Weekend Open Thread
[guest post by Dana]
Let’s go!
First news item
Judge denies DOJ request for partial stay:
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday denied the Department of Justice’s request for a partial stay of her ruling that limited the government’s investigation of how Donald Trump handled sensitive material at his Mar-a-Lago estate, pending a third-party review of what agents found at Trump’s home.
Cannon, in issuing her order, said that she was not willing to accept the government’s assertions that roughly 100 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago were classified — even though they were labeled as such, with some bearing “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET/SCI” markings.
Our host responds:
This garbage order does nothing to explain how Donald Trump could have a property interest in documents marked as classified. Notable that Trump’s lawyers thought they could dance around whether Trump declassified anything … and they were right!
Also:
Her order does not seriously grapple with the issues raised by DOJ, particularly the way in which her order injures national security.
Fed. judge denies DOJ's request to stay her order with respect to 100 documents marked classified.
Says she isn't prepared to accept the premise that documents marked classified are actually classified government records. https://t.co/YiBs7NTUIO pic.twitter.com/2PNa7HNMsQ
— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) September 15, 2022
But the judge did suggest that alleged “leaks to the media” posed a genuine threat, despite offering no examples of any such leaks.
“There has been no actual suggestion by the Government of any identifiable emergency or imminent disclosure of classified information arising from Plaintiff’s allegedly unlawful retention of the seized property,” Cannon wrote. “Instead, and unfortunately, the unwarranted disclosures that float in the background have been leaks to the media after the underlying seizure.”
Who is it that has *not* been able to keep his mouth shut about this whole debacle since Day 1??
Second news item
By any definition, this *is* a humanitarian crisis:
A recent increase of immigrants from Venezuela has “changed the game” in El Paso and put a strain on the area’s shelter system, according to County Judge Ricardo Samaniego.
Border Patrol agents apprehended hundreds of migrants at the southern border in Socorro on Tuesday morning. A majority of them are from Venezuela. Border Patrol says agents are encountering 1,300 people a day since Sept. 1.
A majority of Venezuelans are first-generation immigrants and arrive in the United States without a sponsor or enough money to buy a bus or plane ticket to their final destination. Shelters have either run out of space or do not have enough volunteers to take in more migrants. Immigration officials have dropped off dozens of migrants on El Paso streets. Those migrants have created makeshift camps across the street from the Greyhound bus station in downtown.
Third news item
Ukrainian authorities say they discovered a mass grave filled with the bodies of 440 people in the northeastern town of Izium days after the area was liberated from occupying Russian forces. “Some died because of artillery fire,” Serhiy Bolvinov, chief police investigator for the Kharkiv region, told Sky News of the people in the grave. “Some died because of airstrikes.” After visiting Izium on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky likened the discovery to alleged war crimes orchestrated by Russian troops against civilians in Bucha, near Kyiv, earlier in the year. “Russia is leaving death behind it everywhere and must be held responsible,” Zelensky said…
Fourth news item
Her book was more important to her:
New York Times political reporter and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman faced backlash…after it was reported that her upcoming book reveals that twice-impeached former President Donald Trump was planning to outright refuse to leave the White House after losing the 2020 election.
“I’m just not going to leave,” Trump told one aide, per a CNN exclusive excerpt from Haberman’s upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.” Another aide claimed that Trump told a separate staffer after the 2020 election was called in President Joe Biden’s favor that “we’re never leaving. How can you leave when you won an election?”
Following the release of the excerpt, Haberman faced intense criticism online, with people voicing their outrage that this information was known prior to Jan. 6 and held until now.
Fifth news item
Ah:
The White House has recently hosted a series of high-level meetings on immigration, where DHS officials have presented options, including flying migrants to the country’s northern border with Canada to alleviate overcrowding on the U.S.-Mexico border, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.
Some DHS officials have openly expressed frustration at those meetings with the White House’s reluctance to take a page from the book of Republican governors and begin transporting migrants to cities within the U.S., according to internal communications obtained by NBC News.
Sixth news item
Continues campaigning for next presidential election:
The Democratic governor, who is increasingly positioning himself as a progressive firebrand, used his reelection fund to rent billboard space in a handful of Republican-led states on Thursday to promote California as an abortion sanctuary amid increasing restrictions on the procedure in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Seventh news item
Becoming beholden to the MAGA movement’s political whims:
In the battle for the soul of GOP foreign policy between establishment Republicans and Trump-style national conservatives, the former still hold the levers of official power but the latter are gaining ground. The Heritage Foundation’s turn toward the “new right” is the clearest symbol yet that the MAGA movement’s foreign policy is becoming institutionalized but moving further away from the Republican leadership.
The Heritage Foundation has been an influential brain trust for GOP administrations since the Reagan years — and still claims to stand for Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of “peace through strength.” But beginning in the Trump era, and even more so now under its new president, Kevin Roberts, Heritage is moving away from that tradition, according to several foreign policy staffers who recently left the foundation.
Half a dozen foreign policy analysts have left the foundation this year, while several other former employees are publicly accusing Roberts and Heritage of abandoning the national security principles and policies that it (and the Republican Party) once stood for.
Eighth news item
Should she stay or should she go:
Other Democrats say it’s time for new leadership no matter what happens in November.
“It’s time for generational diversity of our leadership ranks – regardless of the outcome of the election,” said Rep. Dean Phillips, a Minnesota Democrat who voted for Pelosi for speaker, calling her “one of the most extraordinary speakers in history.”
“That doesn’t change my perspective that it’s time for a new generation,” Phillips said, noting that is a widespread view within the caucus.
Privately, the assessment tends to be blunter.
“She has to go,” one senior Democrat said. “No way she can stay,” added another long-time House Democrat. “She doesn’t have the votes,” another veteran Democrat said, pointing to some vulnerable frontline Democrats who have vowed not to vote for her.
Indeed, all this is running up against deep tensions among House Democrats, and in their party overall, that they’re overdue for major changes in their leadership. Yet Pelosi’s two deputies, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, who, like the speaker, are north of 80, have surprised colleagues by privately signaling they might be interested in succeeding her if and when she leaves.
Ninth news item
Another top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin has died this week, this time of an alleged “stroke” while on a business trip in the village of Roshchino in Russia’s far east region.
Vladimir Nikolayevich Sungorkin, 68, was editor-in-chief of the Russian state newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. According to the newspaper, Sungorkin died “suddenly” after showing signs of “suffocation” during the trip on Wednesday.
“It happened absolutely suddenly, nothing foreshadowed…
According to Zakharov, Sungorkin fell unconscious minutes after suggesting their group “find a beautiful place somewhere… for lunch.”
“Three minutes later, Vladimir began to suffocate. We took him out for fresh air, he was already unconscious… Nothing helped…
MISCELLANEOUS
Some people need to be pushed and some people push themselves😂 pic.twitter.com/3ORkjkDNrh
— Tansu YEĞEN (@TansuYegen) September 16, 2022
Her little hands…
Have a great weekend!
–Dana
