflammatory claim that we nullified Roe v. Wade,” Alito said. “We did no such thing. And we said that expressly in our order.”

The majority opinion Alito joined let the Texas law take effect. It said the case raised unique questions that the challengers had not satisfied about who the proper defendant is for a lawsuit aimed at stopping the law.

washington post logoWashington Post, House Jan. 6 committee issues subpoenas for pro-Trump rally organizers, Jacqueline Alemany, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas to 11 people associated with or involved in the planning of pro-Trump rallies that preceded the violent insurrection.

The subpoenas announced on Wednesday evening by the committee come a week after it issued subpoenas targeting two top Trump White House officials, the chief of staff to the acting defense secretary, and longtime Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon.

Several of the newly subpoenaed are rally organizers — including the founders and staff of the pro-Trump Women for America First group — who could face questions about reports that the group had concerns about the “Stop the Steal” rally turning into an illegal and chaotic march on the Capitol. They may also be able to shed light on the degree to which the former president and his senior White House aides knew about their fears of chaos on Jan 6.

The subpoenas ask that Amy Kremer, a stalwart supporter of Trump and the founder of Women for America First — the group that sponsored the Stop the Steal rally on the Ellipse — provide documents and appear for a deposition before the committee.

The best-known person on the list of new subpoenas may be Katrina Pierson, who served as Trump campaign spokesman in 2016, worked with a pro-Trump political organization during the Trump’s term in office, and reportedly served as an informal liaison between the White House and the rally on the Ellipse. The letter sent to her Wednesday cites reports “that you participated in a meeting with President Trump in the Oval Office on Jan. 4., 2021,” about the rallies planned in coming days. The subpoena seeks documents and testimony related to her discussions about the rallies.

The committee is also seeking information from Kremer’s daughter Kylie, who assisted her mother in organizing the rally, along with Maggie Mulvaney, the niece of former acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. Mulvaney was listed as a “VIP Lead” on the permit for the event and served as the director of finance for the Trump campaign.

 

Trump-supporting former law school dean John Eastman, left, helps Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani inflame pro-Trump protesters in front the White House before the insurrection riot at the U.S. Capitol to prevent the presidential election certification of Joe Biden's presidency on Jan. 6, 2021 (Los Angeles Times photo). Trump-supporting former law school dean John Eastman, left, helps Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani inflame pro-Trump protesters in front the White House before the insurrection riot at the U.S. Capitol to prevent the presidential election certification of Joe Biden’s presidency on Jan. 6, 2021 (Los Angeles Times photo). 

washington post logoWashington Post, Opinion: A Trump lawyer wrote an instruction manual for a coup. Why haven’t you seen it on the news? Margaret Sullivan, right, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). margaret sullivan 2015 photoIn a normal world, the “Eastman memo” would be infamous by now, the way “Access Hollywood” became the popular shorthand in 2016 for the damning recording of Donald Trump’s bragging about groping women.

But it’s a good bet that most people have never even heard of the Eastman memo.

That says something troubling about how blasé the mainstream press has become about the attempted coup in the aftermath of the 2020 election — and how easily a coup could succeed next time.

 

Virus Victims, Responses

merck logony times logoNew York Times, Live Updates: Merck Says Covid Antiviral Pill Is Effective in Trial, Staff Reports, Oct. 1, 2021. The pill, which would be the first of its kind, was shown to halve the risk of hospitalization or death in some high-risk patients. The drug maker says its pill was shown in a clinical trial to cut the risk of hospitalization or death from the virus in half.

  • Australia is accelerating plans to ease international travel restrictions for its citizens and permanent residents.

washington post logoWashington Post, Live Updates: New York sees rise in vaccination rates for health-care workers after mandate, Andrew Jeong and Adela Suliman, Oct. 1, 2021. A New York state mandate that took effect this week, requiring health-care workers to be vaccinated against the deadly coronavirus, has boosted the immunization rates of care providers, to the relief of officials who had worried that the order could lead to mass walkouts and staff shortages.

As of Wednesday, 87 percent of hospital staff were fully vaccinated, up from 84 percent the previous week, the state reported. Between 89 and 92 percent of staff working in hospitals, nursing homes and adult care facilities had received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, it added.

The state’s mandate has not been without protest — some doctors, nurses and other providers filed lawsuits, arguing that the state didn’t provide sufficient exemptions. However, the rise in vaccination rates suggests that New York has so far succeeded in rolling out the requirement without bringing about severe staffing shortages.

New York was the state with the earliest vaccination deadline for health-care workers and its experience will be watched closely by other states that have instituted vaccine mandates for the sector.

  • Australia to ease travel ban in November, shedding ‘Hermit Kingdom’ tag
  • School boards are ‘under an immediate threat,’ organization says in request for federal help
  • Amid lawsuit, Montgomery County schools will allow religious exemption for staff coronavirus vaccine mandate

washington post logoWashington Post, Analysis: Turns out a lot of those never-vaxxers were really ‘I’ll get it if required,’ Philip Bump, right, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). Since the government philip bumpapproved the first vaccine to fight the coronavirus last year, polling has found that there are four general views of the vaccination process.

The first is those who were eager to get vaccinated, telling pollsters that they would do so as soon as possible and then actually doing it. Next, there were those who were cautious, saying that they would wait and see before getting a dose. In polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) over the past 10 months, those two groups combined have been about three-quarters of the country.

ny times logoNew York Times, Opinion: Of Vaccine Mandates and Facing Reality, Paul Krugman, right, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). Three weeks ago President Biden announced plans paul krugmanto require Covid-19 vaccinations — or, in some cases, weekly testing as an alternative — for most U.S. workers. There were immediate predictions that the move would backfire, that it would only stiffen vaccine resistance. Indeed, some surveys suggested that as many as half of unvaccinated workers would quit their jobs rather than take their shots.

But such threats are proving mostly empty. Many state and local governments and a significant number of private employers have already imposed vaccine mandates — and these mandates have been very successful. Compliance has been high, and only a relative handful of workers have quit or had to be fired.

To understand why vaccine mandates seem to work so well, we need to think about the real nature of vaccine resistance. Most of the people refusing to take their shots don’t really believe that the vaccines contain tracking microchips or that they have severe side effects.

Instead, everything we’ve seen suggests that many vaccine resisters are like the people who in the past raged about seatbelt laws and bans on phosphates in detergents, or more recently refused to wear masks. That is, they’re people who balk at being asked to accept what they imagine to be a cost or inconvenience on behalf of the public good. (In reality, getting vaccinated is very much something you should do on purely selfish grounds, but as I’ll explain in a minute, that information may not be getting through.)

The point is that most vaccine resistance isn’t about deep concerns, but it often involves assertions of the right to give (misguided perceptions of) self-interest priority over the public interest. So, luckily, many resisters fold as soon as the calculus of self-interest reverses, and refusing to take their shots has immediate, tangible financial costs.

All of this has a clear policy implication for the Biden administration and for other leaders like governors and mayors — namely, full speed ahead. Vaccine mandates won’t cause mass resignations; they will cause a sharp rise in vaccination rates, which is key both to finally getting Covid under control and to achieving sustained economic recovery.

washington post logoWashington Post, Portugal has nearly run out of people to vaccinate. What comes next? Chico Harlan and Mia Alberti, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). Portugal has become a place where hypothetical questions about the coronavirus endgame can begin to play out. Chief among them is how fully a nation can bring the virus under control when vaccination rates are about as high as they can go.

washington post logoWashington Post, West Virginia was a vaccine success story. Now it’s a covid-19 hot spot, Staff report, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed., video story). West Virginia was an early leader in covid-19 vaccinations, but health officials say they have hit a wall of vaccine resistance and misinformation. At its current pace, the state won’t hit the 70% vaccination threshold until Oct. 2022, according to Post data.

washington post logoWashington Post, Opinion: Covid-19 is sticking around. Time to stop pretending it’s not your problem, Eugene Robinson, right, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). The most eugene robinson headshot Customsenseless and self-destructive battle in this country today is not between Democrats and fellow Democrats, despite what the headlines might suggest. It is between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated — a split with dire consequences for the nation and the world.

It is mystifying to me, and to many others, that such a divide could possibly exist. Yet an estimated 70 million Americans who are eligible to protect themselves against being hospitalized or dying from covid-19 have not done so. To be as generous as possible, some of those people may still worry about losing days off work to side effects or fear that getting a shot could reveal their undocumented status. But the selfishness and foolishness of people who don’t face those obstacles endanger not only their own health but everyone else’s as well.

washington post logoWashington Post, Lawsuit seeks to halt Biden’s vaccination mandates for federal workforce, Paul Duggan and Alex Horton, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). A group of lawsuit plaintiffs, including four Air Force officers and a Secret Service agent, have asked a federal court to block the Biden administration’s coronavirus USTR seal Custom 2vaccination mandates, declaring, “Americans have remained idle for far too long as our nation’s elected officials continue to satisfy their voracious appetites for power.”

The lawsuit, filed Sept. 23 in U.S. District Court in Washington, seeks an injunction that would halt vaccination requirements announced recently for millions of workers in federal executive-branch agencies, including contractors, as well as U.S. troops.

Although people with legitimate religious or medical objections are exempt from the immunization policies, officials said, the 10 plaintiffs allege that the mandates, enacted by President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, violate the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom and are prohibited by federal laws.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Oct. 1, 2021), with some governments reporting lower numbers than the totals here and some experts saying the numbers are far higher, as the New York Times reported in India’s true pandemic death toll is likely to be well over 3 million, a new study finds:

World Cases: 234,666,020, Deaths: 4,799,834
U.S. Cases:    44,314,424, Deaths:    716,847
India Cases:    33,766,707, Deaths:    448,372
Brazil Cases:   21,427,073, Deaths:    596,800

washington post logoWashington Post, At least 214.3 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Oct. 1, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 185.6 million people fully vaccinated.

The United States reached President Biden’s target of getting at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine to 70 percent of adults just about a month after his goal of July 4.

  • Washington Post, Justice Kavanaugh tests positive for coronavirus, John Wagner, Oct. 1, 2021. Kavanaugh, who has been vaccinated, has shown no symptoms, the Supreme Court said. The other justices had tested negative as of Monday.

washington post logo Washington Post, Anchorage mayor defended anti-maskers wearing yellow Stars of David, claiming it’s ‘actually a credit to’ Jews, Jaclyn Peiser, Oct. 1, 2021. As residents filed into the Anchorage Assembly meeting to debate a mask mandate on Wednesday night, a community member stood by the entrance and handed out yellow Stars of David adorned with the phrase “Do not comply.”

The stars — references to those imposed on Jews by the Nazis — symbolized the consequences of forcing people to wear masks, she said.“We’re going down that same road, what’s happening now, taking more and more of our freedom away,” Christine Hill explained, according to Anchorage Daily News. “And that’s what’s happening. That’s what’s frightening.”

A Jewish council member pushed back, arguing that the yellow Star of David symbol is antisemitic and offensive.

Then the mayor made a shocking defense: “I think us borrowing that from them is actually a credit to them,” Dave Bronson said, referring to Jewish people. The national blowback and condemnation from local Jewish community leaders against the Republican mayor was swift. Bronson backtracked his words and apologized.

The Anti-Defamation League warned that the comparisons are dangerous.

“The utilization of this type of Holocaust imagery wrongly compares the antisemitic, racist, misogynist, xenophobic and homophobic Nazi-regime and its genocidal acts to current government measures to contain the pandemic,” the organization wrote in a blog post. “Comparing the two is not only an act of moral outrage, but also represents an attempt to downplay the enormity of the Holocaust.”

Wednesday was the second night of public meetings to discuss a mask mandate that would require face coverings in Anchorage’s indoor public spaces and at large outdoor gatherings. Local health officials support the proposal as Alaska faces its worst covid surge yet. Hospitals across the state are overwhelmed with covid-19 patients. The largest hospital, which is in Anchorage, recently said it is rationing care and prioritizing its resources for those who need it most.

Despite the raging spread of the highly contagious delta variant, Bronson, stood by his constituents who opposed the covid restrictions. During the first night of the public meeting, Bronson called the ordinance “reckless,” “ill conceived,” “an unconstitutional infringement” and falsely claimed it was “based on inconclusive science,” the Anchorage Daily News reported.

The meeting on Wednesday quickly devolved into tense exchanges and disruptive outbursts. Four people were arrested — two face trespassing charges and two face disorderly conduct charges. One was also charged with misconduct involving a weapon, according to the Daily News.

 

U.S. Politics, Security, Governance

washington post logoWashington Post, Splintered Democrats delay vote over infrastructure plan backed by Biden, Tony Romm, Marianna Sotomayor, Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). Centrists and liberals could not reach an agreement over a broader spending package, putting the bill for roads and bridges in doubt.

House Democrats on Thursday delayed a vote on an approximately $1 trillion proposal to improve the nation’s infrastructure, a dramatic reversal after hours of negotiations that marked a major setback for President Biden’s economic agenda.

Dick ShelbyThe decision came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) (shown above in a file photo) and other Democratic leaders strained late into the night to try to repair the schisms among their own moderate and liberal ranks, whose distrust of each other turned the public-works bill into a political bargaining chip in a fight over the full array of new spending that Biden seeks.

The source of the Democratic stalemate was a second, roughly $3.5 trillion package that proposes to expand Medicare, combat climate change and boost federal safety-net programs, all financed through tax increases on wealthy Americans and corporations. To safeguard the initiative from cuts at the hands of centrists, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), left, liberals threatened to oppose the infrastructure bill that the moderate duo originally helped negotiate.

washington post logoWashington Post, Biden signs funding bill before midnight deadline to avert shutdown, Tony Romm, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). The House voted Thursday afternoon after the Senate also approved the measure.

joe biden flag profile uncredited palmerCongress on Thursday approved a measure to fund the government into early December, and President Biden signed the bill hours later, staving off a shutdown that was set to occur after midnight.

The votes in the House and Senate followed weeks of hand wringing between the two parties, after Democrats initially sought to move the measure along with another proposal to raise the country’s debt ceiling. Senate Republicans blocked that effort, leaving the country’s ability to borrow unresolved just 18 days before the next major fiscal deadline.

The funding stopgap sustains federal agencies’ existing spending until Dec. 3, at which point Congress must adopt another short-term fix, called a continuing resolution, or pass a dozen appropriations bills that fund federal agencies through the 2022 fiscal year.

corey lewandowski kristi noem

washington post logoWashington Post, S.D. governor severs ties with Trump aide after harassment allegations, Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R), above left, announced Thursday that she would stop working with former Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, above right, after allegations surfaced that he had sexually harassed a donor at a dinner they both attended in Las Vegas.

The actions follow a decision by former president Donald Trump, conveyed through a spokesman, to cut ties with Lewandowski, his 2016 campaign manager and the current head of a Trump-affiliated fundraising effort, after a donor accused Lewandowski of repeatedly groping her and making unwanted sexual comments at an event last weekend that Noem also attended.

Charles Herbster, a Republican candidate for governor in Nebraska, also announced Thursday that he was asking Lewandowski to step back from his role as a senior adviser to the campaign.

“Corey and his family will remain in my prayers,” Herbster said in a statement.

Lewandowski had become one of Noem’s political advisers in recent months, traveling the country with her to attend donor and Republican National Committee events as she laid the groundwork for a potential presidential campaign effort in 2024. He also helped to write her speeches, according to people familiar with the work who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The two were often seen at dinners and private events together.

Separately, Noem issued a statement on Wednesday denying an anonymously sourced claim on a conservative website that she and Lewandowski had an extramarital affair.

ny times logoNew York Times, A Congresswoman’s Story: Raped at 17, ‘I Chose to Have an Abortion,’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). After a legal setback for abortion rights, three Democrats and one Republican shared their personal stories with a House panel.

Representative Cori Bush, right, a Democrat from Missouri, is known on Capitol Hill as a nurse, a pastor, a Black Lives Matter activist and a member of a “squad” of cori bush oprogressive women lawmakers. On Thursday, she told a House panel that she is also a rape survivor who had an abortion after she was attacked on a church trip when she was 17.

Ms. Bush said she is no longer ashamed. “In the summer of 1994,” she declared, “I was raped, I became pregnant and I chose to have an abortion.”

With the right to abortion under threat after a major Supreme Court setback, Ms. Bush was one of three Democratic congresswomen who sat at a witness table to share their personal experiences with terminating a pregnancy. The hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reflected a sharp cultural divide, with Republicans accusing Democrats of “glorifying and normalizing” abortion, and Democrats making their point — that abortion is a decision best left to women and their doctors — in matter-of-fact terms.

pramila jayapal resized oRepresentative Pramila Jayapal, left, Democrat of Washington, got an abortion when she was a young mother caring for a very sick child and struggling to recover from postpartum depression so severe that she considered suicide. Her doctor told her that carrying a second child to term would be extremely risky for both her and the baby.

“I very much wanted to have more children,” she told the panel, “but I simply could not imagine going through that again.”

Representative Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, was the first Black cheerleader in her high school and a promising student with good grades when she got pregnant before abortion was legal in the United States. Her mother sent her to a friend in Texas, who took her for a “back alley” abortion at a clinic in Mexico.

barbara lee“A lot of girls and women in my generation didn’t make it — they died from unsafe abortions,” she said.

But Representative Kat Cammack, a freshman from Florida and the lone Republican member of Congress to testify, offered a starkly different personal story, telling her colleagues that she “would not be here” if her mother, who suffered a stroke after having her first child, had not rebuffed a doctor’s advice to have an abortion.

“You can imagine the feeling, the disappointment, the struggle, the internal anguish that my mother felt,” Ms. Cammack said, adding, “She chose life. That wasn’t an easy decision for a single mom.”

The debate over abortion rights has flared up again on Capitol Hill after the Supreme Court refused earlier this month to block a Texas law prohibiting most abortions. With other states rushing to enact similar restrictions, and the court, now dominated by conservatives, preparing to take up a case that could overturn the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, Democrats are making the issue a centerpiece of their campaign strategy for next year’s midterm elections.

ny times logoNew York Times, Opinion: Are We Too Burned Out to Defend Roe v. Wade? Michelle Goldberg, right, Oct. 1, 2021. This Saturday, there will be demonstrations across michelle goldberg thumbthe country to protest Texas’ crowdsourced abortion ban and the Supreme Court’s refusal to enjoin it. It could be a broad mobilization. Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of the Women’s March, part of the coalition organizing the protests, told me there are 650 marches planned nationwide. I

I’ll be happily surprised, however, if any of the events are very large. Organizers have applied for a permit for 10,000 people in Washington. That’s about 10 percent of the people who showed up there for the third Women’s March in 2019.

Lara Putnam, a historian at the University of Pittsburgh, told me she was impressed by how many events are being planned in Pennsylvania — more than for the original Women’s March. “But are the numbers of people showing up going to be the same?” she said. “No. There’s no way they’re going to be the same.”

I’ve always assumed that if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, which I suspect it will next year, it would spark a furious backlash. But it turns out the Supreme Court can functionally suspend Roe without making too many waves. Maybe some people are reluctant to protest because of Delta. But after four years of Donald Trump and a year and a half of a pandemic, a lot of politically committed Americans are burned out.

ny times logoNew York Times, Wonking Out: Biden should ignore the debt limit and mint a $1 trillion coin (Opinion), Paul Krugman, Oct. 1, 2021. The Biden administration should mint a $1 trillion platinum coin or declare that the Constitution gives it the right to issue whatever debt is needed to fund the government — or use some other trick I haven’t thought of to ignore the looming crisis. 

Other Recent U.S. Political Headlines

 

U.S. Courts, Crime, Police, Civil Rights

washington post logoWashington Post, New study: Police killings undercounted by more than half, Caroline Anders and María Luisa Paúl, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). One expert said the study’s findings stress the “undercurrents of systemic racism” in the United States. More than half of police killings in the United States over the past 40 years have been mislabeled, according to a new study, leading to a stark undercount of deaths at the hands of officers and a lopsided perception of what experts say is a public health crisis.

Researchers from the University of Washington found that from 1980 to 2019 more than 55 percent of 31,000 deaths attributed to police violence were assigned other causes in official federal death data. Black men are killed by police at disproportionately high rates, and their deaths are mislabeled at higher rates than for any other race, according to the study, which was published Thursday in the Lancet, a peer-reviewed medical journal.

washington post logoWashington Post, Appeals court appears reluctant to say Guantánamo detainees have due process rights, Ann E. Marimow and Missy Ryan, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). Federal judges in D.C. pressed the Biden administration Thursday about safeguards for prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, seeking to challenge their detention, even as the court seemed reluctant to find that the suspected terrorists who remain there have due process rights under the U.S. Constitution.

The case before the court of a Yemeni man held without charge or trial for nearly 20 years drew renewed attention to the military prison and comes one month after President Biden ended the war in Afghanistan.

The Biden administration has backed away from the Trump-era position that Guantánamo inmates have no such rights. Instead, Justice Department lawyers urged the court to rule narrowly and avoid deciding a constitutional question that has remained unanswered for decades.

Three of the last four presidents, including Biden, have said the facility should close. Its population has dwindled from more than 700 detainees to 39, and most who remain have never been charged.

A full complement of 11 judges on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reviewed the case of Abdulsalam al-Hela, a Yemeni businessman held at Guantánamo since 2004. His lawyers say Hela’s “seemingly endless detention” is “punitive and unjustifiable,” and they are urging the court to release him immediately.

The Justice Department told the court that Hela, 50, has had a “meaningful opportunity” to challenge the basis for his detention and that the process already includes “robust” protections for detainees. The department has warned that a broad holding by the court extending due process rights to Guantánamo detainees could adversely impact military, intelligence and law enforcement operations.

Several judges asked Thursday whether there was still a controversy for the court to resolve because Hela was recently approved for transfer out of Guantánamo — and they asked how the end of the Afghanistan war affected his continued detention.

Reuters, Lawyer who sued Chevron sentenced to six months in contempt case, Sebastien Malo, Oct. 1, 2021. A disbarred American lawyer who spent decades battling Chevron Corp (CVX.N) over pollution in the Ecuadorian rainforest was sentenced Friday to six months’ imprisonment for criminal contempt charges arising from a lawsuit brought by the oil company.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska sentenced Steven Donziger after finding him guilty in May of “willfully” defying court orders, including by failing to turn over his computer and other electronic devices.

“It seems that only the proverbial two-by-four between the eyes will instill in him any respect for the law,” Preska said.

Donziger’s lawyer, Martin Garbus, called the sentence “outrageous.”

washington post logoWashington Post, John J. Rigas 1924–2021: Cable TV magnate who went to prison for fraud dies at 96, Jia Lynn Yang, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). John J. Rigas, who built Adelphia Communications into the country’s sixth-largest cable company and whose 2007 jailing for stealing millions of dollars from the firm made him a prominent example of corporate fraud and excess, died Sept. 30 at a hospital in Coudersport, Pa. He was 96.

The death was confirmed by William Brennan of the Thomas E. Fickinger Funeral Home in Coudersport. The cause was not disclosed.

Mr. Rigas, who at one time owned the Buffalo Sabres NHL hockey franchise, served nine years of a 15-year sentence — later reduced to 12 — for securities fraud, convicted of what the Securities and Exchange Commission called “one of the most extensive financial frauds ever to take place at a public company.” He was granted compassionate release from the Allenwood federal prison in Pennsylvania in 2016, when he was 91 and was said to have terminal cancer.

washington post logoWashington Post, 96-year-old former Nazi camp secretary facing trial arrested after fleeing from nursing home, Ellen Francis and Sofia Diogo Mateus, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.).

New York Magazine via MSN.com, Opinion: John Durham’s Attempt to Discredit Trump’s Russiagate Enemies Is Falling Apart, Jonathan Chait, Oct. 1, 2021. When Donald Trump’s attorney general appointed John Durham to investigate what Trump insisted was a deep-state conspiracy against him, a question hovered: What exactly was Durham thinking? Durham, below left, had a respectable résumé as a prosecutor in a career that did not seem to lead straight into a role as Trump’s Roy Cohn.

Was he simply accepting the role out of diligence and the understanding that, if he found no crimes, he could put Trump’s absurd charges to rest? Or — unlikely but possible — would he uncover real proof of a criminal conspiracy at the FBI to undermine Trump? Or had Durham undergone the same Fox News–induced john durham Custombrain melt that has turned figures like Barr, Giuliani, and many others into authoritarian conspiracy theorists?

In the wake of Durham’s first and perhaps only indictment, we can safely rule out the first two explanations.

Durham’s indictment does not even allege that the FBI committed any wrongdoing. Instead, it charges that the FBI was lied to — by Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who passed on leads about Trump’s ties to Russia that the bureau was unable to verify. Durham’s indictment claims Sussmann committed perjury by denying he was working for the Clinton campaign at the time he brought his information about Trump to the FBI in 2016.

james baker fbiThe first weakness in the indictment is that even if every word Durham writes is true, the charge he has amounts to a very, very small molehill. Interested parties uncover crimes all the time. There’s just no reason to believe that Sussmann’s relationship with a law firm working for Clinton would have made any difference to the FBI — which was already investigating Trump’s ties to Russia and which wound up discarding Sussmann’s lead anyway as a dry hole.

Second, the evidence that Sussmann lied to the FBI is extremely shaky. As Benjamin Wittes notes, the sole basis for charging Sussmann with perjury is the recollection by FBI official Jim Baker. Baker, right, testified to Congress that he remembered very little about his conversation with Sussmann, i.e.:

Baker: [I]n that first interaction, I don’t remember him specifically saying that he was acting on behalf of a particular client.

Jordan: Did you know at the time that he was representing the DNC in the Clinton campaign?

Baker: I can’t remember. I have learned that at some point. I don’t — as I think I said last time, I don’t specifically remember when I learned that. So I don’t know that I had that in my head when he showed up in my office. I just can’t remember.

Jordan: Did you learn that shortly thereafter if you didn’t know it at the time?

Baker: I wish I could give you a better answer. I just don’t remember.

Yes, the “Jordan” who dug out the evidence that seems likely to undermine Durham’s case is Trump superfan Jim Jordan. Wittes concludes, “It is hard for me to understand how a criminal case against Sussmann can proceed in the face of this testimony.”

The perjury charge is merely the window dressing in the indictment. The meat of it — the part that has Trump defenders excited — is a narrative laid out by Durham attempting to paint Sussmann and the experts he worked with as liars who smeared Trump. That narrative part does not describe actual crimes, of course. Prosecutors can write whatever they want in their indictment. This one is like a Sean Hannity monologue wrapped around a parking ticket.

And even the “speaking indictment” portion of Durham’s charge is falling apart now. Today, both CNN and the New York Times reported that Durham selectively quoted from emails in order to furnish a completely misleading impression that Sussmann’s researchers lied.

ny times logo

New York Times, Trump Server Mystery Produces Fresh Conflict, Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). An indictment suggested that researchers who found links between a Russian bank and the Trump Organization did not believe their own work. They are pushing back.

The charge was narrow: John H. Durham, left, the special counsel appointed by the Trump administration to scour the Russia investigation, indicted a cybersecurity lawyer this month on a single count of lying to the F.B.I.

john durham CustomBut Mr. Durham used a 27-page indictment to lay out a far more expansive tale, one in which four computer scientists who were not charged in the case “exploited” their access to internet data to develop an explosive theory about cyberconnections in 2016 between Donald J. Trump’s company and a Kremlin-linked bank — a theory, he insinuated, they did not really believe.

Mr. Durham’s version of events set off reverberations beyond the courtroom. Trump supporters seized on the indictment, saying it shows that alpha bank logo russiasuspicions about possible covert communications between Russia’s Alfa Bank and Mr. Trump’s company were a deliberate hoax by supporters of Hillary Clinton and portraying it as evidence that the entire Russia investigation was unwarranted.

Emails obtained by The New York Times and interviews with people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss issues being investigated by federal authorities, provide a fuller and more complex account of how a group of cyberexperts discovered the odd internet data and developed their hypothesis about what could explain it.

At the same time, defense lawyers for the scientists say it is Mr. Durham’s indictment that is misleading. Their clients, they say, believed their hypothesis was a plausible explanation for the odd data they had uncovered — and still do.

ny times logoNew York Times, Judge Releases Britney Spears From Her Father’s Oversight, Joe Coscarelli, Julia Jacobs and Liz Day, Updated Sept. 30, 2021. The singer will be without James Spears’s financial control for the first time since 2008 after a judge ruled that the “current situation is not tenable.”

For more than a decade, Britney Spears bristled behind closed doors at the court-approved control her father, James P. Spears, above left, held over her life and fortune.

Now, for the first time since 2008, Ms. Spears, 39, abvove right, will be without her father’s oversight, a Los Angeles judge has ruled, as the singer moves toward terminating her conservatorship altogether.

At a hearing on Wednesday, Judge Brenda Penny granted a petition by Ms. Spears’s lawyer, suspending Mr. Spears, 69, from his position as overseer of his daughter’s $60 million estate — a move Ms. Spears was pleading for, her lawyer said.

“This man does not belong in her life, your honor, for another day,” Mathew S. Rosengart, who took over as the singer’s lawyer in July, argued in court. “Please hear the plea of my client.” He said that it would be a “disaster” for Mr. Spears to remain in her life.

washington post logoWashington Post, National Women’s Soccer League calls off upcoming games amid allegations of abuse, Molly Hensley-Clancy, Oct. 1, 2021. The NWSL has recently seen allegations of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse. 

The National Women’s Soccer League on Friday called off all of its weekend games in the face of multiple reports of alleged abuse of players and amid claims that the league has systematically failed to address allegations of sexual coercion by a male coach.

After the players’ union demanded an end to “systemic abuse plaguing the NWSL” on Thursday, the NWSL announced it would suspend the matches.

“This week, and much of this season, has been incredibly traumatic for our players and staff, and I take full responsibility for the role I have played,” NWSL Commissioner Lisa Baird said in a statement. “I am so sorry for the pain so many are feeling. Recognizing that trauma, we have decided not to take the field this weekend to give everyone some space to reflect.”

The union issued a statement Friday noting that trauma, and saying its goal is to prioritize players’ mental health.

Washington Spirit coach Richie Burke was fired Tuesday following a league investigation into allegations of verbal and emotional abuse that were first reported in The Washington Post. On Thursday, Courage coach Paul Riley was fired following a harrowing account of multiple allegations of sexual coercion published in the Athletic. Riley denied the allegations to the Athletic.

The reporting led to a public outcry of anger and frustration from dozens of NWSL players, including stars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan. The Athletic reported that Riley had been dismissed from a previous team after misconduct allegations, only to be hired by another NWSL team within months.

In total, four NWSL teams have seen their male coaches leave after allegations of misconduct this summer. One coach, OL Reign’s Farid Benstiti, was asked to resign following allegations that he had spoken abusively to players, though at the time, OL Reign’s CEO, Bill Predmore, said only that he had resigned and thanked him for his contributions.

“Men, protecting men, who are abusing women,” Rapinoe said Twitter on Thursday. “Burn it all down. Let all their heads roll.”

 

World News

washington post logoWashington Post, Former French president Sarkozy, guilty of illegal campaign financing, probably will avoid prison, Rick Noack, Oct. 1, 2021 (print ed.). nicolas sarkozy resized in 2010Sarkozy was already found guilty in a separate trial earlier this year.

Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, shown in a 2010 photo, was found guilty of having illegally financed his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign and French Flagsentenced to one year in prison that can be served at home with electronic monitoring, marking another defeat in court for the 66-year-old. Sarkozy was already convicted and sentenced to prison in a separate trial earlier this year.

He appealed that earlier verdict, delaying it from taking effect, and his lawyer said Thursday that he would also appeal the second conviction. Given that short prison sentences in France can typically be waived, it remains unclear whether Sarkozy would have to spend any time incarcerated, even if both appeals were to be rejected

 

 

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Dec. 2023 News

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