Sept. News (Pt. 2)

Editor's Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative September  2021 news and views. This is Part 2 of our excepts during a heavy news month.

Sept. 30

Top Headlines

• New York Times, House Delays Vote on Infrastructure, in Big Setback for Biden Agenda, Emily Cochrane and Jonathan Weisman
• Washington Post, Congress approves government funding bill hours before midnight deadline to avert shutdown
• New York Times, U.S. Spending Live Updates, Manchin Seeks Big Cuts to Safety Net Plan; Congress Passes Spending Bill, Emily Cochrane
• Washington Post, Opinion: It’s ugly, but we’re finally getting a glimpse of how the sausage will be made, Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent
• New York Times, Four Key Issues Facing Congress Right Now, Jonathan Weisman
• Washington Post, Pentagon leaders face more backlash, partisan feuding in House hearing on Afghanistan exit
• Washington Post, Biden, Pelosi embark on late scramble to save $1 trillion bill on infrastructure

Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection

• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: Members of the Supreme Court should be investigated for role in insurrection, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, House Jan. 6 committee issues subpoenas for pro-Trump rally organizers
• Washington Post, Opinion: A Trump lawyer wrote an instruction manual for a coup. Why haven’t you seen it on the news? Margaret Sullivan
• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: We need an Executive Order establishing a January 6 military commission, Wayne Madsen

More On U.S. Budget, Debt Limit Hardball

• New York Times, Democrats Move to Avert Fiscal Crisis, Separating Debt and Spending Bills
• Washington Post, House liberals exasperated with two Democratic senators as agenda struggles
• Washington Post, Opinion: Failure isn’t an option, Democrats, Dana Milbank
• New York Times, Republicans at Odds Over Infrastructure Bill as Vote Approaches
• New York Times, Pelosi Plans Infrastructure Vote as Safety Net Bill Remains Mired

Virus Victims, Responses

• Washington Post, Messy, incomplete U.S. data hobbles pandemic response
• Washington Post, Live Updates: CDC says it’s ‘urgent’ that pregnant women get vaccinated
• Washington Post, YouTube is banning prominent anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 713,953
• Washington Post, 214.3 million U.S. vaccinated
• Washington Post, Sen. Feinstein introduces bill to require vaccine or negative test for domestic flights
• Washington Post, Analysis: Turns out a lot of those never-vaxxers were really ‘I’ll get it if required,’ Philip Bump
• New York Times, More Than Half of Police Killings Are Mislabeled, New Study Says
• HuffPost, Alex Jones Just Lost 2 Sandy Hook Cases

U.S. Governance, Security, Politics

• Washington Post, Opinion: Wake up, Virginia Democrats. There’s serious Trumpist danger ahead, Greg Sargent
• New York Times, ‘This Was a Failure’: Biden’s A.T.F. Pick Says He Was Left Open to Attack
• Washington Post, Chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign launches bid for Texas lieutenant governor — as a Democrat
• Washington Post, S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem dismisses conservative website’s claims of extramarital affair with ex-Trump adviser
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s world implodes amid subpoenas and firings, Bill Palmer
• New York Times, A Congresswoman’s Story: Raped at 17, ‘I Chose to Have an Abortion,’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg

World News

• Washington Post, Fumio Kishida set to become Japan’s new prime minister after winning party vote
• Washington Post, Former French president Sarkozy found guilty of illegal campaign financing, receives 1-year sentence
• Washington Post, Ethiopia expels U.N. officials amid signs of famine in the Tigray region
• Washington Post, Extradition hearing for Peter Nygård, fashion mogul wanted in the U.S. on sex trafficking charges, to open in Canada

Biden Appointments

• Alliance for Justice (AFJ), AFJ Applauds Biden’s Eighth Slate Of Judicial Nominees
• Washington Post, Senate confirms Tracy Stone-Manning as Bureau of Land Management director in party-line vote
• Washington Post, Senate confirms Rohit Chopra to lead Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police

• CNN, Durham issues fresh round of subpoenas in his continuing probe of FBI investigation into Trump, Russia
• New York Times, Trump Server Mystery Produces Fresh Conflict, Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman
• New York Times, Judge Releases Britney Spears From Her Father’s Oversight
• Roll Carl, Eschewing Zoom, Don Young AWOL for 19 months of markups
• Washington Post, Woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi in the ‘brain’ pleads guilty to misdemeanor
• Washington Post, Marine officer who criticized Afghanistan exit in Facebook video is now in the brig
• Washington Post, Federal court: D.C. liable for wrongful arrests under struck-down gun ban
• Washington Post, Texas nurse killed 4 patients, prosecutors allege: ‘A hospital is the perfect place for a serial killer to hide’
• Washington Post, Inspector general finds ‘widespread’ problems in FBI’s FISA applications
• Washington Post, DHS issues new arrest and deportation guidelines to immigration agents

U.S. Media, Education, Philanthropy

• New York Times, Leader of Prestigious Yale Program Resigns, Citing Donor Pressure

Top Stories

New York Times, House Delays Vote on Infrastructure, in Big Setback for Biden Agenda, Emily Cochrane and Jonathan Weisman Sept. 30, 2021. 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 (shown above in a file photo) 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.

Democrats entered Thursday juggling four consequential tasks on the final day of the current fiscal year: keeping the government open past midnight, ensuring it can pay its debts, securing the infrastructure bill and drafting a climate change and social safety net bill that the speaker called the “culmination” of her congressional career.

They accomplished the first task, as both the House and Senate managed to pass a bill to keep funding flowing into early December, removing the immediate threat of a government shutdown.

The rest is a mess. Liberal House members emerged from a meeting with the speaker at midday to say they would oppose passage of the infrastructure bill until the Senate pass a $3.5 trillion social policy bill that expands child care and early childhood education, creates a paid family and medical leave program and begins to tackle climate change, to name only a few provisions.

“The speaker really just wanted to see where we were, and we explained that we’re in the same place,” said Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the head of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

But Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, told reporters he has no intention of voting for any social policy and climate change bill that costs more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years. His advice for Democrats who want a larger package: “Elect more liberals.”

Ms. Pelosi, speaking at her weekly news conference, stayed relentlessly optimistic, speaking of the common ground she shares with Mr. Manchin, a fellow Italian American and Catholic.

“Let me tell you about negotiating: You cannot tire,” she said.

Both the infrastructure and social policy bills are major priorities for President Biden, who invested ample political capital in the infrastructure compromise and has staked his presidency on enactment of a transformational social policy package.

White House officials declined to discuss the details of meetings and discussions with Mr. Manchin and the other Democratic hold out on the $3.5 trillion package, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, which have intensified in recent days as some Democrats have grumbled that the president needed to play a bigger role in ensuring the success of his agenda.

Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, rejected the criticism, saying Mr. Biden was doing precisely what he needed to.

“He knows how to make his case, he knows how to count votes, and he knows how to deliver for the American middle class,” Mr. Bates said.

But it was unclear, with Republican leaders in the House urging their members to oppose the bipartisan infrastructure bill, whether the legislation could overcome liberal defections on Thursday.

Washington 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.

New York Times, U.S. Spending Live Updates, Manchin Seeks Big Cuts to Safety Net Plan; Senate Passes Spending Bill, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 30, 2021. Senator Joe Manchin, a key holdout, said he supported a $1.5 trillion social safety net bill, less than half of the size of President Biden’s plan.The Senate, racing to avoid a government shutdown at midnight, approved a bill to extend federal funding. It goes to the House next. Here’s the latest.

Racing to avoid a government shutdown at midnight, the Senate on Thursday approved a spending bill to extend federal funding through early December and provide emergency aid to support the resettlement of Afghan refugees and disaster recovery efforts across the country.

The legislation passed 65 to 35, and now heads to the House, where it is also expected to be approved, clearing it for President Biden’s signature before funding lapses.

“This is a good outcome — one I am happy we are getting done,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, speaking on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “With so many things happening in Washington, the last thing the American people need is for the government to grind to a halt.”

Lawmakers reached a deal on the spending legislation after Democrats agreed to strip out a provision that would have raised the federal government’s ability to continue borrowing funds through the end of 2022. Senate Republicans blocked an initial funding package on Monday over its inclusion, refusing to give the majority party any of the votes needed to move ahead on a bill to avert a first-ever federal default in the coming weeks.

The legislation that passed on Thursday would keep the government fully funded through Dec. 3, giving lawmakers additional time to reach consensus over the dozen annual bills that dictate federal spending. It would provide $6.3 billion to help Afghan refugees resettle in the United States and $28.6 billion to help communities rebuild from hurricanes, wildfires and other recent natural disasters.

The disaster funding is intended to help communities across the country continue recovering from the damage inflicted in recent years by natural disasters, including Hurricanes Ida, Delta, Zeta, and Laura, as well as wildfires, droughts and winter storms.

It would also distribute billions of dollars across the federal government to help Afghan refugees settle in the United States, including funds to help provide emergency housing, English lessons and additional resources.

Before agreeing to the details of the spending bill, the Senate defeated an amendment proposed by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, that would have curtailed the duration of some of the benefits for Afghan refugees.

Senators also voted down an amendment, offered by Senator Roger Marshall, Republican of Kansas, that would have barred funds from going toward the implementation and enforcement of Mr. Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandate, as well as an amendment that would deny lawmakers pay should they fail to pass a budget resolution and the dozen spending bills by Oct. 1.

Washington Post, Opinion: It’s ugly, but we’re finally getting a glimpse of how the sausage will be made, Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent, Sept. 30, 2021. Anyone watching the hideously painful process by which Democrats are trying to pass what has come to be known as BIF (the bipartisan infrastructure bill) and BBB (the Build Back Better social infrastructure bill slated to pass via reconciliation) would be forgiven for falling into despair.

But if legislating were easy, anyone could do it. The narrower the congressional majorities and the more complex the legislation, the more difficult and ugly it will be. There’s a reason legislating is often compared to sausage making: Both processes are unpleasant to watch, and some distasteful things will inevitably wind up in the finished product.

Some unusually grating new things just happened. But because this is how the process works, you can squint at the messy pile of sausage filling and see signs of progress.

On Thursday, we learned that this summer, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), left, and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) signed a document that laid out what Manchin would tolerate in the reconciliation bill. It limited spending to $1.5 trillion over ten years rather than the $3.5 trillion supported by President Biden and other Democrats.

Some details are reasonable (“Raise the top rate on income: 39.6%”) and others are disturbing (“Fuel neutral,” which seems to mean Manchin wants the bill to do as much to promote fossil fuels as renewables) It’s galling, to be sure, that someone with these priorities wields such enormous influence over the legislative outcome and, by extension, over our future.

But at the very least, in this Manchin did offer a place to start from. That suggests a deal is possible.

New York Times, Four Key Issues Facing Congress Right Now, Jonathan Weisman, Sept. 30, 2021. In a make-or-break stretch for President Biden’s agenda, Democrats are trying to assemble a puzzle of four jagged pieces that may or may not fit together.

In a pivotal week, in a make-or-break stretch for President Biden’s domestic agenda, congressional Democrats are trying to assemble a puzzle of four jagged pieces that may or may not fit together.

Making them work as a whole is critical for the party’s agenda and political prospects, and how quickly they can assemble the puzzle will determine whether the government suffers another costly and embarrassing shutdown — or, worse yet, a first-ever default on its debt that could precipitate a global economic crisis.

Here are all the moving parts.

Washington Post, Pentagon leaders face more backlash, partisan feuding in House hearing on Afghanistan exit, Alex Horton and Karoun Demirjian, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). President Biden’s top military adviser declared Wednesday that the Afghanistan war was “lost,” marking the first time such a senior commander has so bluntly stated in public that the 20-year campaign ended in defeat.

“It wasn’t lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months. There’s a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley told the House Armed Services Committee during a rancorous hearing that further underscored the deep partisan split following last month’s deadly exit from Kabul.

“Whenever you get some phenomenon like a war that is lost — and it has been, in the sense of we accomplished our strategic task of protecting America against al-Qaeda, but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted,” Milley added. “So whenever a phenomenon like that happens, there’s an awful lot of causal factors. And we’re going to have to figure that out. A lot of lessons learned here.”

Milley’s testimony came the day after he and another key figure in the American exit from Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, told a Senate panel that the war had been a “strategic failure.”

Throughout Wednesday’s hearing, Republicans and Democrats sparred over the question of whether America’s leaders — particularly Biden — were honest with the public about their projections for Afghanistan. At one point, the session devolved into an argument over who was to blame for the war’s messy end game — during which 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide strike outside the Kabul airport and hundreds of U.S. citizens were left behind.

“While we’re ripping apart these three gentlemen here I want to remind everybody that the decision the president made was to stop fighting a war that after 20 years it was proven we could not win. There was no easy way to do that,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), told his colleagues, accusing them of “partisan political opportunism.”

• Washington Post, Military leaders, refusing to fault Biden, say troop withdrawal ensured Afghanistan’s collapse

Washington Post, Biden, Pelosi embark on late scramble to save $1 trillion bill on infrastructure, Tony Romm, Marianna Sotomayor, Jacqueline Alemany and Seung Min Kim, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). The House is supposed to vote on the measure Thursday and Biden canceled a trip to continue huddling with moderates over a deal. In a sign of the stakes, the president canceled a planned Wednesday trip to Chicago to work the phones and save his agenda from collapse.

The clock is ticking on House Democrats as they barrel toward an uncertain, scheduled vote Thursday on a $1 trillion bill to improve the nation’s infrastructure — a top priority of President Biden that some in the party are still threatening to oppose.
Government shutdown? Here's what to know about Thursday's deadline and what might follow

The drama and diplomacy are set to intensify over the next 24 hours, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scrambles to keep her fractious, narrow majority intact and send the first of two major economic initiatives to Biden’s desk. In a sign of the stakes, the president even canceled a planned Wednesday trip to Chicago so that he could stay in Washington and attempt to spare his agenda from collapse.

Democrats generally support the infrastructure package, which proposes major new investments in the country’s aging roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. But the bill has become a critical political bargaining chip for liberal-leaning lawmakers, who have threatened to scuttle it to preserve the breadth of a second, roughly $3.5 trillion economic package.

What is in and out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill?

That latter proposal aims to expand Medicare, invest new sums to combat climate change, offer free prekindergarten and community college to all students and extend new aid to low-income families — all financed through taxes increases on wealthy Americans and corporations. Liberals fear it is likely to be slashed in scope dramatically by moderates, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), unless they hold up the infrastructure package the duo helped negotiate — leading to the stalemate that plagues the party on the eve of the House vote.

Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection

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 members 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. Powell, 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."

• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: We need an Executive Order establishing a January 6 military commission, Wayne Madsen

Washington Post, House Jan. 6 committee issues subpoenas for pro-Trump rally organizers, Jacqueline Alemany, Tom Hamburger and Carol D. Leonnig, Sept. 30, 2021. 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). 

Washington 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.). In 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.

The memo, unearthed in Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s new book, is a stunner. Written by Trump legal adviser John Eastman — a serious Establishment Type with Federalist Society cred and a law school deanship under his belt — it offered Mike Pence, then in his final days as vice president, a detailed plan to declare the 2020 election invalid and give the presidency to Trump.

In other words, how to run a coup in six easy steps.

Pretty huge stuff, right? You’d think so, but the mainstream press has largely looked the other way. Immediately after the memo was revealed, according to a study by left-leaning Media Matters for America, there was no on-air news coverage — literally zero on the three major broadcast networks: ABC, NBC and CBS. Not on the evening newscasts watched by more than 20 million Americans, far greater than the audience for cable news. Not on the morning shows the next day. And when Sunday rolled around, NBC’s “Meet the Press” was the only broadcast network show that bothered to mention it. (Some late-night hosts did manage to play it for laughs.)

The Washington Post reviewed the memo that was obtained for the Woodward-Costa book and wrote about it in a broader news story about the book’s revelations and in a news analysis. CNN got a copy, too, and more than most, gave it its due.

But largely, it fell upon a handful of opinion writers to provide the appropriate outrage.

“The Horrifying Legal Blueprint for Trump’s War on Democracy” read the headline on Jonathan Chait’s piece in New York magazine’s Intelligencer section. And in the New York Times, columnist Jamelle Bouie took it on with “Trump Had a Mob. He Also Had a Plan.” The Post’s Greg Sargent hammered away at it.

More On U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

New York Times, Democrats Move to Avert Fiscal Crisis, Separating Debt and Spending Bills, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). The House was set to move on Wednesday on a bill to increase the debt limit, while the Senate prepared a separate spending bill to keep the government funded past a Thursday deadline.

Democrats in Congress moved on Wednesday to avert a looming fiscal crisis, scheduling a House vote to raise the debt ceiling and preparing a separate spending bill to head off a government shutdown looming at midnight on Thursday.

The Senate could vote as early as Wednesday on the spending bill, which is needed to prevent a lapse in government funding when the fiscal year ends on Thursday and also includes emergency disaster aid. Republicans were expected to support it, after Democrats removed a debt-limit increase that the G.O.P. had refused to back.

That left uncertain the fate of the legislation to raise the statutory limit on federal borrowing, which is on track to be breached by Oct. 18 if Congress does not increase it. House Democrats appear to have the votes to pass their bill, which would lift the cap until Dec. 16, 2022, but Senate Republicans have blocked efforts to advance such legislation in their chamber, where 60 votes are needed to move most measures.

Still, the action on Wednesday appeared to pave the way to clearing the most immediate hurdle Congress faced, as Democratic leaders labored to resolve intraparty divisions that are threatening to derail President Biden’s domestic agenda.

Washington Post, House liberals exasperated with two Democratic senators as agenda struggles, Marianna Sotomayor, Sept. 30, 2021. Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have said President Biden’s $3.5 trillion social spending proposal is too expensive, but they have been reluctant to specify how they want it changed.

House Democrats facing down tight deadlines and spiraling worries that President Biden’s agenda could soon fall apart are growing increasingly exasperated with a pair of Democratic senators whose votes are key but whose views are unclear when it comes to what they want out of legislation to expand the social safety net.

Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), left, and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) have said Biden’s $3.5 trillion proposal for expanding heath care access, boosting education programs and fighting climate change is too expensive, but they have been reluctant to engage in detailed discussions about how they want it changed.

“We need to know what he’s a skeptic on so that we can have the conversation with him. There has been no clarity in what they actually want, both Sinema and Manchin,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), a member of the House Progressive Caucus.

Washington Post, Opinion: Failure isn’t an option, Democrats, Dana Milbank, right, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). Hey, Democrats, stop acting like children. To Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) and fellow House progressives: Pass the damn bill. The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, even by itself, is an enormous win for progressives, for Democrats and for Americans. You are on the cusp of historic gains for public transit, clean drinking water, safer roads and bridges, high-speed Internet, and clean energy. Don’t blow it.

To Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) and fellow moderates: Stop stalling. West Virginians and Arizonans, like the vast majority of Americans, want paid family and medical leave, easier access to preschool, cheaper community colleges, and breaks on their health insurance and taxes. You can’t stomach $3.5 trillion? Then how about $2 trillion? Put up a number. The longer you play hard-to-get on President Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, the more likely you are to produce nothing for your constituents.

• The American Prospect, Opinion: Get a Grip: There Will Be a Budget Resolution, Robert Kuttner
• Washington Post, Treasury secretary tells Congress that U.S. will run out of debt ceiling flexibility on Oct. 18
• New York Times, Republicans at Odds Over Infrastructure Bill as Vote Approaches, Jonathan Weisman

Virus Victims, Responses

Washington Post, Messy, incomplete U.S. data hobbles pandemic response, Joel Achenbach and Yasmeen Abutaleb, Sept. 30, 2021. The country’s decentralized, underfunded reporting system has complicated the ability of health officials and experts to reach a consensus on the need for booster shots, among other efforts.

The contentious and confusing debate in recent weeks over coronavirus booster shots has exposed a fundamental weakness in America’s ability to respond to a public health crisis: The data are a mess.

How many people have been infected at this point? No one knows for sure, in part because of insufficient testing and incomplete reporting. How many fully vaccinated people have had breakthrough infections? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to track only a fraction of them. When do inoculated people need booster shots? American officials trying to answer that have had to rely heavily on data from overseas.

Critically important data on vaccinations, infections, hospitalizations and deaths are scattered among local health departments, often out of date, hard to aggregate at the national level — and simply not up to the job of battling a highly transmissible and stealthy pathogen.

Washington Post, YouTube is banning prominent anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content, Gerrit De Vynck, Sept. 29, 2021. The Google-owned video site previously only banned misinformation about coronavirus vaccines. Facebook made the same change months ago.

YouTube is taking down several video channels associated with high-profile anti-vaccine activists including Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., below right, who experts say are partially responsible for helping seed the skepticism that’s contributed to slowing vaccination rates across the country.

As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous. The company previously blocked videos that made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not ones for other vaccines like those for measles or chickenpox.

Misinformation researchers have for years said the popularity of anti-vaccine content on YouTube was contributing to growing skepticism of lifesaving vaccines in the United States and around the world. Vaccination rates have slowed and about 56 percent of the U.S. population has had two shots, compared with 71 percent in Canada and 67 percent in the United Kingdom. In July, President Biden said social media companies were partially responsible for spreading misinformation about the vaccines, and need to do more to address the issue.

Analysis: ‘YouTube magic dust’: How America’s second-largest social platform ducks controversies

The change marks a shift for the social media giant, which streams more than 1 billion hours’ worth of content every day. Like its peers Facebook and Twitter, the company has long resisted policing content too heavily, arguing maintaining an open platform is critical to free speech. But as the companies increasingly come under fire from regulators, lawmakers and regular users for contributing to social ills — including vaccine skepticism — YouTube is again changing policies that it has held onto for months.

YouTube didn’t act sooner because it was focusing on misinformation specifically about coronavirus vaccines, said Matt Halprin, YouTube’s vice president of global trust and safety. When it noticed that incorrect claims about other vaccines were contributing to fears about the coronavirus vaccines, it expanded the ban.

“Developing robust policies takes time,” Halprin said. “We wanted to launch a policy that is comprehensive, enforceable with consistency and adequately addresses the challenge.”

Facebook and YouTube spent a year fighting covid misinformation. It’s still spreading.

Mercola, an alternative medicine entrepreneur, and Kennedy, a lawyer and the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who has been a face of the anti-vaccine movement for years, have both said in the past that they are not automatically against all vaccines, but believe information about the risks of vaccines is being suppressed.

Facebook banned misinformation on all vaccines seven months ago, though the pages of both Mercola and Kennedy remain up on the social media site. Their Twitter accounts are active, too.

In an email, Mercola said he was being censored and said, without presenting evidence, that vaccines had killed many people. A spokesperson for Kennedy did not return a request for comment.

More than a third of the world’s population has been vaccinated and the vaccines have been proven to be overwhelmingly safe.

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all banned misinformation about the coronavirus early on in the pandemic. But false claims continue to run rampant across all three of the platforms. The social networks are also tightly connected, with YouTube often serving as a library of videos that go viral on Twitter or Facebook. YouTube has removed over 133,000 videos for broadcasting coronavirus misinformation, Halprin said.

The companies have hired thousands of moderators and used high-tech image- and text-recognition algorithms to try to police misinformation. There are also millions of people with legitimate concerns about the medical system, and social media is a place where they go to ask real questions and express their concerns and fears, something the companies don’t want to squelch.

• Washington Post, A major founder of the anti-vaccine movement has made millions selling natural health products

In the past, the company’s leaders have focused on trying to remove what they call “borderline” videos from its recommendation algorithms, allowing people to find them with specific searches but not necessarily promoting them into new people’s feeds. It’s also worked to push more authoritative health videos, like those made by hospitals and medical schools, to the top of search results for health-care topics.

Washington Post, Live Updates: CDC says it’s ‘urgent’ that pregnant women get vaccinated, Bryan Pietsch and Adela Suliman, Sept. 30, 2021. South Carolina school districts have ‘discretionary authority to require masks,’ state agency says; Federal agencies are still dealing with pandemic backlogs. A shutdown could make delays worse.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued a call for “urgent action” to increase coronavirus vaccinations among people who are pregnant. The health body said immunization rates among that population have lagged, as covid-linked deaths among pregnant people reach their highest levels yet during the pandemic.

In a health advisory released Wednesday, the CDC said it recommends coronavirus vaccines “before or during pregnancy because the benefits of vaccination outweigh known or potential risks.” It said its advice applies to “people who are pregnant, recently pregnant … who are trying to become pregnant now, or who might become pregnant in the future.”

More than 125,000 confirmed covid-19 cases have been recorded among pregnant people as of Monday, including more than 22,000 hospitalizations and 161 deaths, government data showed. Twenty-two of those deaths were in August, the highest monthly total in the pandemic, the CDC added.

Here’s what to know

• As the threat of a partial government shutdown looms, several federal agencies are trying to dig out from pandemic-linked backlogs.
• Nearly 4 in 10 people who became infected with the coronavirus still have at least one symptom three to six months later, a study of covid-19 “long-haulers” found. The most common lingering symptoms were trouble breathing, fatigue and anxiety.
• YouTube is removing some video channels associated with high-profile anti-vaccine activists responsible for helping seed skepticism toward the coronavirus vaccine.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 30, 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: 234,191,883, Deaths: 4,790,731
U.S. Cases:     44,199,496, Deaths:    713,953
India Cases:     33,739,980, Deaths:    448,090
Brazil Cases:    21,399,546, Deaths:    596,163

Washington Post, At least 214.3 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 30, 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, Sen. Feinstein introduces bill to require vaccine or negative test for domestic flights, Hannah Sampson, Sept. 30, 2021. The bill would also allow passengers to test or show recent recovery from covid-19 Since the government approved 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.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) introduced a bill on Wednesday that would require vaccination, a negative coronavirus test or recovery from covid-19 to take a domestic flight.

This latest proposed legislation follows a bill introduced earlier this month by Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) that would require proof that air or Amtrak travelers have been vaccinated or tested negative.

“Ensuring that air travelers protect themselves and their destination communities from this disease is critical to prevent the next surge, particularly if we confront new, more virulent variants of covid-19,” Feinstein said in a statement.

Washington Post, Analysis: Turns out a lot of those never-vaxxers were really ‘I’ll get it if required,’ Philip Bump, Sept. 30, 2021. Since the government approved 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.

U.S. Politics, Security, Governance

Washington Post, Opinion: Wake up, Virginia Democrats. There’s serious Trumpist danger ahead, Greg Sargent, right, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). We now have at least three polls that seem to confirm a trend: In Virginia, where a big and important election looms, Democratic voters appear less energized than Republican ones do.

This is despite the fact that the Republican candidate in the Virginia gubernatorial contest, Glenn Youngkin, has gone full Trumpist on several matters that are front and center: The future of our democracy, and the effort to defeat covid-19.

A big question in our politics is whether Democrats will turn out to vote this year and during the 2022 midterms, now that Donald Trump has been ousted from the White House. What we’re seeing in Virginia suggests GOP radicalization against democracy and against public health measures may not be sufficiently motivating them.

A new Roanoke College poll, for instance, finds that Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe is leading Youngkin by 48 percent to 41 percent. I can tell you that Democrats following this campaign do not believe McAuliffe leads by seven points. They think it’s much closer.

New York Times, ‘This Was a Failure’: Biden’s A.T.F. Pick Says He Was Left Open to Attack, Glenn Thrush, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). David Chipman’s defeat was a loss for gun control groups, which saw the appointment of a strong leader as a crucial move by President Biden on guns.

David Chipman’s confirmation odyssey began with a short congratulatory buzz from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in April and ended, he said, with a long, rueful call from the presidential adviser Steve Ricchetti admitting the White House had fallen “short.”

Mr. Chipman, a brash gun control activist whose nomination to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives imploded this month, said he had no other contact with the White House, which often left him feeling alone, on “an island,” when pro-gun groups attacked him.

Instead, the West Wing strategy focused on selling Mr. Chipman to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the centrist Democrat and perpetual kingmaker in an evenly divided Senate, only to lose the support of Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, which left Democrats at least one vote short of the 50 needed for confirmation.

“Either this was impossible to win, or the strategy failed,” Mr. Chipman told The New York Times in his first public comments since President Biden withdrew the nomination, conceding he could not get the votes. “This was a failure.”

Mr. Chipman’s defeat represented a major victory for the gun lobby and a huge loss for gun control groups, who saw appointment of a strong director for the bureau as the most important move Mr. Biden could make as Republicans block legislative action. It was a reminder of Mr. Biden’s struggles, eight months into his presidency, to fulfill big promises he has made to progressives on voting rights, immigration and guns.

In a far-ranging interview, Mr. Chipman, who served as an agent at the bureau for 25 years before becoming one of the country’s most prominent gun control activists, praised the White House for what he jokingly called the “gangster move” of nominating someone like him in the first place.

Washington Post, Chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign launches bid for Texas lieutenant governor — as a Democrat, John Wagner, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, announced Wednesday that he is running for lieutenant governor of Texas — as a Democrat.

In an announcement video, Dowd, right, who worked more recently as a political analyst for ABC News, takes aim at the Republican incumbent, Dan Patrick, detailing a list of purported shortcomings, both on policy and character.

“The GOP politicians have failed us, especially the cruel and craven lieutenant governor,” Patrick says in the 2½-minute video. “He does not believe in the common good. ... He puts his ‘me’ over our ‘we.’”

Although he is best known for helping steer a Republican president to reelection, Dowd’s biography on his new campaign website highlights his work for Texas Democrats earlier in his career before he switched parties in 1999.

Washington Post, S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem dismisses conservative website’s claims of extramarital affair with ex-Trump adviser, Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) on Wednesday dismissed a conservative media outlet’s claim that she is having an extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump adviser who is also advising Noem.

“These rumors are total garbage and a disgusting lie,” Noem, right, said in a tweet. “These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can’t achieve anything without a man’s help. I love Bryon. I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together. Now I’m getting back to work.”

A conservative website, American Greatness, published a piece Tuesday claiming that, according to “multiple” sources, Noem has been having an affair with Lewandowski “for months.” The website did not identify any of the sources.

Lewandowski was Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign manager. He was fired by the campaign in 2016 but remains part of the former president’s inner circle and ran the pro-Trump Make America Great Again Action super PAC.

Noem and Lewandowski, left, have traveled extensively together across the country for political events, and he has promoted her to members of the media. At one event in January, they were spotted partying together late in a hotel bar.

Separately, a Trump donor is accusing Lewandowski of repeatedly groping her and making unwanted sexual comments at a charity event in Las Vegas last week.

“He repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me, and made me feel violated and fearful,” the donor, Trashelle Odom, said in a statement provided to The Washington Post.

“Corey bragged multiple times about how powerful he is, and how he can get anyone elected, inferring he was the reason Trump became President,” she added. “Corey claimed that he controls access to the former president. He said he is in charge of the donors and the Super PAC. . . . He also made it clear that if he was crossed, he has the power to destroy anyone and ruin their lives.”

The accusations were first reported by Politico.

Late Wednesday, a spokesman for Trump said Lewandowski has been pushed out of the former president’s political operation after the allegations.

“Corey Lewandowski will be going on to other endeavors and we very much want to thank him for his service. He will no longer be associated with Trump World,” Taylor Budowich, Trump’s director of communications, wrote in a message on Twitter.

Budowich said former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi will run the pro-Trump super PAC.

John Odom, Odom’s husband, said that he wants “accountability now” from Lewandowski and that the couple is exploring their legal options “to make sure he cannot harm anyone else.”

“Corey called me on Monday evening,” John Odom said in a statement. “He sounded distraught and scared. He said he had been intoxicated. He was sorry for his actions, wanted to know how he could make it go away, and that he would do anything to make it right with Trashelle and our family.”

The Odoms’ statements were provided by a public relations person representing them. The couple themselves could not be reached for comment.

David Chesnoff, a Las Vegas-based attorney for Lewandowski, said in an email Wednesday afternoon: “Accusations and rumors appear to be morphing by the minute and we will not dignify them with a further response.”

Noem, who is considered a potential 2024 GOP vice-presidential contender, has recently come under scrutiny for a meeting she organized for her daughter and the state employee charged with leading the agency that moved to deny her application to become a certified real estate appraiser. The meeting prompted allegations of abuse of power among some state lawmakers, and South Dakota’s attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, is reviewing the matter.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s world implodes amid subpoenas and firings, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 30, 2021. Once Donald Trump was named the loser of the 2020 election, it was just a matter of time before he and his underlings were dismantled. That process is taking longer than most of us would like. But the reality is that it is in fact happening – and the past twenty-four hours have demonstrated just how ugly it’s getting.

It all started yesterday when scandalous former Trump campaign manager (and at this point you have to specify which scandalous former Trump campaign manager you’re talking about) Corey Lewandowski was separately accused of having sexually harassed a Republican donor and of having had an affair with the Governor of South Dakota.

By the time the day was over, Donald Trump’s people announced that Lewandowski had been fired from the Trump Super PAC he’d been running, and that Lewandowski would no longer be associated with “Trump world.” That’s right, they used the term “Trump world.”

In a reminder that there’s simply no shortage of corrupt Trump underlings coming down the pike, Lewandowski was replaced by a different criminal, Pam Bondi, right, who once used her position as Florida Attorney General to scuttle the Trump University investigation in exchange for a campaign donation.

But in a reminder that every Trump underling is going to end up facing the music eventually, it was revealed last night that former Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson is one of the many Trump people who just got subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee. So even people like Pierson, who disappeared from mainstream view after Trump lost, are still on the hook for their Trump-era antics.

We all know that “Trump world” – as it now calls itself – certainly doesn’t fire people over moral or ethical concerns. So the quick firing of Lewandowski tells us that Donald Trump and his remaining people are indeed in a panic over how things are falling apart. They didn’t even hesitate to throw Lewandowski under the bus, in the hope of taking the heat off the Super PACs that Trump is still using to raise “campaign” funds and shove them into his pocket.

Trump world – which sounds like the worst amusement park in history – is imploding. And this all comes even as Rudy Giuliani’s legal troubles have just been revealed to be even worse than we knew, raising questions about when he’ll finally wave the white flag and cut a plea deal against Donald Trump. It’s all falling apart in slow motion, but it’s undeniably falling apart.

New York Times, A Congresswoman’s Story: Raped at 17, ‘I Chose to Have an Abortion,’ Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Sept. 30, 2021. 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 progressive 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.

Representative 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.

“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.

New York Times, More Than Half of Police Killings Are Mislabeled, New Study Says, Tim Arango and Shaila Dewan, Sept. 30, 2021. Police killings in America have been undercounted by more than half over the past four decades, according to a new study that raises pointed questions about racial bias among medical examiners and highlights the lack of reliable national record keeping on what has become a major public health and civil rights issue.

The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Washington and published on Thursday in The Lancet, a major British medical journal, amounts to one of the most comprehensive looks at the scope of police violence in America, and the disproportionate impact on Black people.

Researchers compared information from a federal database known as the National Vital Statistics System, which collects death certificates, with recent data from three organizations that track police killings through news reports and public records requests. When extrapolating and modeling that data back decades, they identified a startling discrepancy: About 55 percent of fatal encounters with the police between 1980 and 2018 were listed as another cause of death.

Alex Jones, host and founder of the Texas-based Infowars show (file photo).

HuffPost, Alex Jones Just Lost 2 Sandy Hook Cases, Sebastian Murdock, Sept. 30, 2021. A judge issued default judgments — a rarity in the legal world — against Jones and Infowars after the conspiracy theorist failed to produce discovery records.

Infowars host Alex Jones has lost two of several lawsuits filed against him by relatives of Sandy Hook victims after he routinely failed to comply with requests to produce documents related to his involvement in spreading lies about the deadly shooting.

Judge Maya Guerra Gamble on Monday issued her ruling for default judgments against Jones in two different cases, which means he and the conspiracy-theory-spewing outlet Infowars have been found liable for all damages and a jury will now be convened to determine how much he will owe the plaintiffs. The new rulings became public Thursday.

In the filings, Gamble eviscerated Jones and reasoned that default judgments should be ordered because “an escalating series of judicial admonishments, monetary penalties, and non-dispositive sanctions have all been ineffective at deterring the abuse,” caused by Jones’ unwillingness to turn over documents related to the cases, the Texas judge ruled.

The ruling — which is often referred to in Texas as a “death penalty sanction” for a party unwilling to comply with court orders — is a rarity in the legal world. Jones, who is now on his seventh lawyer in these cases, had years to provide documentation requested by the court, including internal company emails.

HuffPost was the first to report the start of Jones’ Sandy Hook legal woes in 2018 when parents Leonard Pozner and Veronique De La Rosa filed a defamation lawsuit related to Jones’ continued lies that the 2012 school shooting that left 20 children and six adults dead was a “false flag” hoax filled with “crisis actors.”

Pozner and De La Rosa’s 6-year-old son, Noah, was killed in the shooting. In the years since, the parents have dealt with continued harassment from those who followed Jones’ lead and claimed the shooting was faked.
Alex Jones has lost two court cases against Sandy Hook parents.

They’re not the only ones. In total, nine families who lost loved ones in the Sandy Hook shooting have leveled lawsuits against Jones and Infowars for the damage he and his outlet caused. Since then, Jones has lost multiple legal battles in his many lawsuits and was ordered to pay nearly $150,000 in legal fees in 2020 for failing to provide discovery documents for the plaintiffs.

It was Jones’ continued refusal to hand over discovery documents that led to Monday’s rulings against him in a lawsuit brought on by Pozner and a separate lawsuit by parent Scarlett Lewis, whose 6-year-old son, Jesse, was also killed in the shooting. Pozner, De La Rosa, and Lewis are being represented by Texas law firm Farrar & Ball, who told HuffPost that they are “not surprised by the Court’s decision.”

Jones’ most recent lawyer, Brad Reeves, told the Austin-American Statesman earlier this month that a default judgment against Jones would be a “hugely excessive” response to his discovery failures. Judge Gamble felt otherwise:

“Furthermore, in considering whether lesser remedies would be effective, this Court has also considered Defendants’ general bad faith approach to litigation, Mr. Jones’ public threats, and Mr. Jones’ professed belief that these proceedings are ‘show trials’,” the court rulings read.

Other Recent U.S. Political Headlines

• New York Times, With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, Desperate Women Cross State Lines
• Washington Post, Opinion: Taxing the rich is super popular. Democrats should talk more about it, Jennifer Rubin
  Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero
• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic

World News

Washington Post, Fumio Kishida set to become Japan’s new prime minister after winning party vote, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Julia Mio Inuma, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). Fumio Kishida, Japan's former foreign minister, who is set to become the country's new prime minister after winning his party's leadership vote on Wednesday, has vowed to counter China's growing influence and redistribute the nation's wealth to close the income gap.

Kishida, 64, shown at right in a Manichi photo, will become prime minister on Monday following a special parliamentary session, replacing Yoshihide Suga, who decided to step down after just one year in power amid plummeting popularity over his handling of Japan’s coronavirus response.

The selection of Kishida, who served as foreign minister for many years under former prime minister Shinzo Abe, ensures a stable transition of power. After running in an unusually wide-open race that surfaced frustrations within younger members of the party, Kishida said he would listen to feedback and work to restore public trust for a “rebirth” of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

Washington Post, Former French president Sarkozy found guilty of illegal campaign financing, receives 1-year sentence, Rick Noack, Sept. 30, 2021. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, shown in a 2010 photo, was found guilty of having illegally financed his unsuccessful 2012 presidential campaign and sentenced 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.

The trial that resulted in his second conviction on Thursday centered around accusations that his conservative party falsified accounts during his unsuccessful reelection bid in 2012. French election laws mandate that candidates can only spend a certain amount on their campaigns.

Washington Post, Ethiopia expels U.N. officials amid signs of famine in the Tigray region, Devlin Barrett, Sept. 30, 2021. Ethiopia on Thursday ordered the expulsion of seven senior United Nations personnel as it faced mounting pressure to end a blockade of the embattled Tigray region and aid agencies warned of impending famine.

The government accused the officials of “meddling” in Ethiopia’s internal affairs and gave them 72 hours to leave, according to a statement from the foreign ministry.

Among those expelled was the country representative of the U.N. Children’s Fund and the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) the U.N.’s emergency relief arm.

“When you see an expulsion at that level, it comes out of left field,” UNICEF spokesman James Elder said of the decision.

The order came just two days after U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths blamed the worsening humanitarian crisis in Tigray on Ethiopia’s government and urged it to step up aid deliveries to the region.

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police

CNN, Durham issues fresh round of subpoenas in his continuing probe of FBI investigation into Trump, Russia, Evan Perez and Katelyn Polantz, Sept. 30, 2021. Special Counsel John Durham has issued a new set of subpoenas, including to a law firm with close ties to Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, an indication that Durham could be trying to build a broader criminal case, according to people briefed on the matter. So far, Durham's two-year probe into the FBI's Russia investigation hasn't brought about the cases Republicans has hoped it would.

work.

New York Times, Trump Server Mystery Produces Fresh Conflict, Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, Sept. 30, 2021. 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.

But 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 suspicions 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.

The Alfa Bank results “have been validated and are reproducible. The findings of the researchers were true then and remain true today; reports that these findings were innocuous or a hoax are simply wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist and one of the researchers whom the indictment discussed but did not name.

Steven A. Tyrrell, a lawyer for Rodney Joffe, an internet entrepreneur and another of the four data experts, said his client had a duty to share the information with the F.B.I. and that the indictment “gratuitously presents an incomplete and misleading picture” of his role.

A spokesman for Mr. Durham declined to comment. The special counsel’s office issued a fresh grand jury subpoena to Mr. Sussmann’s former law firm, Perkins Coie, sometime after Mr. Sussmann was indicted on Sept. 16, in a development first reported on Thursday by CNN and confirmed by a person familiar with the matter. It is unclear whether that pertained to Alfa Bank or whether Mr. Durham has finished his investigation into that matter.

Mr. Durham’s indictment provided evidence that two participants in the matter — Mr. Joffe and Michael Sussmann, right, the cybersecurity lawyer accused of falsely saying he had no client when he brought the findings of the researchers to the F.B.I. — interacted with the Clinton campaign as they worked to bring their suspicions to journalists and federal agents.

Mr. Durham uncovered law firm billing records showing that Mr. Sussmann, who represented the Democratic National Committee on issues related to Russia’s hacking of its servers, had logged his time on the Alfa Bank matter as work for the Clinton campaign. Mr. Sussmann has denied lying to the F.B.I. about who he was representing in coming forward with the Alfa Bank data, while saying he was representing only Mr. Joffe and not the campaign.

Mr. Durham also found that Mr. Joffe had met with one of Mr. Sussmann’s law firm partners, Marc Elias, who was then the Clinton campaign’s general counsel, and researchers from Fusion GPS, an investigative firm Mr. Elias had commissioned to scrutinize Mr. Trump’s purported ties to Russia. Fusion GPS drafted a paper on Alfa Bank’s ties to the Kremlin that Mr. Sussmann also provided to the F.B.I.

In the heat of the presidential race, Democrats quickly sought to capitalize on the research. On Sept. 15, four days before Mr. Sussmann met with the F.B.I. about the findings, Mr. Elias sent an email to the Clinton campaign manager, Robbie Mook, its communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, and its national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, whose subject line referred to an Alfa Bank article, the indictment said.

Six weeks later, after Slate ran a lengthy article about the Alfa Bank suspicions, the Clinton campaign pounced. Mrs. Clinton’s Twitter feed linked to the article and ran an image stating the suspicions as fact, declaring, “It’s time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia.”

The F.B.I., which had already started its Trump-Russia investigation before it heard about the possible Trump-Alfa connections, quickly dismissed the suspicions, apparently concluding the interactions were probably caused by marketing emails sent by an outside firm using a domain registered to the Trump Organization. The report by the Russia special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, ignored the issue.

The data remains a mystery. A 2018 analysis commissioned by the Senate, made public this month, detailed technical reasons to doubt that marketing emails were the cause. A Senate report last year accepted the F.B.I.’s assessment that it was unlikely to have been a covert communications channel, but also said it had no good explanation for “the unusual activity.”

Whatever caused the odd data, at issue in the wake of the indictment is whether Mr. Joffe and the other three computer scientists considered their own theory dubious and yet cynically went forward anyway, as Mr. Durham suggests, or whether they truly believed the data was alarming and put forward their hypothesis in good faith.

Earlier articles on Alfa Bank, including in Slate and The New Yorker, did not name the researchers, and used pseudonyms like “Max” and “Tea Leaves” for two of them. Mr. Durham’s indictment did not name them, either.

But three of their names have appeared among a list of data experts in a lawsuit brought by Alfa Bank, and Trump supporters have speculated online about their identities. The Times has confirmed them, and their lawyers provided statements defending their actions.

The indictment’s “Originator-1” is April Lorenzen, chief data scientist at the information services firm Zetalytics. Her lawyer, Michael J. Connolly, said she has “dedicated her life to the critical work of thwarting dangerous cyberattacks on our country,” adding: “Any suggestion that she engaged in wrongdoing is unequivocally false.”

The indictment’s “Researcher-1” is another computer scientist at Georgia Tech, Manos Antonakakis. “Researcher-2” is Mr. Dagon. And “Tech Executive-1” is Mr. Joffe, who in 2013 received the F.B.I. Director’s Award for helping crack a cybercrime case, and retired this month from Neustar, another information services company.

In addition, the Alfa Bank suspicions were only half of what the researchers sought to bring to the government’s attention, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Their other set of concerns centered on data suggesting that a YotaPhone — a Russian-made smartphone rarely seen in the United States — had been used from networks serving the White House, Trump Tower and Spectrum Health, a Michigan hospital company whose server had also interacted with the Trump server.

Mr. Sussmann relayed their YotaPhone findings to counterintelligence officials at the C.I.A. in February 2017, the people said. It is not clear whether the government ever investigated them.

The involvement of the researchers traces back to the spring of 2016. Darpa, the Pentagon’s research funding agency, wanted to commission data scientists to develop the use of so-called DNS logs, records of when servers have prepared to communicate with other servers over the internet, as a tool for hacking investigations.

Darpa identified Georgia Tech as a potential recipient of funding and encouraged researchers there to develop examples. Mr. Antonakakis and Mr. Dagon reached out to Mr. Joffe to gain access to Neustar’s repository of DNS logs, people familiar with the matter said, and began sifting them.

Separately, when the news broke in June 2016 that Russia had hacked the Democratic National Committee’s servers, Mr. Dagon and Ms. Lorenzen began talking at a conference about whether such data might uncover other election-related hacking.

Ms. Lorenzen eventually noticed an odd pattern: a server called mail1.trump-email.com appeared to be communicating almost exclusively with servers at Alfa Bank and Spectrum Health. She shared her findings with Mr. Dagon, the people said, and they both discussed it with Mr. Joffe.

“Half the time I stop myself and wonder: am I really seeing evidence of espionage on behalf of a presidential candidate?” Mr. Dagon wrote in an email to Mr. Joffe on July 29, after WikiLeaks made public stolen Democratic emails timed to disrupt the party’s convention and Mr. Trump urged Russia to hack Mrs. Clinton.

By early August, the researchers had combined forces and were increasingly focusing on the Alfa Bank data, the people said. Mr. Joffe reached out to his lawyer, Mr. Sussmann, who would take the researchers’ data and hypothesis to the F.B.I. on Sept. 19, 2016.

Defense lawyers contend the indictment presented a skewed portrait of their clients’ thinking by selectively quoting from their emails.

The indictment quotes August emails from Ms. Lorenzen and Mr. Antonakakis worrying that they might not know if someone had faked the DNS data. But people familiar with the matter said the indictment omitted later discussion of reasons to doubt any attempt to spoof the overall pattern could go undetected.

The indictment says Mr. Joffe sent an email on Aug. 21 urging more research about Mr. Trump, which he stated could “give the base of a very useful narrative,” while also expressing a belief that the Trump server at issue was “a red herring” and they should ignore it because it had been used by the mass-marketing company.

The full email provides context: Mr. Trump had claimed he had no dealings in Russia and yet many links appeared to exist, Mr. Joffe noted, citing an article that discussed aspirations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. Despite the “red herring” line, the same email also showed that Mr. Joffe nevertheless remained suspicious about Alfa Bank, proposing a deeper hunt in the data “for the anomalies that we believe exist.”

He wrote: “If we can show possible email communication between” any Trump server and an Alfa Bank server “that has occurred in the last few weeks, we have the beginning of a narrative,” adding that such communications with any “Russian or Ukrainian financial institutions would give the base of a very useful narrative.”

Mr. Tyrrell, his lawyer, said that research in the weeks that followed, omitted by the indictment, had yielded evidence that the specific subsidiary server in apparent contact with Alfa Bank had not been used to send bulk marketing emails. That further discussion, he said, changed his client’s mind about whether it was a red herring.

“The quotation of the ‘red herring’ email is deeply misleading,” he said, adding: “The research process is iterative and this is exactly how it should work. Their efforts culminated in the well-supported conclusions that were ultimately delivered to the F.B.I.”

The indictment also quoted from emails in mid-September, when the researchers were discussing a paper on their suspicions that Mr. Sussmann would soon take to the F.B.I. It says Mr. Joffe asked if the paper’s hypothesis would strike security experts as a “plausible explanation.”

The paper’s conclusion was somewhat qualified, an email shows, saying “there were other possible explanations,” but the only “plausible” one was that Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization had taken steps “to obfuscate their communications.”

The indictment suggested Ms. Lorenzen’s reaction to the paper was guarded, describing an email from her as “stating, in part, that it was ‘plausible’ in the ‘narrow scope’ defined by” Mr. Joffe. But the text of her email displays enthusiasm.

“In the narrow scope of what you have defined above, I agree wholeheartedly that it is plausible,” she wrote, adding: “If the white paper intends to say that there are communications between at least Alfa and Trump, which are being intentionally hidden by Alfa and Trump I absolutely believe that is the case,” her email said.

The indictment cited emails by Mr. Antonakakis in August in which he flagged holes and noted they disliked Mr. Trump, and in September in which he approvingly noted that the paper did not get into a technical issue that specialists would raise.

Mr. Antonakakis’ lawyer, Mark E. Schamel, said his client had provided “feedback on an early draft of data that was cause for additional investigation.” And, he said, their hypothesis “to this day, remains a plausible working theory.”

The indictment also suggests Mr. Dagon’s support for the paper’s hypothesis was qualified, describing his email response as “acknowledging that questions remained, but stating, in substance and in part, that the paper should be shared with government officials.”

The text of that email shows Mr. Dagon was forcefully supportive. He proposed editing the paper to declare as “fact” that it was clear “that there are hidden communications between Trump and Alfa Bank,” and said he believed the findings met the probable cause standard to open a criminal investigation.

“Hopefully the intended audience are officials with subpoena powers, who can investigate the purpose” of the apparent Alfa Bank connection, Mr. Dagon wrote.

In the end, Mr. Durham came to investigate them.

Charlie Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential Authority and Secrecy.” @charlie_savage 

Adam Goldman reports on the F.B.I. and national security from Washington, D.C., and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. He is the coauthor of “Enemies Within: Inside the NYPD's Secret Spying Unit and bin Laden's Final Plot Against America.” @adamgoldmanNYT

Washington Post, Woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi in the ‘brain’ pleads guilty to misdemeanor, Rachel Weiner and Spencer S. Hsu, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). A woman who said as she left the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6 that she had hoped to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge.

“I would like to accept my responsibility for what I did, for my part in January 6,” Dawn Bancroft, 59, of suburban Philadelphia said in federal court in Washington as she admitted to illegally demonstrating.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan questioned why Bancroft was not being asked to take more responsibility, given the comment she admits making in a video as she left the building during the storming of the Capitol: “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.”

Calling those words “horrible” and “clearly troubling,” Sullivan asked prosecutors why Bancroft was not charged with threatening a government official, which is a felony.

Bancroft pleaded guilty alongside her friend Diana Santos-Smith, a fellow Bucks County resident, to a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Murphy said Bancroft made the comment while leaving the building and there was no indication she intended to act on it.

“It was a dumb, stupid comment,” Bancroft told the judge, one she said she made in jest. “I did not mean it.”

Her attorney added that Bancroft did not post the video online; she shared it with her children and a few others, including a friend who provided it to the FBI.

Sullivan said Bancroft was “fortunate” not to face more charges but that the “outrageous statement” would come up again at her sentencing. He asked her to think about how “good people who never got into trouble with the law on Jan. 6 morphed into terrorists.”

Pelosi, who with Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 presided over the ceremonial certification of President Biden’s election victory, was a particular target of the mob that overran the Capitol that day. Her office was ransacked, and rioters searched for her as they roamed the halls.

Sullivan was himself the target of a threatening voice mail in 2019, while he was overseeing the prosecution of former Trump appointee Michael Flynn. A Long Island man who told the judge that “a hot piece of lead will cut through your skull” was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Bancroft and Santos-Smith came to Washington together by train, according to court records, and twice entered the Capitol building through broken windows. They stayed for about a minute each time, they said, deterred from going farther by the size of the crowd.

Sullivan told Santos-Smith that she would also face tough questions at sentencing.

“We’re going to have a long talk . . . about what the heck you were thinking,” he said. “How did you get yourself into this mess?”

Noting that on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, former president George W. Bush had compared the danger of “violent extremists at home” to international terrorism, the judge said, “I agree with him.”

Both women are set to be sentenced on Jan. 25.

Sullivan, a federal judge since 1991, was appointed to the district court in 1994. He is one of several members of the bench who have publicly questioned whether participants in the Capitol assault are being treated too leniently by the Justice Department.

“You disgraced this country in the eyes of the world, and my inclination would be to lock you up. But the government is not asking for me to lock you up,” Judge Reggie B. Walton told another misdemeanor defendant on Friday. “Because it was an attack on our government . . . to see someone trying to destroy the Capitol of our country, and to see what you did is very, very troubling.”

New 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, Extradition hearing for Peter Nygård, fashion mogul wanted in the U.S. on sex trafficking charges, to open in Canada, Amanda Coletta, Sept. 30, 2021.He cast himself as the “quintessential self-made man,” the son of an immigrant family whose drive and vision had “created a standard of excellence” for women’s fashion while funding a life of fame and luxury.

Now Peter Peter Nygard, shown in a 2016 file photo, the Canadian retail mogul whose multimillion-dollar women’s fashion empire and jet set life imploded last year amid allegations of sex trafficking and other sexual misconduct, faces extradition to the United States to face charges that could land him in prison for the rest of his life.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested Nygård in Manitoba last December at the behest of U.S. officials seeking to try him on racketeering and sex trafficking charges involving dozens of alleged victims in several countries over a quarter century. The extradition hearing is set to begin in Winnipeg on Friday.

The 80-year-old retail mogul, who founded the women’s fashion company Nygård International in 1967, denies the allegations. He was not granted bail and has been jailed since his arrest.

Nygard’s lawyers, asked to comment, responded in an email noting that the hearing Friday would be streamed with a 10-minute delay and that there would be a media availability afterward.

Nygård stepped down as chairman of his company in February 2020 after federal and local law enforcement authorities raided his firm’s corporate headquarters in Manhattan as part of an investigation into the sex trafficking allegations.

Nygård International filed for bankruptcy in Canada and in the United States the following month. At the time, the company operated around 170 stores in North America and 6,000 more shops inside department stores. It employed more than 1,400 people.

Washington Post, Marine officer who criticized Afghanistan exit in Facebook video is now in the brig, Andrew Jeong, Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). A Marine lieutenant colonel who publicly criticized the Biden administration for last month’s chaotic evacuation of American and allied troops and civilians from Afghanistan is now in a military brig for violating a gag order last weekend, his parents said in a short statement.

Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr., right, was incarcerated early Monday, they said on LinkedIn, after ignoring orders to refrain from posting on social media. Scheller, who was relieved of his command after his initial criticism of the evacuations, has been put in pretrial confinement at Camp Lejeune, N.C., according to Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Sam Stephenson.

But Scheller doesn’t yet face charges, Stephenson said. “The allegations against Lt. Col. Scheller are merely accusations. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty.” The lieutenant colonel stands accused of showing contempt toward officials, willfully disobeying a superior officer, failing to obey lawful orders and committing conduct unbecoming of an officer.

The time, date, and location of his proceedings have not yet been determined, Stephenson said. Scheller’s representatives could not be reached.

Scheller was relieved of command shortly after posting a video on Facebook that demanded senior officials be held accountable for the Taliban’s sudden takeover of Afghanistan and the deaths of 13 American service members killed in a Kabul attack last month. He has said he plans to resign his commission.

Washington Post, Texas nurse killed 4 patients, prosecutors allege: ‘A hospital is the perfect place for a serial killer to hide,’ Sept. 30, 2021 (print ed.). Prosecutors allege that William George Davis purposefully injected air into patients' IVs while they recovered from surgeries. Davis, 37, has pleaded not guilty to charges of capital murder and aggravated assault. His trial in Tyler, Tex., began on Tuesday.

Washington Post, Federal court: D.C. liable for wrongful arrests under struck-down gun ban, Spencer S. Hsu, Sept. 30, 2021. If upheld, the ruling could pave way for damages claims by as many as 4,500 people arrested from 2012 to 2014 for violating the city’s ban on carrying firearms in public.

A federal judge found the D.C. government liable Wednesday for wrongfully arresting between 2012 and 2014 six people who were accused of violating its ban on carrying handguns in public.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth did not rule on a motion seeking class-action status, but the decision, if upheld, could clear the way for claims for damages by as many as 4,500 people similarly arrested under the law the courts overturned in 2014, according to court filings.

The decision is the latest in a long line of litigation after Washington’s strictest-in-the-nation gun regulations made the nation’s capital a key focus for gun rights activists two decades ago. The Supreme Court struck down the District’s long-standing ban on handguns in a landmark 2008 ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller, which found that the Second Amendment protected individuals’ right to own a gun in the home.

The District enacted new restrictions on openly carrying firearms in the city, but a federal judge in July 2014 and an appeals court in July 2017 again struck down regulations requiring residents to show “proper reason” to do so, such as a fear of injury or transporting valuables. The 2014 ruling also barred the city from enforcing carrying restrictions against people “based solely on the fact that they are nonresidents.”

Washington Post, Inspector general finds ‘widespread’ problems in FBI’s FISA applications, Devlin Barrett, Sept. 30, 2021. An inquiry into how the FBI handles some of its most sensitive surveillance work found “widespread” failure to follow one of the key rules in the program, according to a report issued Thursday by the Justice Department inspector general.

The findings grew out of an earlier probe of how the FBI investigated the Trump campaign for possible ties to Russia in the 2016 election. Those findings, released in 2019, found more than a dozen major errors or omissions with the surveillance application targeting a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz then went on to look at other applications to the classified court created by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to handle the most sensitive national security cases.

Last year, Horowitz released initial findings that within the 29 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications reviewed, there were 209 errors, four of which the Justice Department deemed material to the investigations.

Appeals court appears reluctant to say Guantánamo detainees have due process rights, Ann E. Marimow and Missy Ryan, Sept. 30, 2021.

Washington Post, DHS issues new arrest and deportation guidelines to immigration agents, Maria Sacchettio, Sept. 30, 2021. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas issued broad new directives to immigration officers Thursday saying that the fact that someone is an undocumented immigrant “should not alone be the basis” of a decision to detain and deport them from the United States.

The Biden administration will continue to prioritize the arrest and deportation of immigrants who pose a threat to national security and public safety and those who recently crossed a border illegally into the United States, Mayorkas said in an interview.

Mayorkas said Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers should not attempt to arrest and deport farmworkers, the elderly and others who were vulnerable to deportation under the Trump administration, which allowed agents to arrest anyone in the United States illegally. He also said agents should avoid detaining immigrants who land on their radar because they spoke out against “unscrupulous” landlords or employers, or at public demonstrations. The new rules take effect Nov. 29.

Biden Appointments

Washington Post, Senate confirms Tracy Stone-Manning as Bureau of Land Management director in party-line vote, Joshua Partlow, Sept. 30, 2021. Tracy Stone-Manning faced Republican opposition over her role in a tree-spiking case in 1989.

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Tracy Stone-Manning to be the director of the Bureau of Land Management in a party-line vote, amid intense opposition from Republicans over her involvement three decades ago with environmental activists who sabotaged an Idaho timber sale.

She was confirmed by a 50-to-45 vote. The Bureau of Land Management oversees about one-tenth of the nation’s land, predominantly in the West, and is central to President Biden’s climate goal of curbing fossil fuel extraction on public lands and transitioning to renewable energy.

Alliance for Justice (AFJ), AFJ Applauds Biden’s Eighth Slate Of Judicial Nominees, Staff Report, Sept. 30, 2021. President Biden announced a new slate of highly qualified judicial nominees to the federal bench today.

The ten district court nominees represent the eighth slate of judicial nominees President Biden has announced so far this year, as the White House and Senate Democrats continue their record-setting pace for expeditiously filling crucial judicial vacancies across the United States.

Several of the new nominees represent historic firsts and, if confirmed, the new judges will bring critically important demographic and professional diversity to the federal bench.

• Washington Post, Senate confirms Rohit Chopra to lead Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

U.S. Media, Education, Philanthropy

New York Times, Leader of Prestigious Yale Program Resigns, Citing Donor Pressure, Jennifer Schuessler, Sept. 30, 2021. The historian Beverly Gage says the university failed to stand up for academic freedom amid inappropriate efforts to influence the curriculum.

The Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy is one of Yale University’s most celebrated and prestigious programs. Over the course of a year, it allows a select group of about two dozen students to immerse themselves in classic texts of history and statecraft, while also rubbing shoulders with guest instructors drawn from the worlds of government, politics, military affairs and the media.

But now, a program created to train future leaders how to steer through the turbulent waters of history is facing a crisis of its own.

Beverly Gage, a historian of 20th-century politics who has led the program since 2017, has resigned, saying the university failed to stand up for academic freedom amid inappropriate efforts by its donors to influence its curriculum and faculty hiring.

The donors, both prominent and deep-pocketed, are Nicholas F. Brady, a former U.S. Treasury secretary under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and Charles B. Johnson, a mutual fund billionaire and leading Republican donor who in 2013 made a $250 million donation to Yale — the largest gift in its history.

Days after the 2020 presidential election, Professor Gage said, an opinion article in The New York Times by another instructor in the program calling Donald J. Trump a demagogue who threatened the Constitution prompted complaints from Mr. Brady.

Four months of wrangling over the program later, Professor Gage resigned after the university administration informed her that a new advisory board it was creating under previously ignored bylaws would be dominated by conservative figures of the donors’ choosing, including, against her strong objections, Henry A. Kissinger, the former secretary of state under President Richard M. Nixon.

Her resignation, which Yale has not yet made public, raises the question of where universities draw the line between honoring original agreements with donors and allowing them undue sway in academic affairs. It’s a question that can become turbocharged when colliding political visions, and the imperatives of fund-raising, are involved.

Sept. 29

Top Headlines

• Washington Post, Pentagon leaders face more backlash, partisan feuding in House hearing on Afghanistan exit
• Washington Post, Military leaders, refusing to fault Biden, say troop withdrawal ensured Afghanistan’s collapse
• Washington Post, Gen. Milley says key officials knew of his calls with Chinese counterpart

Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection

• Politico, 'No major incidents of illegal activity': DHS told Pentagon as pro-Trump mob breached Capitol, Betsy Woodruff Swan and Lara Seligman
• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: We need an Executive Order establishing a January 6 military commission, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, As Trump hints at comeback, democracy advocates fear a ‘worst-case scenario,’

U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

• New York Times, Democrats Move to Avert Fiscal Crisis, Separating Debt and Spending Bills
• Washington Post, Biden, Pelosi embark on late scramble to save $1 trillion bill on infrastructure
• Washington Post, Negotiations between Biden, Democrats intensify as $4 trillion agenda hits stalemate
• The American Prospect, Opinion: Get a Grip: There Will Be a Budget Resolution, Robert Kuttner
• Washington Post, Treasury secretary tells Congress that U.S. will run out of debt ceiling flexibility on Oct. 18
• New York Times, Republicans at Odds Over Infrastructure Bill as Vote Approaches
• New York Times, Pelosi Plans Infrastructure Vote as Safety Net Bill Remains Mired
• New York Times, Republicans Block Government Funding, Refusing to Lift Debt Limit
• New York Times, Politics Updates: As Sinema resists the budget bill, she is set to raise money from business groups that oppose it

Virus Victims, Responses

• Washington Post, YouTube is banning prominent anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
• Washington Post, Opinion: The booster shot debate shows that public health is not only about science. It’s about values, Leana S. Wen
• Washington Post, Live Updates: Third coronavirus vaccine shot’s side effects echo those from second dose, CDC says
• New York Times, Analysis: Red Covid, David Leonhard
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 711,222
• Washington Post, 214 million U.S. vaccinated
• New York Times, Retailers’ Latest Headache: Shutdowns at Their Vietnamese Suppliers

U.S. Governance, Security, Politics

• Chicago Tribune, Obama center groundbreaking: ‘Chicago is where everything most precious to me began,’ former president says at Jackson Park ceremony
• New York Times, After testifying to senators, Gen. Mark Milley and two other defense officials are appearing before a House committee
• Washington Post, Opinion: Republicans aim their fire at the military, Dana Milbank
• Washington Post, Opinion: The Pentagon begins a very American process of postwar accountability and rebuilding, David Ignatius
• New York Times, ‘This Was a Failure’: Biden’s A.T.F. Pick Says He Was Left Open to Attack
• Washington Post, Trump played tough with Putin in front of cameras, while Putin toyed with his insecurities, says book by Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham
• New York Times, Stephanie Grisham’s Book Details Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Temper
• New York Times, Trump Loses N.D.A. Case Against Omarosa Manigault Newman
• Washington Post, S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem dismisses conservative website’s claims of extramarital affair with ex-Trump adviser

World News

• Washington Post, Fumio Kishida set to become Japan’s new prime minister after winning party vote
• New York Times, Sarah Everard Was Falsely Arrested by Her Murderer, Court Hears
• Washington Post, More than 100 killed in Ecuadoran prison riot as gangs fight for control

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police

• New York Times, How the Black Women Around R. Kelly’s Case Feel About His Conviction
• Washington Post, Capital Gazette gunman sentenced to life in prison without parole for rampage that killed 5
• Washington Post, Woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi in the ‘brain’ pleads guilty to misdemeanor
• Washington Post, Marine officer who criticized Afghanistan exit in Facebook video is now in the brig
• Washington Post, Ex-Theranos lab director, testifying in Elizabeth Holmes trial, was ‘most important’ source for probe
• Washington Post, A pit bull was killed after being forced to fight. His owner will now spend 10 years in prison

U.S. Religion, Media, Education

• Washington Post Magazine, The rise of the liberal Latter-day Saints: Progressives are fighting for a foothold in the Mormon Church. The church is fighting back, Emily Kaplan, Photos by Katherine Frey

U.S. Environment, Protected Species

• New York Times, Protected Too Late: U.S. Officials Report More Than 20 Extinctions

Top Stories

Washington Post, Pentagon leaders face more backlash, partisan feuding in House hearing on Afghanistan exit, Alex Horton and Karoun Demirjian, Sept. 29, 2021. President Biden’s top military adviser declared Wednesday that the Afghanistan war was “lost,” marking the first time such a senior commander has so bluntly stated in public that the 20-year campaign ended in defeat.

“It wasn’t lost in the last 20 days or even 20 months. There’s a cumulative effect to a series of strategic decisions that go way back,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley told the House Armed Services Committee during a rancorous hearing that further underscored the deep partisan split following last month’s deadly exit from Kabul.

“Whenever you get some phenomenon like a war that is lost — and it has been, in the sense of we accomplished our strategic task of protecting America against al-Qaeda, but certainly the end state is a whole lot different than what we wanted,” Milley added. “So whenever a phenomenon like that happens, there’s an awful lot of causal factors. And we’re going to have to figure that out. A lot of lessons learned here.”

Milley’s testimony came the day after he and another key figure in the American exit from Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command commander Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie, told a Senate panel that the war had been a “strategic failure.”

Throughout Wednesday’s hearing, Republicans and Democrats sparred over the question of whether America’s leaders — particularly Biden — were honest with the public about their projections for Afghanistan. At one point, the session devolved into an argument over who was to blame for the war’s messy end game — during which 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide strike outside the Kabul airport and hundreds of U.S. citizens were left behind.

“While we’re ripping apart these three gentlemen here I want to remind everybody that the decision the president made was to stop fighting a war that after 20 years it was proven we could not win. There was no easy way to do that,” the committee’s chairman, Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), told his colleagues, accusing them of “partisan political opportunism.”

Washington Post, Military leaders, refusing to fault Biden, say troop withdrawal ensured Afghanistan’s collapse, Karoun Demirjian, Alex Horton, John Wagner and Felicia Sonmez, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). The Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Sept. 28 marked the first time senior Defense Department officials have faced lawmakers publicly since the evacuation.

The Pentagon leaders who presided over the Afghanistan war’s conclusion said Tuesday that they had predicted Kabul’s government and its military would “collapse” after the United States’ departure but refused to fault President Biden for withdrawing U.S. forces, even as they agreed the haphazard exit was a “strategic failure.”

Gen. Mark A. Milley, right, chairman of the Joint Chiefs Staff, and Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, chief of U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that they had advised both Biden and his predecessor, President Donald Trump, to keep at least 2,500 American troops in Afghanistan. It was his belief, Milley said, that “an accelerated withdrawal” risked losing “substantial gains” made over two decades of fighting in Afghanistan, “damaging U.S. worldwide credibility and . . . resulting in a complete Taliban takeover or general civil war.”

Tuesday’s hearing marked the first time Milley, McKenzie and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin have faced lawmakers publicly since last month’s evacuation from Kabul, a deadly 17-day race that has left unresolved the future of counterterrorism operations and the fate of Americans who remain stranded. Much of the session involved lawmakers, depending on their party, trying to enlist the generals’ support in blaming either Trump or Biden for the failures of the past and Afghanistan’s uncertain future.

Inside the Afghanistan airlift: Split-second decisions, relentless chaos drove historic military mission

Milley revealed during one of those exchanges that it was not until Aug. 25 — 10 days after the Taliban swept into the Afghan capital and less than a week before the last U.S. military personnel left — that the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the “unanimous” recommendation to Biden that he withdraw all troops rather than prolong the evacuation beyond its Aug. 31 deadline. A day later, 13 service members and at least 170 Afghans were killed in a suicide bombing. Biden has highlighted that recommendation to defend his decision to leave Afghanistan, without mentioning that it came only after the Taliban had taken control of Kabul.

Washington Post, Biden, Pelosi embark on late scramble to save $1 trillion bill on infrastructure, Tony Romm, Marianna Sotomayor, Jacqueline Alemany and Seung Min Kim, Sept. 29, 2021. The House is supposed to vote on the measure Thursday and Biden canceled a trip to continue huddling with moderates over a deal. In a sign of the stakes, the president canceled a planned Wednesday trip to Chicago to work the phones and save his agenda from collapse.

The clock is ticking on House Democrats as they barrel toward an uncertain, scheduled vote Thursday on a $1 trillion bill to improve the nation’s infrastructure — a top priority of President Biden that some in the party are still threatening to oppose.
Government shutdown? Here's what to know about Thursday's deadline and what might follow

The drama and diplomacy are set to intensify over the next 24 hours, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) scrambles to keep her fractious, narrow majority intact and send the first of two major economic initiatives to Biden’s desk. In a sign of the stakes, the president even canceled a planned Wednesday trip to Chicago so that he could stay in Washington and attempt to spare his agenda from collapse.

Democrats generally support the infrastructure package, which proposes major new investments in the country’s aging roads, bridges, pipes, ports and Internet connections. But the bill has become a critical political bargaining chip for liberal-leaning lawmakers, who have threatened to scuttle it to preserve the breadth of a second, roughly $3.5 trillion economic package.

What is in and out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill?

That latter proposal aims to expand Medicare, invest new sums to combat climate change, offer free prekindergarten and community college to all students and extend new aid to low-income families — all financed through taxes increases on wealthy Americans and corporations. Liberals fear it is likely to be slashed in scope dramatically by moderates, including Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), unless they hold up the infrastructure package the duo helped negotiate — leading to the stalemate that plagues the party on the eve of the House vote.

Washington Post, Gen. Milley says key officials knew of his calls with Chinese counterpart, John Wagner, Eugene Scott, Karoun Demirjian and Alex Horton, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate panel Tuesday that his first call to reassure his Chinese counterpart that President Donald Trump had no plans to attack China late in his administration was directed by Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper. Milley said 11 people were present for the second call and that he later informed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows of it.

Also appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee are Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command. Lawmakers are grilling the military leaders about tactical decisions made during the rushed evacuation from Afghanistan and pressing them on plans for future counterterrorism operations without a presence in the country.

• Military chiefs at odds over whether Afghanistan pullout damaged U.S. credibility
• Milley says Trump aides approved and ordered his conversations with Chinese counterpart
• Austin defends U.S. actions in chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan

Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection

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

Politico, 'No major incidents of illegal activity': DHS told Pentagon as pro-Trump mob breached Capitol, Betsy Woodruff Swan and Lara Seligman, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). A communication on Jan. 6 from a key DHS hub that was emailed to senior Army leaders dramatically undersold the unfolding chaos.

On Jan. 6, more than 30 minutes after the first attackers breached barricades erected to protect the Capitol, the Department of Homeland Security sent an incongruous update to the Pentagon.

“There are no major incidents of illegal activity at this time," read an internal Army email sent to senior leaders at 1:40 p.m. that day, referring to an update the service had just received from DHS’s National Operations Center (NOC).

The Pentagon has faced scorching criticism for taking hours to deploy National Guard units to the Capitol. But the glaring omission, detailed in an email obtained through a public records request, provides new information about inaccurate communications the Defense Department received as the day’s horrors unfolded. And it heightens concerns about the role of DHS, established in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, as pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, and the department’s ability to respond to crises.

“These emails raise serious questions about the response to the threat of January 6th,” said Jordan Libowitz, a spokesperson for the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a government watchdog group that obtained the email through a public records request and shared it with Politico.

Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: We need an Executive Order establishing a January 6 military commission, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 20 books and former Navy intelligence officer, Sept. 29, 2021. With Donald Trump and his January 6th co-conspirators using frivolous lawsuits to tie up in the courts subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the insurrection and a lethargic Attorney General in Merrick Garland, President Biden should follow the example of President Andrew Johnson.

After it was determined that the conspirators who assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, above, also intended to assassinate the entire Cabinet and "other officers of the Federal Government," Johnson, on May 1, 1865, signed an executive order creating a military commission to try the accused seditionists and assassins.

In addition to murdering Lincoln, two of the conspirators stabbed, with the intent of assassinating, Secretary of State William Seward and injured Seward's two sons and his daughter in the process.

In June 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order establishing a military commission to try eight accused German saboteurs who landed in the U.S. by submarine. All of the Germans were found guilty and six of them were executed.

The United States must graduate from its pollyannish attitude of neither imprisoning nor executing for sedition and insurrection guilty past presidents.

No president in American history was ever impeached of crimes even approaching those of Mr. Trump. The mere fact that Trump set such a hideous example for possible future rogue U.S. presidents requires that he be tried for sedition and insurrection and if found guilty, he and his co-conspirators should face the same sentences as those dealt to the Lincoln assassination conspirators.

Washington Post, As Trump hints at comeback, democracy advocates fear a ‘worst-case scenario,’ Ashley Parker, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). As Donald Trump looks and sounds increasingly as if he intends to mount a presidential campaign rerun, Democrats and democracy experts grapple with what it — and a potential second presidency — would mean for the country.

U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

New York Times, Democrats Move to Avert Fiscal Crisis, Separating Debt and Spending Bills, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 29, 2021. The House was set to move on Wednesday on a bill to increase the debt limit, while the Senate prepared a separate spending bill to keep the government funded past a Thursday deadline.

Democrats in Congress moved on Wednesday to avert a looming fiscal crisis, scheduling a House vote to raise the debt ceiling and preparing a separate spending bill to head off a government shutdown looming at midnight on Thursday.

The Senate could vote as early as Wednesday on the spending bill, which is needed to prevent a lapse in government funding when the fiscal year ends on Thursday and also includes emergency disaster aid. Republicans were expected to support it, after Democrats removed a debt-limit increase that the G.O.P. had refused to back.

That left uncertain the fate of the legislation to raise the statutory limit on federal borrowing, which is on track to be breached by Oct. 18 if Congress does not increase it. House Democrats appear to have the votes to pass their bill, which would lift the cap until Dec. 16, 2022, but Senate Republicans have blocked efforts to advance such legislation in their chamber, where 60 votes are needed to move most measures.

Still, the action on Wednesday appeared to pave the way to clearing the most immediate hurdle Congress faced, as Democratic leaders labored to resolve intraparty divisions that are threatening to derail President Biden’s domestic agenda.

The American Prospect, Opinion: Get a Grip: There Will Be a Budget Resolution, Robert Kuttner, Sept. 29, 2021. One. There has never not been a budget. These partisan games go on, and on, and on, but in the end there is always a budget.

Two. The U.S. will not default on its debt (see Item One).

...

Four. If anything is more important than a big bottom line for Build Back Better, it is voting rights. It’s worth sacrificing some public investment now and coming back for more later, if we can get Manchin to support one-time filibuster suspension to pass the voting rights bill of which he is now a lead sponsor. Joe—your name is on the damned bill!

...

Six. Biden needs a win, even with a reduced bottom line, so that the media echo chamber will stop writing about his "failed presidency." The lazy, copycat media is always looking for a new morning line. Here’s one: Good old Joe pulled it out. We always knew he would. (Sheee-it.)

Washington Post, Treasury secretary tells Congress that U.S. will run out of debt ceiling flexibility on Oct. 18, Jeff Stein, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Janet Yellen said in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that if the debt ceiling is breached, “it is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date.” The new timeline comes less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to suspend the borrowing limit.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, on Tuesday told Congress that the U.S. will run out of flexibility to avoid breaching the debt limit on Oct. 18, setting a new deadline for lawmakers to avoid a catastrophic default on its payment obligations.
Government shutdown? Here's what to know about Thursday's deadline and what might follow

“It is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date,” Yellen wrote in the letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Yellen’s letter came less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would suspend the debt ceiling and prevent a government shutdown on Friday. Senate Republicans have said they would support a stand-alone measure to prevent the shutdown but they largely have opposed efforts by Democrats to suspend the debt ceiling.

The U.S. government runs a large budget deficit, spending far more than it brings in through tax revenue. To address this imbalance, the government borrows money by issuing debt. But it can only issue debt up to a limit set by Congress. That limit is repeatedly raised or suspended, and lawmakers are now up against another cap.

New York Times, Republicans at Odds Over Infrastructure Bill as Vote Approaches, Jonathan Weisman, Sept. 29, 2021. With a bipartisan infrastructure bill set for a Thursday vote in the House, a campaign to secure G.O.P. support may be the measure’s last hope.

Business groups and some Senate Republicans — working at cross-purposes with Republican leaders in the House — have mounted an all-out drive to secure G.O.P. votes for a bipartisan infrastructure bill ahead of a final vote on Thursday.

Although the measure is the product of a compromise among moderates in both parties, House Republican leaders are leaning on their members to reject the $1 trillion infrastructure bill by disparaging its contents and arguing that it will only pave the way for Democrats to push through their far larger climate change and social policy bill.

Their opposition has ratcheted up pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who has the more progressive members of her Democratic caucus threatening to withhold their support for the infrastructure package until Congress acts on that broader bill. If Republicans unite in opposition, Ms. Pelosi can afford to lose as few as three Democrats on the bill.

But some Republican senators who helped write the bill, along with influential business groups who support it — including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable — have started a countereffort to try to persuade House Republicans to back the legislation.

“It’s a good bill; it’s right there for the country, so I’m encouraging Republicans to support it,” said Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and one of the bill’s negotiators, who said he was working the phones hard. “There’ll be some that have told me they will, but they’re under a lot of pressure.”

How the conflicting pressure campaigns play out could determine the fate of the infrastructure bill. On Tuesday, liberal Democrats accused Ms. Pelosi of a betrayal for abandoning her promise that the House would not take up the infrastructure bill until after the Senate secured passage of the larger measure.

New York Times, Pelosi Plans Infrastructure Vote as Safety Net Bill Remains Mired, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). The move amounts to a gamble that liberals who have balked at allowing the infrastructure bill to move on its own will support it in a vote on Thursday.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California signaled to Democrats on Monday that she would push ahead with a vote this week on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, pushing to salvage President Biden’s agenda in Congress even as the party remained divided over a broader social safety net measure.

Progressive lawmakers have long warned that they will not vote for the infrastructure legislation, which the Senate passed last month, until a far more expansive $3.5 trillion domestic policy and tax package also clears the chamber.

But in private remarks to her caucus on Monday evening, Ms. Pelosi effectively decoupled the two bills, saying that Democrats needed more time to resolve their differences over the multitrillion-dollar social policy plan. The move amounted to a gamble that liberals who had balked at allowing the infrastructure bill to move on its own would support it in a planned vote on Thursday.

It also left unclear the date of the more costly social safety net package, which Democrats are pushing through using the fast-track reconciliation process to shield it from a Republican filibuster. But with slim margins of control in both chambers, Democratic leaders must keep all their senators united in favor, and they can afford to lose as few as three votes in the House.

Ms. Pelosi said her shift in strategy came only after it became clear that Democrats would have to shrink the size of the reconciliation package from $3.5 trillion. Mr. Biden has been negotiating privately with conservative-leaning Democrats to settle on a final number. The speaker outlined her new approach after speaking with the president and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, as the three worked to unite their members behind the details of the package.

Ms. Pelosi said that Democrats had been on schedule to push through the reconciliation package until 10 days ago, when she heard that the overall cost had to come down, according to a person familiar with her remarks, who described them on the condition of anonymity.

But it has been clear for weeks that conservative-leaning Democrats would not accept the size of the bill.

Lawmakers in both chambers have said they hope to quickly iron out the remaining differences between the moderate and liberal factions of their party, although many of the specific demands from the holdouts remain unclear. Ms. Pelosi reiterated that she would not take up a reconciliation bill that could not pass the Senate.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s move is a gamble that depends on votes from progressives who have balked at letting the infrastructure bill proceed.
Some Democrats have expressed unwillingness to vote for the $1 trillion proposal until a $3.5 trillion social policy package clears the House.

• New York Times, Opinion: Think of Mitch McConnell as a New Jersey Shark, Paul Krugman
• New York Times, Opinion: Biden Versus the Rip Van Winkle Caucus, Paul Krugman
• Washington Post, Opinion: Democrats: Political suicide is not a strategy, E.J. Dionne Jr.

Virus Victims, Responses

Washington Post, YouTube is banning prominent anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content, Gerrit De Vynck, Sept. 29, 2021. The Google-owned video site previously only banned misinformation about coronavirus vaccines. Facebook made the same change months ago.

YouTube is taking down several video channels associated with high-profile anti-vaccine activists including Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., below right, who experts say are partially responsible for helping seed the skepticism that’s contributed to slowing vaccination rates across the country.

As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous. The company previously blocked videos that made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not ones for other vaccines like those for measles or chickenpox.

Misinformation researchers have for years said the popularity of anti-vaccine content on YouTube was contributing to growing skepticism of lifesaving vaccines in the United States and around the world. Vaccination rates have slowed and about 56 percent of the U.S. population has had two shots, compared with 71 percent in Canada and 67 percent in the United Kingdom. In July, President Biden said social media companies were partially responsible for spreading misinformation about the vaccines, and need to do more to address the issue.

Analysis: ‘YouTube magic dust’: How America’s second-largest social platform ducks controversies

The change marks a shift for the social media giant, which streams more than 1 billion hours’ worth of content every day. Like its peers Facebook and Twitter, the company has long resisted policing content too heavily, arguing maintaining an open platform is critical to free speech. But as the companies increasingly come under fire from regulators, lawmakers and regular users for contributing to social ills — including vaccine skepticism — YouTube is again changing policies that it has held onto for months.

YouTube didn’t act sooner because it was focusing on misinformation specifically about coronavirus vaccines, said Matt Halprin, YouTube’s vice president of global trust and safety. When it noticed that incorrect claims about other vaccines were contributing to fears about the coronavirus vaccines, it expanded the ban.

“Developing robust policies takes time,” Halprin said. “We wanted to launch a policy that is comprehensive, enforceable with consistency and adequately addresses the challenge.”

Facebook and YouTube spent a year fighting covid misinformation. It’s still spreading.

Mercola, an alternative medicine entrepreneur, and Kennedy, a lawyer and the son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy who has been a face of the anti-vaccine movement for years, have both said in the past that they are not automatically against all vaccines, but believe information about the risks of vaccines is being suppressed.

Facebook banned misinformation on all vaccines seven months ago, though the pages of both Mercola and Kennedy remain up on the social media site. Their Twitter accounts are active, too.

In an email, Mercola said he was being censored and said, without presenting evidence, that vaccines had killed many people. A spokesperson for Kennedy did not return a request for comment.

More than a third of the world’s population has been vaccinated and the vaccines have been proven to be overwhelmingly safe.

YouTube, Facebook and Twitter all banned misinformation about the coronavirus early on in the pandemic. But false claims continue to run rampant across all three of the platforms. The social networks are also tightly connected, with YouTube often serving as a library of videos that go viral on Twitter or Facebook. YouTube has removed over 133,000 videos for broadcasting coronavirus misinformation, Halprin said.

The companies have hired thousands of moderators and used high-tech image- and text-recognition algorithms to try to police misinformation. There are also millions of people with legitimate concerns about the medical system, and social media is a place where they go to ask real questions and express their concerns and fears, something the companies don’t want to squelch.

Washington Post, A major founder of the anti-vaccine movement has made millions selling natural health products

In the past, the company’s leaders have focused on trying to remove what they call “borderline” videos from its recommendation algorithms, allowing people to find them with specific searches but not necessarily promoting them into new people’s feeds. It’s also worked to push more authoritative health videos, like those made by hospitals and medical schools, to the top of search results for health-care topics.

Washington Post, Opinion: The booster shot debate shows that public health is not only about science. It’s about values, Leana S. Wen, right, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). The controversy over how the Biden administration decided who should get coronavirus booster shots underscores an important but seldom discussed point: Public health is not only about science; it’s also about societal values. “Follow the science” is a noble-sounding mantra that’s insufficient to account for the complexity of health policy decisions.

Over the past two weeks, there were numerous heated deliberations among advisers to the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over boosters.

The data themselves weren’t in contention. Rather, nearly the entire debate centered on broader value judgments that should not fall under the sole purview of federal scientific agencies.

As I’ve noted previously, the Biden administration has confused “follow the science” with ceding policymaking to scientific agencies. Of course, the White House shouldn’t manipulate research or prevent studies from being published, as the Trump administration was accused of doing. But when a decision rests on not just the science but also the interpretation of it, it’s entirely appropriate — and indeed necessary — for the public, through our elected leaders, to determine the outcome.

Biden did exactly the right thing in August in asserting that most Americans would need boosters. He should have said then that the role of the FDA and CDC is to review for safety and effectiveness and that it was up to the White House, in consultation with the scientific agencies, to decide whether, when and how Americans would access that additional protection. That’s not playing politics or disregarding science. Rather, it’s listening to constituents and respecting their values, which is what people elect leaders to do.

Washington Post, Live Updates: Third coronavirus vaccine shot’s side effects echo those from second dose, CDC says, Bryan Pietsch and Adela Suliman, Sept. 29, 2021. Teacher arrested after allegedly forging doctor’s note to avoid mask requirement, The side effects Americans experienced from a third dose of a coronavirus vaccine are similar to those from a second dose, according to a study released Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The research provides an insight into the safety of additional vaccine shots as the United States rolls out a booster regimen for older adults and workers in high-risk jobs.

Data from nearly 12,600 people who received a third dose of a coronavirus vaccine by Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna showed that side effects — which were described as mostly mild to moderate, and occurring the day after vaccination — were prevalent at similar rates to those from a second vaccine dose during the regular course.

About 3.4 million people have received a third dose of the coronavirus vaccine since Aug. 13, according to the CDC. During the period that provided the study’s data, from Aug. 12 to Sept. 19, third doses were recommended for immunocompromised people, although the authors noted that people who were not immunocompromised probably were also included.

Uptake of boosters is expected to be strong, with 1 million Americans already having scheduled appointments to receive their third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, now that it has also been authorized for older people, workers in high-risk jobs and people with underlying medical conditions, according to a White House briefing on Tuesday.

Here’s what to know

• Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he believes the “optimal regimen” of vaccination against the coronavirus will include a booster shot.
• After months of declining to reveal his vaccination status, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James confirmed Tuesday that he has received a shot.
  Pfizer and BioNTech said they have submitted initial data to the Food and Drug Administration from their vaccine trial on children between 5 and 11 years old. The companies said results showed a lower dose was safe and effective for that age group.
• Teacher arrested and charged with forging doctor’s note to avoid mask requirement. An elementary school teacher in New Jersey has been arrested on charges of forging a doctor’s letter to avoid a school mask requirement, law enforcement said.

Washington Post, Pfizer, BioNTech tell FDA vaccine trial had favorable results in young children, Adela Suliman and Bryan Pietsch, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). New York governor declares ‘disaster emergency’ amid staffing shortage crisis prompted by vaccine resisters; Kansas orders flags to fly half-staff after more than 6,000 deaths recorded.

Pfizer and BioNTech said Tuesday they have submitted initial data to the Food and Drug Administration from their vaccine trial on children between 5 and 11 years old.

The drugmakers said their trial, which included 2,268 participants from that age group, yielded “positive topline results.” The companies said their coronavirus vaccine has “demonstrated a favorable safety profile” among young participants and “elicited robust neutralizing antibody responses using a two-dose regimen.”

A formal submission to request emergency use authorization for the vaccine in children will follow in “the coming weeks,” the companies said. They also plan to make submissions to the European Medicines Agency and regulatory authorities in other countries.

The vaccine is already authorized under emergency use for children ages 12 to 15 and fully approved for people over age 16 in the United States. However, infections are climbing among children as parents and schools await more data and information before vaccinating young children.

New York Times, Thousands of New York Health Workers Got Vaccinated Before Deadline, Staff Reports, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Statewide, 92 percent of hospital employees are now said to have received at least one vaccine dose. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

Thousands of health care workers in New York got inoculated against Covid-19 ahead of Monday’s deadline, helping the state avoid a worst-case scenario of staffing shortages at hospitals and nursing homes.

Health officials across the state reported that employees had rushed to get vaccinated before Monday, avoiding being suspended or getting fired. New York has 600,000 health care workers.

Statewide, the vaccination rate for hospital employees rose by Monday night to 92 percent of workers having received at least one dose, according to preliminary data from the governor’s office. The rate for nursing homes also jumped to 92 percent on Monday, from 84 percent five days earlier.

Many nursing homes were facing serious staffing shortages before the mandate, making any new staff reductions potentially dangerous. In other news:

• Pfizer-BioNTech submits data showing its shots are safe in 5- to 11-year-olds.
• Health care workers in New York rush to get vaccinated, averting a staffing crisis.
• Fear of Delta, not rewards or mandates, is motivating Americans to get shots, a survey found.
• Japan will lift its state of emergency as inoculations rise and cases drop.
• Covid misinformation created a run on ivermectin, a medication for animals.
• War-battered Syria faces its worst surge yet in infections.
• Back to high school, after a wrenching year.
• A Sri Lankan shaman who touted a cure for Covid died after contracting the disease.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 29, 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: 233,633,337, Deaths: 4,780,890
U.S. Cases: 44,054,825, Deaths: 711,222
India Cases: 33,716,451, Deaths: 447,781
Brazil Cases: 21,381,790, Deaths: 595,520

Washington Post, At least 214 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 29, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 185.5 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.

New York Times, Retailers’ Latest Headache: Shutdowns at Their Vietnamese Suppliers, Sapna Maheshwari and Patricia Cohen, Sept. 29, 2021. A surge in Covid cases has forced factories in Vietnam, a major apparel and footwear supplier to the U.S., to close or operate at reduced capacity. With the holiday season fast approaching, many American retailers are anticipating delays and shortages of goods, along with higher prices.

U.S. Politics, Security, Governance

Former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama’s return to Chicago caps off a five-year journey to a groundbreaking. They are shown with Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzger, left, and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, far right (Photo by Terrence Antonio James for the Chicago Tribune).

Chicago Tribune, Obama center groundbreaking: ‘Chicago is where everything most precious to me began,’ former president says at Jackson Park ceremony, Alice Yin, Sept. 28, 2021. As former President Barack Obama took the podium during his presidential center’s long-delayed groundbreaking, he looked back on his first taste of the city that would forever shape him: driving up the Chicago Skyway in a rickety car, slowing to a cruise upon entering the marvel that he considered Jackson Park.

Then came the important milestones that unfolded nearby over the next two decades — cutting his teeth in politics through community organizing, meeting and courting his future wife and building a coalition that would eventually help elect the nation’s first Black president.

On Tuesday afternoon, standing before four shovels and a mound of dirt in Jackson Park, Obama said the next chapter will be inspiring today’s young leaders through the future Obama Presidential Center.

“Chicago is where I found the purpose I’d been seeking,” he said. “Chicago is where everything most precious to me began. It’s where I found a home.”

In his reflections, Obama said one lesson he learned in Chicago — that progress begins from the ground up — remains true today despite the potential for such community engagement to get “contentious.” It is in fact that push-and-pull that remains the chief building block of democracy, as well the backbone for his presidential campus, he said.

That is why he ultimately chose the South Side for its location, he said.

“It feels natural for Michelle and me to want to give back to Chicago and to the South Side in particular, the place where she grew up and I came into my own,” Obama said. “And the Obama Presidential Center is our way of repaying some of what this amazing city has given us.”

His wife, Michelle Obama, a South Shore native, said Tuesday’s groundbreaking was one step toward equalizing her childhood neighborhood’s access to world-class institutions and resources with that of the North Side’s.

“Even as a child, I understood this disparity,” said Obama, who like her husband was introduced at the event by a Chicago high school student. “I continued to ask myself, why didn’t we have more places to gather and connect in our neighborhood? Why didn’t our part of town draw people from around the world just like Grant Park or Navy Pier, or the Art Institute? Why wasn’t there more investment in us?”

She also declared, “One of my greatest honors is being a proud Chicagoan, a daughter of the South Side. I still lead with that descriptor. I wear it boldly and proudly like a crown. See, to my mind, this city, this neighborhood, it courses through my veins.”

Before the couple addressed the public, Obama’s former vice president and current Commander in Chief Joe Biden gave a shoutout to Chicago through a videotaped message.

Recalling Obama’s first presidential election victory party in Grant Park in 2008, Biden said, “Hope and change are not just slogans and expectations. Hope and change is an ethos, a conviction. And that’s what today represents: It’s not just breaking ground on a new building. It’s breaking ground on the very idea of America as a place of possibility.”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot kicked off the in-person remarks, celebrating what she said was the “transformative investment” of the presidential center.

“This groundbreaking marks the next chapter and a journey that began several years ago,” Lightfoot said. “It took many twists and turns, but due to the perseverance, dedication and hard work of many, we’ve arrived at this momentous day.”

And Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker joked that the secretary of state will have to consider changing the state’s license plates to include Obama’s namesake.

“What a thrill it is to be here in Jackson Park to mark this historic groundbreaking,” Pritzker said. “Thank you to all who have worked together to bring this second presidential center to Illinois — which means, we are proudly now known as the Land of Lincoln and Obama.”

The ceremony went on despite an enduring legal battle against the Obama Foundation’s use of parkland and as local activists planned a protest outside the future site of the presidential center to call for more affordable housing protections.

Barack and Michelle Obama’s return to Chicago caps off a five-year journey to a groundbreaking that was expected to happen far earlier, with the center originally slated to open this year. Instead, shovels only hit the ground last month after a legal bid to halt construction failed in the U.S. Supreme Court. Opening day is now scheduled for 2025, but the park preservationists determined to get the Obama Foundation to relocate the campus remain confident in their latest pending lawsuit.

New York Times, Obama Breaks Ground on Presidential Center, Neil Vigdor, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Former President Barack Obama, along with Michelle Obama, the former first lady, broke ground on his presidential center on the South Side of Chicago. The project is estimated to cost $830 million and expected to take four years to build.

More than four years after leaving office, Barack Obama broke ground on Tuesday on his presidential center on the South Side of Chicago, a legacy project that has been bogged down by a lengthy discord over its use of a public park and its potential impact on a historically neglected part of the city.

In an hourlong ceremony that was scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Obama and Michelle Obama, the former first lady, scooped up dirt with commemorative shovels at the 19-acre site in Jackson Park, near the shores of Lake Michigan.

Joining the Obamas for the groundbreaking, which was streamed online, were Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago.

“This day has been a long time coming,” Mr. Obama said. “The pandemic had other plans, so we’re keeping this small for now.”

Mr. Obama, 60, a Democrat who left office in January 2017, said that the presidential center would become a catalyst for job growth and economic development in the place where he came of age as a politician, husband and father. The project, he said, would also turn Chicago’s South Side into a destination not just for people to learn about his presidency but also for future leaders.

“Chicago is where I found the purpose that I had been seeking,” said Mr. Obama, who in 2008 became the first Black person elected to the U.S. presidency.

In a departure from similar projects recognizing former presidents, the center won’t actually be a presidential library. It won’t house Mr. Obama’s presidential papers, which will be digitized — a decision that has been a sore point for some presidential observers. Mr. Obama envisioned that the center would host concerts, cultural events, lectures, trainings and summits.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” Mr. Obama said. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ball gowns, although I know everybody will come see those. It won’t just be an exercise in nostalgia or looking backwards. We want to look forward.”

Construction of the presidential center, whose estimated price tag has soared from initial projections of $500 million to $830 million, is expected to take four years.

A 235-foot “museum tower” will be the focal point of the center. Words taken from Mr. Obama’s 2015 speech marking the 50th anniversary of the civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Ala., will wrap around the tower’s exterior to create a sunscreen. The center will include a Chicago Public Library branch, a great lawn, a children’s play area, a fruit and vegetable garden, and a teaching kitchen.

New York Times, After testifying to senators, Gen. Mark Milley and two other defense officials are appearing before a House committee, Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt, Sept. 29, 2021. The three top U.S. defense officials have a second day of congressional testimony on Wednesday, this time in front of the House Armed Services Committee.

The Biden administration’s top military officials faced another congressional panel on Wednesday to answer questions from lawmakers about the chaotic end of the war in Afghanistan, a day after a heated hearing in the Senate in which they acknowledged that their advice to President Biden not to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan had gone unheeded.

Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared before the House Armed Services Committee, to testify along with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., the head of the military’s Central Command. They are expected to face similar questions about the discussions they had with the president ahead of a chaotic evacuation last month in which 13 U.S. service members died in a suicide bombing and 10 Afghan civilians were killed in an American drone strike.

During an at times acrimonious Senate hearing on Tuesday, General Milley said that military leaders had given their advice to Mr. Biden in the lead-up to the president’s April decision to withdraw. Those views, the general said, had not changed since November, when he had recommended that Mr. Trump keep American troops in Afghanistan.

But, the general added, “Decision makers are not required, in any manner, shape or form, to follow that advice.”

General Milley also defended his actions in the tumultuous last months of the Trump administration, insisting that calls to his Chinese counterpart and a meeting in which he told generals to alert him if the president tried to launch a nuclear weapon were part of his duties as the country’s top military officer.

Several Republican senators took General Milley to task both for his actions as described in the book “Peril,” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa of The Washington Post, and for talking about those actions to the authors.

General Milley said he was directed by Mark T. Esper, then the secretary of defense, to call his Chinese counterpart on Oct. 30 because there was “intelligence which caused us to believe the Chinese were worried about an attack on them by the United States.” He added that other senior U.S. officials, including Mike Pompeo, then secretary of state, were aware of the calls.

New York Times, ‘This Was a Failure’: Biden’s A.T.F. Pick Says He Was Left Open to Attack, Glenn Thrush, Sept. 29, 2021. David Chipman’s defeat was a loss for gun control groups, which saw the appointment of a strong leader as a crucial move by President Biden on guns.

David Chipman’s confirmation odyssey began with a short congratulatory buzz from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland in April and ended, he said, with a long, rueful call from the presidential adviser Steve Ricchetti admitting the White House had fallen “short.”

Mr. Chipman, a brash gun control activist whose nomination to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives imploded this month, said he had no other contact with the White House, which often left him feeling alone, on “an island,” when pro-gun groups attacked him.

Instead, the West Wing strategy focused on selling Mr. Chipman to Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, the centrist Democrat and perpetual kingmaker in an evenly divided Senate, only to lose the support of Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, which left Democrats at least one vote short of the 50 needed for confirmation.

“Either this was impossible to win, or the strategy failed,” Mr. Chipman told The New York Times in his first public comments since President Biden withdrew the nomination, conceding he could not get the votes. “This was a failure.”

Mr. Chipman’s defeat represented a major victory for the gun lobby and a huge loss for gun control groups, who saw appointment of a strong director for the bureau as the most important move Mr. Biden could make as Republicans block legislative action. It was a reminder of Mr. Biden’s struggles, eight months into his presidency, to fulfill big promises he has made to progressives on voting rights, immigration and guns.

In a far-ranging interview, Mr. Chipman, who served as an agent at the bureau for 25 years before becoming one of the country’s most prominent gun control activists, praised the White House for what he jokingly called the “gangster move” of nominating someone like him in the first place.

Washington Post, Opinion: Republicans aim their fire at the military, Dana Milbank, right, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Perhaps nothing Republican lawmakers do anymore should come as a surprise, but their treatment of Gen. Mark A. Milley on Tuesday opened a new front in the war against civilized norms.

Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee didn’t just give a dressing down to the nation’s top soldier about the Afghanistan pullout; they assassinated his character and impugned his patriotism, accusing him of aiding the enemy and of placing his own vanity before the lives of the men and women serving under him.

And this is the man President Donald Trump nominated to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the man who donned fatigues and stood with Trump during his infamous Bible photo op after the gassing and removal of peaceful demonstrators in Lafayette Square.

But now Milley has been portrayed in the Bob Woodward and Robert Costa book “Peril” as reassuring an anxious Chinese military that Trump did not plan to attack China — an undertaking done at the request of Trump political appointees, Milley told the committee.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) found perfidy in Milley’s de-escalation attempts. “You’re giving a heads-up to the Chinese Communist Party,” he alleged.

After Milley acknowledged he had spoken to Woodward and other authors from The Post and the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) accused him of leaking “private conversations with the president,” a charge Milley adamantly rejected.

Washington Post, Opinion: The Pentagon begins a very American process of postwar accountability and rebuilding, David Ignatius, right, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). “A strategic failure.”

When Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, offered that epitaph for the war in Afghanistan on Tuesday, you could see the weight of 20 years of battle on his face — the pursed lips, the clipped words, the bags under his eyes — but still, the commander insisted on telling the truth about America’s longest and perhaps most frustrating combat experience.

Tuesday’s testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee marked a point of reckoning about Afghanistan. Facing questions with Milley were Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., head of U.S. Central Command. All three led troops in this long, agonizing war, and none of them tried to sugarcoat the bitter reality of defeat.

Their appearance together was a signal that the Pentagon is “owning” its mistakes and deferring to civilian control, whatever disagreements it may have had with political leaders along the way. After Vietnam, the military went into a defensive crouch that lasted nearly two decades. But Tuesday, about six weeks after the fall of Kabul, we saw the beginning of an honest assessment.

Watching this poignant encounter between the Pentagon and Congress, perhaps we could all appreciate, for once, the blessings of our open democratic system. Some countries suffer for decades from the shame of a lost war. Their militaries seethe in silent rage; politicians invent conspiracy theories to explain failure; the suppressed mistakes of the last war prefigure the next one.

But here it was, in public, an open discussion of a war that failed in slow motion over two decades — with two parties, four presidents and a dozen commanders all playing a role in the final outcome. Republicans nagged about the past nine months of President Biden’s tenure, while Democrats focused on earlier mistakes, but the anguish seemed bipartisan.

Former Trump White House Press Secretary and First Lady Chief of Staff and Communications Director Stephanie Grisham in a CNN interview (File photo).

Washington Post, Trump played tough with Putin in front of cameras, while Putin toyed with his insecurities, says book by Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, Jada Yuan and Josh Dawsey, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Little is known about what happened in the 90-minute conversation between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Osaka, Japan, two years ago. But as journalists were quickly ushered out of the room at the 2019 Group of 20 Summit, Stephanie Grisham once again found herself with a close-up view of the action.

She saw Trump lean toward Putin that day and tell him: “Okay, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes. But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.”

It’s just one of many telling interactions detailed by Grisham in her new book, titled, I’ll Take Your Questions Now. One of the most senior and longest-serving Trump advisers, she worked as the president’s third press secretary and as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff and communications director before she resigned on Jan. 6 during the Capitol riot.

Her 352-page book — obtained by The Washington Post — alleges a litany of misdeeds by the 45th president: from ogling a young female staffer, to orchestrating lies for the public, to attempting to ban the news media from the White House compound. It also gives a rare firsthand look at Melania Trump, who craved her privacy, and a blow-by-blow of how she wound up wearing that “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket.

Grisham even claims to know dirt on Trump’s hair, which she says he cuts himself with “a huge pair of scissors that could probably cut a ribbon at an opening of one of his properties.”

“The intent behind this book is obvious,” Melania Trump’s office said in a statement after a passage leaked comparing the former first lady to Marie Antoinette. “It is an attempt to redeem herself after a poor performance as press secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behavior in the White House. Through mistruth and betrayal, she seeks to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs. Trump.”

• Related story below: New York Times, Stephanie Grisham’s Book Details Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Temper

 New York Times, Stephanie Grisham’s Book Details Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Temper, Katie Rogers, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). The former press secretary is reflective in her tell-all: “I should have spoken up more.” Stephanie Grisham’s book was kept a secret from her closest allies in the White House.

Stephanie Grisham, the former Trump White House press secretary perhaps best known for never holding a televised briefing with reporters, plans to release a tell-all book next week that accuses President Donald J. Trump of abusing his staff, placating dictators like Vladimir Putin of Russia, and making sexual comments about a young White House aide.

In her book, titled I’ll Take Your Questions Now, Ms. Grisham recalls her time working for a president she said constantly berated her and made outlandish requests, including a demand that she appear before the press corps and re-enact a certain call with the Ukrainian president that led to Mr. Trump’s (first) impeachment, an assignment she managed to avoid.

“I knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic,” Ms. Grisham writes, offering a reason for why she never held a briefing.

After serving as press secretary, Ms. Grisham worked in Melania Trump’s office. She resigned on Jan. 6 as a horde of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Her book was kept a secret from her closest allies in the White House, though by the time she departed Washington that number had dwindled. (She writes that, months before the election, she had moved to Kansas.) Her publisher, HarperCollins, calls the book “The most frank and intimate portrait of the Trump White House yet.”

New York Times, Trump Loses N.D.A. Case Against Omarosa Manigault Newman, Maggie Haberman, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). Donald Trump had filed the case against Ms. Manigault Newman, a former White House aide and “Apprentice” star, after she wrote a tell-all book (shown above) about serving in his administration.

Former President Donald J. Trump has lost an effort to enforce a nondisclosure agreement against Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former White House aide and a star on “The Apprentice” who wrote a tell-all book about serving in his administration.

The decision in the case, which Mr. Trump’s campaign filed in August 2018 with the American Arbitration Association in New York, comes as the former president is enmeshed in a number of investigations and legal cases related to his private company.

“Donald has used this type of vexatious litigation to intimidate, harass and bully for years,” Ms. Manigault Newman said in a statement. “Finally the bully has met his match!”

The decision, dated on Friday and handed down on Monday, calls for her to collect legal fees from the Trump campaign.

Mr. Trump’s campaign filed the case shortly after Ms. Manigault Newman published her book, Unhinged. It claimed that she violated a nondisclosure agreement she had signed during the 2016 campaign stipulating that she would not reveal private or confidential information about his family, business or personal life.

The book paints a picture of an out-of-control president who is in a state of mental decline and is prone to racist and misogynistic behavior. Ms. Manigault Newman’s book also casts the former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner (shown at left in a file photo), in a negative light. When Trump advisers tried to cast doubt on Ms. Manigault Newman’s accounts, she released audio recordings that backed up several of her claims.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump said nothing about the arbitration case, and instead attacked Ms. Manigault Newman in personal terms.

The media- and image-obsessed Mr. Trump has for years used nondisclosure agreements as a way to prevent staff members from speaking about him publicly, and to deter them from making disparaging comments or writing books like Ms. Manigault Newman’s.

The arbitration is confidential, meaning that only the parties involved can release information about the case. In papers made available by Ms. Manigault Newman’s lawyer, John Phillips, the arbitrator, Andrew Brown, said that the definition of the type of comment protected by the nondisclosure agreement was so vague that it had been rendered meaningless. What was more, he wrote, the statements Ms. Manigault Newman had made hardly included privileged information.

“The statements do not disclose hard data such as internal polling results or donor financial information,” Mr. Brown wrote. “Rather, they are for the most part simply expressions of unflattering opinions, which are deemed ‘confidential information’ based solely upon the designation of Mr. Trump. This is exactly the kind of indefiniteness which New York courts do not allow to form the terms of a binding contract.”
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At another point, Mr. Brown wrote that the agreement “effectively imposes on Respondent an obligation to never say anything remotely critical of Mr. Trump, his family or his or his family members’ businesses for the rest of her life.”

The arbitrator added, “Such a burden is certainly unreasonable.”

Mr. Phillips, who is based in Florida, said the lawsuit had been an abuse of power by a sitting president. “It’s over,” he said. “We’ve won in Donald Trump and the Trump campaign’s chosen forum.”

Arbitration decisions do not create a precedent, according to Shira A. Scheindlin, a retired Federal District Court judge for the Southern District of New York. That means that there is no potential impact from the Manigault Newman case on ones filed against other Trump employees.

However, a ruling in one case “may be persuasive” in another, said Cliff Palefsky, a lawyer in San Francisco who is an expert in the arbitration process. In the decision in Ms. Manigault Newman’s case, the arbitrator referred to a ruling in a class-action suit filed in New York by a former Trump campaign aide, Jessica Denson. In that case, a judge ruled that the Trump campaign’s nondisclosure agreements were not enforceable.

Charles Harder, the defamation lawyer who had represented the Trumps over the years and who was handling Ms. Manigault Newman’s arbitration case, parted ways with the Trumps before the decision was issued.

Washington Post, Chief strategist for George W. Bush’s reelection campaign launches bid for Texas lieutenant governor — as a Democrat, John Wagner, Sept. 29, 2021. Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, announced Wednesday that he is running for lieutenant governor of Texas — as a Democrat.

In an announcement video, Dowd, who worked more recently as a political analyst for ABC News, takes aim at the Republican incumbent, Dan Patrick, detailing a list of purported shortcomings, both on policy and character.

“The GOP politicians have failed us, especially the cruel and craven lieutenant governor,” Patrick says in the 2½-minute video. “He does not believe in the common good. ... He puts his ‘me’ over our ‘we.’”

Although he is best known for helping steer a Republican president to reelection, Dowd’s biography on his new campaign website highlights his work for Texas Democrats earlier in his career before he switched parties in 1999.

Washington Post, S.D. Gov. Kristi Noem dismisses conservative website’s claims of extramarital affair with ex-Trump adviser, Felicia Sonmez and Josh Dawsey, Sept. 29, 2021. South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) on Wednesday dismissed a conservative media outlet’s claim that she is having an extramarital affair with Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump adviser who is also advising Noem.

“These rumors are total garbage and a disgusting lie,” Noem, right, said in a tweet. “These old, tired attacks on conservative women are based on a falsehood that we can’t achieve anything without a man’s help. I love Bryon. I’m proud of the God-fearing family we’ve raised together. Now I’m getting back to work.”

A conservative website, American Greatness, published a piece Tuesday claiming that, according to “multiple” sources, Noem has been having an affair with Lewandowski “for months.” The website did not identify any of the sources.

Lewandowski was Donald Trump’s first presidential campaign manager. He was fired by the campaign in 2016 but remains part of the former president’s inner circle and ran the pro-Trump Make America Great Again Action super PAC.

Noem and Lewandowski have traveled extensively together across the country for political events, and he has promoted her to members of the media. At one event in January, they were spotted partying together late in a hotel bar.

Separately, a Trump donor is accusing Lewandowski of repeatedly groping her and making unwanted sexual comments at a charity event in Las Vegas last week.

“He repeatedly touched me inappropriately, said vile and disgusting things to me, stalked me, and made me feel violated and fearful,” the donor, Trashelle Odom, said in a statement provided to The Washington Post.

“Corey bragged multiple times about how powerful he is, and how he can get anyone elected, inferring he was the reason Trump became President,” she added. “Corey claimed that he controls access to the former president. He said he is in charge of the donors and the Super PAC. . . . He also made it clear that if he was crossed, he has the power to destroy anyone and ruin their lives.”

The accusations were first reported by Politico.

Late Wednesday, a spokesman for Trump said Lewandowski has been pushed out of the former president’s political operation after the allegations.

“Corey Lewandowski will be going on to other endeavors and we very much want to thank him for his service. He will no longer be associated with Trump World,” Taylor Budowich, Trump’s director of communications, wrote in a message on Twitter.

Budowich said former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi will run the pro-Trump super PAC.

John Odom, Odom’s husband, said that he wants “accountability now” from Lewandowski and that the couple is exploring their legal options “to make sure he cannot harm anyone else.”

“Corey called me on Monday evening,” John Odom said in a statement. “He sounded distraught and scared. He said he had been intoxicated. He was sorry for his actions, wanted to know how he could make it go away, and that he would do anything to make it right with Trashelle and our family.”

The Odoms’ statements were provided by a public relations person representing them. The couple themselves could not be reached for comment.

David Chesnoff, a Las Vegas-based attorney for Lewandowski, said in an email Wednesday afternoon: “Accusations and rumors appear to be morphing by the minute and we will not dignify them with a further response.”

Noem, who is considered a potential 2024 GOP vice-presidential contender, has recently come under scrutiny for a meeting she organized for her daughter and the state employee charged with leading the agency that moved to deny her application to become a certified real estate appraiser. The meeting prompted allegations of abuse of power among some state lawmakers, and South Dakota’s attorney general, Jason Ravnsborg, is reviewing the matter.

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World News

Washington Post, Fumio Kishida set to become Japan’s new prime minister after winning party vote, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Julia Mio Inuma, Sept. 29, 2021. Fumio Kishida, Japan's former foreign minister, who is set to become the country's new prime minister after winning his party's leadership vote on Wednesday, has vowed to counter China's growing influence and redistribute the nation's wealth to close the income gap.

Kishida, 64, shown at right in a Manichi photo, will become prime minister on Monday following a special parliamentary session, replacing Yoshihide Suga, who decided to step down after just one year in power amid plummeting popularity over his handling of Japan’s coronavirus response.

The selection of Kishida, who served as foreign minister for many years under former prime minister Shinzo Abe, ensures a stable transition of power. After running in an unusually wide-open race that surfaced frustrations within younger members of the party, Kishida said he would listen to feedback and work to restore public trust for a “rebirth” of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

New York Times, Sarah Everard Was Falsely Arrested by Her Murderer, Court Hears, Megan Specia, Sept. 29, 2021. Wayne Couzens, a British police officer who pleaded guilty to the murder of Sarah Everard, used the pretense of Covid regulations to kidnap the 33-year-old as she was walking home. 

Washington Post, More than 100 killed in Ecuadoran prison riot as gangs fight for control, Samantha Schmidt, Sept. 29, 2021. It was the latest deadly prison riot in the country this year.  More than 100 prison inmates have been killed and dozens more injured this week in one of the deadliest prison riots in Ecuador’s history amid a turf war between gangs.

The violence erupted around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday as gangs exchanged gunfire and explosives in their battle for control of one of the units in the main prison in Guayaquil, police said. At least five of the slain inmates were decapitated, Gen. Fausto Buenaño, a regional police commander, said Tuesday night. At least 52 others were injured.

On Wednesday afternoon, the country’s director of prisons said that 40 people had been confirmed dead but that authorities had discovered dozens more bodies in one of the prison units.

“We’re in the process of evacuating the dead, but we’re surpassing 100,” Bolívar Garzón, the country’s newly appointed director of prisons, told an Ecuadoran TV news anchor Wednesday. Prison officials later confirmed the higher death toll.

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police

R. Kelly during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on September 17, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois (Pool photo by Antonio Perez via Getty Images).

New York Times, How the Black Women Around R. Kelly’s Case Feel About His Conviction, Troy Closson, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). The case could represent a turning point for the Me Too movement, which some women felt had not focused much attention on crimes against people of color.

When the singer Sparkle testified in a Chicago courtroom 13 years ago, she offered jurors a jarring account of sexual abuse: A man seen in a video urinating on and having sex with her teenage niece was R. Kelly, one of the biggest names in R&B music.

But even after others shared similar stories during Mr. Kelly’s first criminal trial, in Chicago in 2008, jurors acquitted him of the child pornography charges against him.

And so, a decade later, when the Me Too movement’s reckoning around sexual misconduct swept the country, Sparkle said she did not feel that it represented her experience. That changed on Monday, when Mr. Kelly, on trial in New York, was convicted of all nine counts against him.

“I didn’t even know that the Me Too movement was for us, Black women,” Sparkle, whose real name is Stephanie Edwards, said in an interview after the singer’s conviction. “Back then — and still today — Black women aren’t really cared about.”

Mr. Kelly’s case has been widely viewed as a crucial moment for Me Too, serving as the first high-profile trial since the movement took hold to feature an accuser whose victims were primarily Black women.

In the days and weeks that preceded the jury’s verdict, many observers said they feared the stories from a group of Black accusers, no matter how harrowing, might be dismissed.

Instead, Mr. Kelly’s conviction on Monday was viewed by many as a powerful validation of the accounts of both those who took the stand against him and others whose stories have never been made public.

But whether Mr. Kelly’s conviction represents a broader shift toward better treatment of Black victims of sexual abuse is still unknown.

“This moment will go one of two ways,” said Mikki Kendall, an author from Chicago who has written about feminism and intersectionality. “Either we will finally say that Black women and girls deserve to be protected. Or we’re going to say again, as we have, this idea that Black girls are ‘unrapeable’ because of their skin color.”

When Tarana Burke, a Black woman, started the original iteration of “Me Too” around 2007, she hoped to use the phrase to raise awareness of sexual assault and connect victims to resources.

• New York Times, R. Kelly Is Convicted on All Counts After Decades of Abuse Accusations

Washington Post, Capital Gazette gunman sentenced to life in prison without parole for rampage that killed 5, Emily Davies and Katie Mettler, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). The gunman who murdered five employees at the Capital Gazette newspaper will serve multiple consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

The sentence imposed Tuesday marks an end to the grueling legal battle that started on June 28, 2018, when Jarrod Ramos stormed the Annapolis newsroom with the intention of killing as many people as possible.

The sentencing hearing started Tuesday morning with emotional statements from the survivors of the attack and the loved ones of those who died.

Ramos, who meticulously plotted the attack, sat in the courtroom and watched each person as they delivered their victim impact statements.

Selene San Felice, a reporter who survived the shooting by hiding under a desk, spoke first.

“There were days I wondered why I lived or if I should live at all,” she said. “I live to spread the truth.”

“We will press on,” San Felice said.

The siblings, widows and children of those killed followed. They recalled how they learned their family member was one of the five victims and how life has changed for them since that day.

Ramos did not address the court during his sentencing hearing.

This summer, a jury found Ramos had the mental and emotional capacity to be held criminally responsible for the mass shooting. Although Ramos had pleaded guilty to the murders, he had argued he was not legally sane at the time and should be sent to a psychiatric hospital with the potential for release instead of prison. The jury had arrived at its verdict in less than two hours

Washington Post, Woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi in the ‘brain’ pleads guilty to misdemeanor, Rachel Weiner and Spencer S. Hsu, Sept. 29, 2021 (print ed.). A woman who said as she was leaving the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that she wanted to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

A woman who said as she left the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6 that she had hoped to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge.

“I would like to accept my responsibility for what I did, for my part in January 6,” Dawn Bancroft, 59, of suburban Philadelphia said in federal court in Washington as she admitted to illegally demonstrating.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan questioned why Bancroft was not being asked to take more responsibility, given the comment she admits making in a video as she left the building during the storming of the Capitol: “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.”

Calling those words “horrible” and “clearly troubling,” Sullivan asked prosecutors why Bancroft was not charged with threatening a government official, which is a felony.

Bancroft pleaded guilty alongside her friend Diana Santos-Smith, a fellow Bucks County resident, to a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Murphy said Bancroft made the comment while leaving the building and there was no indication she intended to act on it.

“It was a dumb, stupid comment,” Bancroft told the judge, one she said she made in jest. “I did not mean it.”

Her attorney added that Bancroft did not post the video online; she shared it with her children and a few others, including a friend who provided it to the FBI.

Sullivan said Bancroft was “fortunate” not to face more charges but that the “outrageous statement” would come up again at her sentencing. He asked her to think about how “good people who never got into trouble with the law on Jan. 6 morphed into terrorists.”

Pelosi, who with Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 presided over the ceremonial certification of President Biden’s election victory, was a particular target of the mob that overran the Capitol that day. Her office was ransacked, and rioters searched for her as they roamed the halls.

Sullivan was himself the target of a threatening voice mail in 2019, while he was overseeing the prosecution of former Trump appointee Michael Flynn. A Long Island man who told the judge that “a hot piece of lead will cut through your skull” was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Bancroft and Santos-Smith came to Washington together by train, according to court records, and twice entered the Capitol building through broken windows. They stayed for about a minute each time, they said, deterred from going farther by the size of the crowd.

Sullivan told Santos-Smith that she would also face tough questions at sentencing.

“We’re going to have a long talk . . . about what the heck you were thinking,” he said. “How did you get yourself into this mess?”

Noting that on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, former president George W. Bush had compared the danger of “violent extremists at home” to international terrorism, the judge said, “I agree with him.”

Both women are set to be sentenced on Jan. 25.

Sullivan, a federal judge since 1991, was appointed to the district court in 1994. He is one of several members of the bench who have publicly questioned whether participants in the Capitol assault are being treated too leniently by the Justice Department.

“You disgraced this country in the eyes of the world, and my inclination would be to lock you up. But the government is not asking for me to lock you up,” Judge Reggie B. Walton told another misdemeanor defendant on Friday. “Because it was an attack on our government . . . to see someone trying to destroy the Capitol of our country, and to see what you did is very, very troubling.”

U.S. Law, Crime, Courts

Washington Post, Marine officer who criticized Afghanistan exit in Facebook video is now in the brig, Andrew Jeong, Sept. 29, 2021. The parents of Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr., who was relieved of command last month, said he was incarcerated this week after ignoring orders to refrain from posting on social media.

A Marine lieutenant colonel who publicly criticized the Biden administration for last month’s chaotic evacuation of American and allied troops and civilians from Afghanistan is now in a military brig for violating a gag order last weekend, his parents said in a short statement.

Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller Jr. was incarcerated early Monday, they said on LinkedIn, after ignoring orders to refrain from posting on social media. Scheller, who was relieved of his command after his initial criticism of the evacuations, has been put in pretrial confinement at Camp Lejeune, N.C., according to Marine Corps spokesman Capt. Sam Stephenson.

But Scheller doesn’t yet face charges, Stephenson said. “The allegations against Lt. Col. Scheller are merely accusations. He is presumed innocent until proven guilty.” The lieutenant colonel stands accused of showing contempt toward officials, willfully disobeying a superior officer, failing to obey lawful orders and committing conduct unbecoming of an officer.

The time, date, and location of his proceedings have not yet been determined, Stephenson said. Scheller’s representatives could not be reached.

Scheller was relieved of command shortly after posting a video on Facebook that demanded senior officials be held accountable for the Taliban’s sudden takeover of Afghanistan and the deaths of 13 American service members killed in a Kabul attack last month. He has said he plans to resign his commission.

Washington Post, Ex-Theranos lab director, testifying in Elizabeth Holmes trial, was ‘most important’ source for probe, Rachel Lerman, Sept. 29, 2021.  Adam Rosendorff confirmed on the stand that he talked to a reporter about his time at the company and expressed concerns that Theranos’s technology was not ready for its public launch.

Former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff took the stand in the trial of Elizabeth Holmes for his third day Wednesday, facing an extended and often tense cross-examination from defense lawyers.

Defense lawyer Lance Wade questioned Rosendorff about his responsibilities as lab director, pointing out that he was responsible for many things, including readying the lab for inspections.

Rosendorff shot back, suggesting that it wasn’t reasonable to pin everything on him.

“You keep saying ‘its my job, it’s my job’ but i was part of a large company with delegated roles," Rosendorff said. “Yes, I did my job but I also depended on a lot of people around me.”

Holmes, the founder and former chief executive of Theranos, is on trial in federal court in San Jose for allegedly misleading investors and patients about the company’s portable blood-testing device. Government prosecutors allege Holmes knew that the machine was not working as advertised and that Theranos was relying heavily on outside lab machines while telling investors otherwise. Holmes’s attorneys have said the founder made mistakes but acted honorably and did not commit fraud.

Washington Post, A pit bull was killed after being forced to fight. His owner will now spend 10 years in prison, Jonathan Edwards, Sept. 29, 2021. Law enforcement officers found a bloody fighting pit, skin stapler, prescription veterinary drugs and a dog killed by its owner when they raided a Georgia dogfight.

Les Meyers’s dog won the fight, but victory was not enough to save him.

After the win, Meyers unleashed the unnamed pit bull one last time for a “courtesy scratch,” a dogfighting ritual in which the victor attacks a vanquished opponent — or its corpse — to show its “gameness.” The display, in illegal dogfighting circles, brings prestige to a handler.

Injured and exhausted, Meyers’s dog refused to attack One-Eyed Willie, the pit bull he had just defeated in a gruesome 45-minute brawl.

Enraged, Meyers used a belt to hang his dog from a tree branch, choking him to death.

On Friday, Meyers was sentenced to 10 years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to violate the Animal Welfare Act and illegally possessing a handgun as a felon. He was among the last of 12 defendants to be sentenced in a 2017 Georgia dogfighting case.

Washington Post, Texas nurse killed 4 patients, prosecutors allege: ‘A hospital is the perfect place for a serial killer to hide,’ Sept. 29, 2021. Prosecutors allege that William George Davis purposefully injected air into patients' IVs while they recovered from surgeries.

U.S. Religion, Media, Education

Washington Post Magazine, The rise of the liberal Latter-day Saints: Progressives are fighting for a foothold in the Mormon Church. The church is fighting back, Emily Kaplan, Photos by Katherine Frey, Sept. 27, 2021, electronically featured on Sept. 29. And the battle for the future of Mormonism.

In August, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the religion colloquially known as Mormonism, issued a statement to its 19 million adherents around the globe: “We want to do all we can to limit the spread of these viruses,” wrote Russell M. Nelson, the church’s president, along with the two most senior apostles. “[W]e urge the use of face masks in public meetings whenever social distancing is not possible. To provide personal protection from such severe infections, we urge individuals to be vaccinated.”

To Lisa Mosman, a 59-year-old Latter-day Saint who drives a Subaru covered in anti-Trump bumper stickers around her neighborhood in Orem, Utah, the statement was a welcome surprise. “It’s actually kind of brave, because it’s going to p--- off a bunch of people that they normally don’t p--- off,” she told me.

In the weeks since, the statement has caused Latter-day Saints on the far right, long accustomed to having their beliefs reflected by church leaders, to face the kind of cognitive dissonance that liberal members have had to contend with for decades. “They’re having to ask themselves who they trust more — the prophet or Tucker Carlson,” Mosman told me, then sighed. “This is new territory for them.”

Her brother Matt Marostica, a Latter-day Saint high priest living in Berkeley, Calif., also welcomed the statement. Throughout his decades as a religious leader, his congregation has served as a home for people who don’t always feel welcome in most Latter-day institutions. (The church requested in 2018 that the terms “Mormon” and “Mormonism” no longer be used to refer to the church or its members, though many adherents continue to do so.)

U.S. Environment, Protected Species

New York Times, Protected Too Late: U.S. Officials Report More Than 20 Extinctions, Catrin Einhorn, Updated Sept. 29, 2021. The animals and one plant had been listed as endangered species. Their stories hold lessons about a growing global biodiversity crisis.

The ivory-billed woodpecker, which birders have been seeking in the bayous of Arkansas, is gone forever, according to federal officials. So is the Bachman’s warbler, a yellow-breasted songbird that once migrated between the Southeastern United States and Cuba. The song of the Kauai O’o, a Hawaiian forest bird, exists only on recordings. And there is no longer any hope for several types of freshwater mussels that once filtered streams and rivers from Georgia to Illinois.

In all, 22 animals and one plant should be declared extinct and removed from the endangered species list, federal wildlife officials announced on Wednesday.

The announcement could also offer a glimpse of the future. It comes amid a worsening global biodiversity crisis that threatens a million species with extinction, many within decades. Human activities like farming, logging, mining and damming take habitat from animals and pollute much of what’s left. People poach and overfish. Climate change adds new peril.

Sept. 28

Top Headlines

• Proof, Investigative Commentary: A January Lawsuit in Texas Appears to Be the Focus of a Seditious Conspiracy Involving Trump, His Lawyers and Political Aides, Texas Politicians, Stop the Steal, and the Capitol Attack, Seth Abramson
• Washington Post, Opinion: Defense officials just debunked much of the criticism of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, Trump played tough with Putin in front of cameras, while Putin toyed with his insecurities, says book by Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham

U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

• New York Times, Pelosi Plans Infrastructure Vote as Safety Net Bill Remains Mired
• New York Times, Opinion: Think of Mitch McConnell as a New Jersey Shark, Paul Krugman
• New York Times, Republicans Block Government Funding, Refusing to Lift Debt Limit
• New York Times, Politics Updates: As Sinema resists the budget bill, she is set to raise money from business groups that oppose it

Virus Victims, Responses

• Washington Post, Pfizer, Live Updates: BioNTech tell FDA vaccine trial had favorable results in young children
• New York Times, Thousands of New York Health Workers Got Vaccinated Before Deadline
• Washington Post, N.Y. faces health staffing crisis over vaccine requirement
• Washington Post, N.C. hospital system fires about 175 workers in one of the largest-ever mass terminations due to a vaccine mandate
• Washington Post, New U.S. travel rules close door on those fully vaccinated with Russia’s Sputnik V
• Washington Post, ‘Covid hit us like a cyclone’: An Aboriginal town in the Australian Outback is overwhelmed
• New York Times, Analysis: Red Covid, David Leonhard
• Wayne Madsen Report, Analysis: Voters in four elections reject anti-public health parties, Wayne Madsen
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 709,119
• Washington Post, 213.8 million U.S. vaccinated
• Washington Post, Opinion: Kyrie Irving wants to leave a legacy. With his stance on vaccination, he just might, Sally Jenkins

Insurrection Probe / Trump Watch / Media News

• Palmer Report, Opinion: Nancy Pelosi nailed it, Bill Palmer 
• New York Times, Stephanie Grisham’s Book Details Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Temper
• New York Times, Trump Loses N.D.A. Case Against Omarosa Manigault Newman

Global Growth of Facism, Election Frauds

• American Prospect, Opinion: Fight Fascism First, Robert Kuttner
• Proof, Investigation: Trump Lawyer Admits Trump's Legal Team Was Seeking An Emergency Injunction Against Certification of Biden's Win As Trump Incited a Riot to Delay the Joint Session of Congress, Seth Abramson
• Palmer Report, Opinion: House Republican Paul Gosar goes completely off the deep end, Bocha Blue

World News

• Washington Post, Merkel’s party lost, should go into opposition, rival party says
• Washington Post, What you need to know about Olaf Scholz, possibly Germany’s next chancellor
• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: WMR, Trump, Kushner and other real estate thieves should take notice of Berlin, Wayne Madsen 

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police

• New York Times, Murders Spiked in 2020 in Cities Across the United States
• New York Times, R. Kelly Is Convicted on All Counts After Decades of Abuse Accusations
• Washington Post, Hinckley’s freedom is unprecedented. Others who tried to kill presidents faced very different fates
• New York Times, Man Who Blackmailed Girls to Send Explicit Images Is Sentenced to 20 Years
• New York Times, Opinion: The A.C.L.U. Errs on R.B.G., Michelle Goldberg
• New York Times, Miami’s Embattled Police Chief Compared City Leaders to Cuban Dictators
• Miami Herald, DeSantis sues Biden administration over immigration, issues broad state orders, too
• Washington Post, Woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi in the ‘brain’ pleads guilty to misdemeanor

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• New York Times, Obama Breaks Ground on Presidential Center
• New York Times, America’s Need to Pay Its Bills Has Spawned a Political Game
• Washington Post, Analysis: How abortion laws in the U.S. compare to those in other countries, Daniela Santamariña, Youjin Shin, Sammy Westfall and Ruby Mellen
• Washington Post, Opinion: Our child-care system has been failing women (and men and kids). That may soon change, Catherine Rampell
• Washington Post, Analysis: Vulnerable House Democrats say it really better be infrastructure week, Jacqueline Alemany and Theodoric Meyer
• Press Run, Commentary: Headlines you won’t see: “GOP votes to derail U.S. economy,” Eric Boehlert
• Daily Howler, Commentary: STOPPED MAKING SENSE: Our own tribe's discourse has stopped making sense! Bob Somerby
• Washington Post, Opinion: Stop focusing on the negative. Biden and Harris have gotten things done, Eugene Robinson

Top Stories

Pro-Trump insurrectionists erected a gallows in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatened to hang elected officials who failed to overturn presidential election results based on phony claims.

Proof, Investigative Commentary: A January Lawsuit in Texas Appears to Be the Focus of a Seditious Conspiracy Involving Trump, His Lawyers and Political Aides, Texas Politicians, Stop the Steal, and the Capitol Attack, Seth Abramson, left, Sept. 27-28, 2021. The January 6 Capitol attack appears to have been a planned stalling tactic aimed at clearing a path for Trump to retake the White House via a Supreme Court ruling — just as George W. Bush did in 2000.

Yesterday we learned that in late December of 2020, Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell worked with top Trump Congressional ally Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) to file a petition for emergency injunction intended to reach the Supreme Court — a petition whose purpose was to block certification of Joe Biden’s election victory in Congress.

Gohmert, left — alongside members of the Arizona Republican Party who had long been in close contact with domestic terrorist Ali Alexander (of Trump adviser Roger Stone’s Stop the Steal “movement”) — filed his lawsuit on January 1, 2021.

While Dallas-based attorney Sidney Powell’s name didn’t appear on the filing, a firm located just over ten miles from Powell’s Dallas office did. The head of the tiny Dallas law firm is William Lewis Sessions, brother of top Trump Congressional ally Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), a co-conspirator with Trump in the Trump-Ukraine and Trump-Venezuela scandals (discussed in exhaustive, fully sourced detail in the USA Today-bestselling 2020 book Proof of Corruption, published by Macmillan). Sessions, a vocal insurrectionist, was also, before January 6, an adjunct member of Powell’s Team Kraken, making regular contact with a small ring of dubious “intelligence experts” attached to her operation.

In an interview Powell recently did with far-right activist/propagandist Stew Peters, Powell, right, refers to the Gohmert-Sessions team using the first-person plural—“we”—confirming that, as Trump’s attorney in December 2020, she also considered herself a part of the legal team that filed Gohmert’s lawsuit, if not one named in the filing itself.

This is only the beginning of the connections between Trump’s legal team and a now historically controversial lawsuit — and only the beginning of what makes Gohmert’s lawsuit the new epicenter of criminal and Congressional investigations of January 6. Present indications are that Gohmert’s lawsuit, and its intersections with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, bear all the signs of a seditious conspiracy to overthrow the federal government.

Washington Post, Live Updates: Gen. Milley says key officials knew of his calls with Chinese counterpart, John Wagner, Eugene Scott, Karoun Demirjian and Alex Horton, Sept. 28, 2021. Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Senate panel Tuesday that his first call to reassure his Chinese counterpart that President Donald Trump had no plans to attack China late in his administration was directed by Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper. Milley said 11 people were present for the second call and that he later informed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows of it.

Also appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee are Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen. Kenneth McKenzie, commander of U.S. Central Command. Lawmakers are grilling the military leaders about tactical decisions made during the rushed evacuation from Afghanistan and pressing them on plans for future counterterrorism operations without a presence in the country.

• Military chiefs at odds over whether Afghanistan pullout damaged U.S. credibility
• Milley says Trump aides approved and ordered his conversations with Chinese counterpart
• Austin defends U.S. actions in chaotic evacuation from Afghanistan

Washington Post, Opinion: Defense officials just debunked much of the criticism of Biden’s Afghanistan withdrawal, Jennifer Rubin, right, Sept. 28, 2021. Testimony from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday was enlightening in several respects. The two defense officials may not have persuaded those who wanted to continue an unwinnable war in Afghanistan, but they certainly put President Biden’s decision-making in context.

Much of the media’s attention focused on Milley, who at the beginning of the hearing shattered the notion that he had acted outside the chain of command or usurped civilian control in the waning days of the Trump administration. His conversations with the Chinese to de-escalate any conflict were cleared with civilian officials beforehand, he said, and he debriefed them afterward. Milley, who acted deftly within the bounds of the Constitution to avoid disaster, is not deserving of blame; rather, the ones who need to explain themselves are the former president’s cowardly enablers, who to this day pretend the former president is fit for office.

The bulk of the hearing, however, focused on Afghanistan. Austin effectively conceded in his testimony that three presidents never acknowledged (or at least never appreciated) that the mission of the war — to create a viable Afghan government and military — failed spectacularly.

Former Trump White House Press Secretary and First Lady Chief of Staff and Communications Director Stephanie Grisham in a CNN interview (File photo).

Washington Post, Trump played tough with Putin in front of cameras, while Putin toyed with his insecurities, says book by Trump press secretary Stephanie Grisham, Jada Yuan and Josh Dawsey, Sept. 28, 2021. Little is known about what happened in the 90-minute conversation between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Osaka, Japan, two years ago. But as journalists were quickly ushered out of the room at the 2019 Group of 20 Summit, Stephanie Grisham once again found herself with a close-up view of the action.

She saw Trump lean toward Putin that day and tell him: “Okay, I’m going to act a little tougher with you for a few minutes. But it’s for the cameras, and after they leave, we’ll talk. You understand.”

It’s just one of many telling interactions detailed by Grisham in her new book, titled, I’ll Take Your Questions Now. One of the most senior and longest-serving Trump advisers, she worked as the president’s third press secretary and as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff and communications director before she resigned on Jan. 6 during the Capitol riot.

Her 352-page book — obtained by The Washington Post — alleges a litany of misdeeds by the 45th president: from ogling a young female staffer, to orchestrating lies for the public, to attempting to ban the news media from the White House compound. It also gives a rare firsthand look at Melania Trump, who craved her privacy, and a blow-by-blow of how she wound up wearing that “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket.

Grisham even claims to know dirt on Trump’s hair, which she says he cuts himself with “a huge pair of scissors that could probably cut a ribbon at an opening of one of his properties.”

“The intent behind this book is obvious,” Melania Trump’s office said in a statement after a passage leaked comparing the former first lady to Marie Antoinette. “It is an attempt to redeem herself after a poor performance as press secretary, failed personal relationships, and unprofessional behavior in the White House. Through mistruth and betrayal, she seeks to gain relevance and money at the expense of Mrs. Trump.”

• Related story below: New York Times, Stephanie Grisham’s Book Details Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Temper

U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

Washington Post, Treasury secretary tells Congress that U.S. will run out of debt ceiling flexibility on Oct. 18, Jeff Stein, Sept. 28, 2021. Janet Yellen said in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that if the debt ceiling is breached, “it is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date.” The new timeline comes less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to suspend the borrowing limit.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, on Tuesday told Congress that the U.S. will run out of flexibility to avoid breaching the debt limit on Oct. 18, setting a new deadline for lawmakers to avoid a catastrophic default on its payment obligations.
Government shutdown? Here's what to know about Thursday's deadline and what might follow

“It is uncertain whether we could continue to meet all the nation’s commitments after that date,” Yellen wrote in the letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Yellen’s letter came less than 24 hours after Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would suspend the debt ceiling and prevent a government shutdown on Friday. Senate Republicans have said they would support a stand-alone measure to prevent the shutdown but they largely have opposed efforts by Democrats to suspend the debt ceiling.

The U.S. government runs a large budget deficit, spending far more than it brings in through tax revenue. To address this imbalance, the government borrows money by issuing debt. But it can only issue debt up to a limit set by Congress. That limit is repeatedly raised or suspended, and lawmakers are now up against another cap.

New York Times, Pelosi Plans Infrastructure Vote as Safety Net Bill Remains Mired, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 28, 2021. The move amounts to a gamble that liberals who have balked at allowing the infrastructure bill to move on its own will support it in a vote on Thursday.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California signaled to Democrats on Monday that she would push ahead with a vote this week on a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, pushing to salvage President Biden’s agenda in Congress even as the party remained divided over a broader social safety net measure.

Progressive lawmakers have long warned that they will not vote for the infrastructure legislation, which the Senate passed last month, until a far more expansive $3.5 trillion domestic policy and tax package also clears the chamber.

But in private remarks to her caucus on Monday evening, Ms. Pelosi effectively decoupled the two bills, saying that Democrats needed more time to resolve their differences over the multitrillion-dollar social policy plan. The move amounted to a gamble that liberals who had balked at allowing the infrastructure bill to move on its own would support it in a planned vote on Thursday.

It also left unclear the date of the more costly social safety net package, which Democrats are pushing through using the fast-track reconciliation process to shield it from a Republican filibuster. But with slim margins of control in both chambers, Democratic leaders must keep all their senators united in favor, and they can afford to lose as few as three votes in the House.

Ms. Pelosi said her shift in strategy came only after it became clear that Democrats would have to shrink the size of the reconciliation package from $3.5 trillion. Mr. Biden has been negotiating privately with conservative-leaning Democrats to settle on a final number. The speaker outlined her new approach after speaking with the president and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, as the three worked to unite their members behind the details of the package.

Ms. Pelosi said that Democrats had been on schedule to push through the reconciliation package until 10 days ago, when she heard that the overall cost had to come down, according to a person familiar with her remarks, who described them on the condition of anonymity.

But it has been clear for weeks that conservative-leaning Democrats would not accept the size of the bill.

Lawmakers in both chambers have said they hope to quickly iron out the remaining differences between the moderate and liberal factions of their party, although many of the specific demands from the holdouts remain unclear. Ms. Pelosi reiterated that she would not take up a reconciliation bill that could not pass the Senate.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s move is a gamble that depends on votes from progressives who have balked at letting the infrastructure bill proceed.
Some Democrats have expressed unwillingness to vote for the $1 trillion proposal until a $3.5 trillion social policy package clears the House.

New York Times, Opinion: Think of Mitch McConnell as a New Jersey Shark, Paul Krugman, right, Sept. 28, 2021. Yesterday every single Republican senator voted to shut down the U.S. government and provoke a global financial crisis.

Of course, they claimed otherwise; Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, portrayed the vote against raising the debt limit as a test of Democrats’ ability to govern, and some of his colleagues claimed to be taking a stand for fiscal responsibility. But everyone involved understood that this was an act of political sabotage. And the terrible thing is that it might work.

The U.S. debt limit is a very peculiar institution, because when combined with the filibuster it gives a minority party the ability to undermine basic governance. You might think that once Congress has passed fiscal legislation — once it has passed bills that set spending levels and tax rates — that would be the end of the story. But if this duly enacted legislation leads to a budget deficit, which requires that the U.S. government issue debt, as few as 40 senators can then block the needed borrowing, creating a crisis.

And the crisis could be very severe. It’s not just that the federal government would run out of money, forcing curtailment of essential services. U.S. government debt plays an essential role in the global financial system because Treasury securities are used as collateral in financial transactions around the world. During the brief Covid-induced financial panic of March 2020 interest rates on short-term Treasuries actually went negative, as frightened investors piled into the safest assets they could think of.

Make U.S. debt unsafe — make the U.S. government an unreliable counterparty, because its ability to pay its bills is contingent on the whims of an irresponsible opposition party — and the disruption to world markets could be devastating.

So why would Republicans flirt with such an outcome? Because they’re completely ruthless — and they’ve learned the lesson of the New Jersey sharks.
Or, if you want to put it in slightly more pedestrian terms, the G.O.P. has now weaponized retrospective voting.

• New York Times, Opinion: Biden Versus the Rip Van Winkle Caucus, Paul Krugman

 New York Times, Republicans Block Government Funding, Refusing to Lift Debt Limit, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Senate Republicans opposed legislation to avert a government shutdown and prevent a debt default at a critical moment for Democrats’ domestic agenda.

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a spending bill needed to avert a government shutdown this week and a federal debt default next month, moving the nation closer to the brink of fiscal crisis as they refused to allow Democrats to lift the limit on federal borrowing.

With a Thursday deadline looming to fund the government — and the country moving closer to a catastrophic debt-limit breach — the stalemate in the Senate reflected a bid by Republicans to undercut President Biden and top Democrats at a critical moment, as they labor to keep the government running and enact an ambitious domestic agenda.

Republicans who had voted to raise the debt cap by trillions when their party controlled Washington argued on Monday that Democrats must shoulder the entire political burden for doing so now, given that they control the White House and both houses of Congress.

Their position was calculated to portray Democrats as ineffectual and overreaching at a time when they are already toiling to iron out deep party divisions over a $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate change bill, and to pave the way for a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure measure whose fate is linked to it.

The package that was blocked on Monday, which also included emergency aid to support the resettlement of Afghan refugees and disaster recovery, would keep all government agencies funded through Dec. 3 and increase the debt ceiling through the end of 2022. But after the bill cleared the House a week earlier with just Democratic votes, it fell far short of the 60 votes needed to move forward in the Senate on Monday.

The vote was 48 to 50 to advance the measure. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was among those voting “no,” a procedural maneuver to allow the bill to be reconsidered at some point. But there were no immediate details about next steps.

The resulting cloud of fiscal uncertainty marked yet another challenge for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders, who are facing a daunting set of tasks as they press to keep the government funded, scrounge together the votes for the infrastructure bill — also slated for a vote on Thursday — and resolve their disputes over the broader budget plan. They must also hatch a new strategy for raising the statutory limit on federal borrowing, which officials have said is on track to be reached as early as mid- to late October.

• Washington Post, Opinion: Democrats: Political suicide is not a strategy, E.J. Dionne Jr.

New York Times, Politics Updates: As Sinema resists the budget bill, she is set to raise money from business groups that oppose it, Staff Reports, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Texas Republicans propose a new congressional map that aims to protect the party’s incumbents; ‘I was wrong’: Liz Cheney announces support for same-sex marriage, reversing a longstanding position.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, below left, the inscrutable Democrat who may hold the key to passing her party’s ambitious social policy and climate bill, is scheduled to have a fund-raiser on Tuesday afternoon with five business lobbying groups, many of which fiercely oppose the bill.

Under Ms. Sinema’s political logo, the influential National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and the grocers’ PAC, along with lobbyists for roofers and electrical contractors and a small business group called the S-Corp political action committee, have invited association members to an undisclosed location on Tuesday afternoon for 45 minutes to write checks for between $1,000 and $5,800, payable to Sinema for Arizona.

The planned event comes during a make-or-break week for President Biden’s agenda, when House Democrats are trying to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that Ms. Sinema helped negotiate, and trying to nail down the details of a social policy and climate bill that could spend as much as $3.5 trillion over the next decade.

Ms. Sinema has said she cannot support a bill that large, and has privately told Senate Democratic colleagues that she is averse to the corporate and individual tax rate increases that both the House and Senate tax-writing committees had planned to use to help pay for the measure.

In both positions, she is likely to find a receptive audience at the fund-raiser. The S-Corp PAC, for instance, has told its members the rate increases in the package that passed the House Ways and Means Committee “would kneecap private companies” like theirs that pay taxes through the individual tax system, not the corporate tax system.

In a Senate that is equally divided between Republicans and members who caucus with the Democrats, a single vote can decide the fate of legislation, and Ms. Sinema has not been shy about using that power. Exactly what she will and will not accept in the final bill is not yet clear, but colleagues say she is going through its contents methodically.

Texas Republicans propose a new congressional map that aims to protect the party’s incumbents.

Republicans in the Texas Legislature proposed a new congressional map on Monday that would preserve the party’s advantage in the state’s delegation to Washington amid booming population growth spurred by communities of color.

The new map was designed with an eye toward incumbency and protecting Republicans’ current edge; the party now holds 23 of the state’s 36 congressional seats. Rather than trying to make significant gains, the party appears to be bolstering incumbents who have faced increasingly tough contests against an ascendant Democratic Party in Texas.

Indeed, in the proposed map, there is only one congressional district in the state where the margin of the 2020 presidential election would have been less than five percentage points, an indication that the vast majority of the state’s 38 districts will not be particularly competitive.

Texas was the only state in the country to be awarded two new congressional districts during this year’s reapportionment, which is taking place after the 2020 census. The state’s Hispanic population grew by two million people over the past 10 years, and is now just 0.4 percentage points behind that of the Anglo population.

But the map proposed by the Republican-controlled State Senate redistricting committee, led by State Senator Joan Huffman, would decrease the number of predominantly Hispanic districts in the state from eight to seven, and would increase the number of majority-white districts from 22 to 23.

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night that she was “wrong” to oppose same-sex marriage, reversing a longstanding position.

Ms. Cheney, right, famously came out against same-sex marriage in a television interview in 2013, while running for Senate in Wyoming, saying she believed “in the traditional definition of marriage.” Mary Cheney, her sister who is gay and married with children, wrote online at the time that Liz was “on the wrong side of history.”

The issue sparked a public rift inside the close-knit and high-profile political family. Dick Cheney, the former vice president and Ms. Cheney’s father, became an unlikely advocate for gay rights when he stated in 2004 that he supported Mary, and that “freedom means freedom for everyone.”

On Sunday night, Liz Cheney said her father had been right the whole time. “I love my sister very much,” she said. “I love her family very much and I was wrong. It’s a very personal issue, very personal for my family. I believe my dad was right and my sister and I have had that conversation.”

Virus Victims, Responses

Washington Post, Pfizer, Live Updates: BioNTech tell FDA vaccine trial had favorable results in young children, Adela Suliman and Bryan Pietsch, Sept. 28, 2021. New York governor declares ‘disaster emergency’ amid staffing shortage crisis prompted by vaccine resisters; Kansas orders flags to fly half-staff after more than 6,000 deaths recorded.

Pfizer and BioNTech said Tuesday they have submitted initial data to the Food and Drug Administration from their vaccine trial on children between 5 and 11 years old.

The drugmakers said their trial, which included 2,268 participants from that age group, yielded “positive topline results.” The companies said their coronavirus vaccine has “demonstrated a favorable safety profile” among young participants and “elicited robust neutralizing antibody responses using a two-dose regimen.”

A formal submission to request emergency use authorization for the vaccine in children will follow in “the coming weeks,” the companies said. They also plan to make submissions to the European Medicines Agency and regulatory authorities in other countries.

The vaccine is already authorized under emergency use for children ages 12 to 15 and fully approved for people over age 16 in the United States. However, infections are climbing among children as parents and schools await more data and information before vaccinating young children.

New York Times, Thousands of New York Health Workers Got Vaccinated Before Deadline, Staff Reports, Sept. 28, 2021. Statewide, 92 percent of hospital employees are now said to have received at least one vaccine dose. Here’s the latest on the pandemic.

Thousands of health care workers in New York got inoculated against Covid-19 ahead of Monday’s deadline, helping the state avoid a worst-case scenario of staffing shortages at hospitals and nursing homes.

Health officials across the state reported that employees had rushed to get vaccinated before Monday, avoiding being suspended or getting fired. New York has 600,000 health care workers.

Statewide, the vaccination rate for hospital employees rose by Monday night to 92 percent of workers having received at least one dose, according to preliminary data from the governor’s office. The rate for nursing homes also jumped to 92 percent on Monday, from 84 percent five days earlier.

Many nursing homes were facing serious staffing shortages before the mandate, making any new staff reductions potentially dangerous. In other news:

• Pfizer-BioNTech submits data showing its shots are safe in 5- to 11-year-olds.
• Health care workers in New York rush to get vaccinated, averting a staffing crisis.
• Fear of Delta, not rewards or mandates, is motivating Americans to get shots, a survey found.
• Japan will lift its state of emergency as inoculations rise and cases drop.
• Covid misinformation created a run on ivermectin, a medication for animals.
• War-battered Syria faces its worst surge yet in infections.
• Back to high school, after a wrenching year.
• A Sri Lankan shaman who touted a cure for Covid died after contracting the disease.

Washington Post, N.Y. faces health staffing crisis over vaccine requirement, Eli Rosenberg, Sept. 28, 2021. Tens of thousands of health-care workers are likely to have refused a vaccine before a state requirement went into effect on Monday. They could face dismissals or unpaid leaves of absence.

Washington Post, N.C. hospital system fires about 175 workers in one of the largest-ever mass terminations due to a vaccine mandate, Timothy Bella, Sept. 28, 2021. Novant Health said last week that 375 unvaccinated workers — across 15 hospitals and 800 clinics — had been suspended for not getting immunized. Unvaccinated employees were given five days to comply.

Washington Post, New U.S. travel rules close door on those fully vaccinated with Russia’s Sputnik V, Adam Taylor, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.).  While millions from Europe and China welcomed the new U.S. rules, for Russia they are a different story.

The United States announced last week that it would soon open its doors to foreign travelers vaccinated against the coronavirus, loosening restrictions for broad swaths of global visitors for the first time since the pandemic began.

But the new rules, set to take effect in November, appear to also shut out many people who consider themselves to be fully immunized — including millions who have received two doses of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine.

Hundreds of thousands of Russians could be directly affected. Despite frosty diplomatic relations and limited demand for international travel, roughly 300,000 Russians visited the United States in 2019, the last year for which figures are available, according to the U.S. Travel Association.

More broadly, the U.S. plan is another blow for the manufacturers of Sputnik V, which Moscow has proudly proclaimed as the first coronavirus vaccine to be registered for use. Though the vaccine was intended to be a powerful tool of pandemic diplomacy, its limited acceptance abroad and slow rates of delivery have left it behind not only Western vaccines but also those made by Chinese manufacturers.

Washington Post, ‘Covid hit us like a cyclone’: An Aboriginal town in the Australian Outback is overwhelmed, Michael E. Miller, Photos by Matthew Abbott, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Australia vowed to protect its Indigenous communities from the pandemic. But in Wilcannia, 10 percent of the town was infected in two weeks.

New York Times, Analysis: Red Covid, David Leonhardt, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Covid’s partisan pattern is growing more extreme. During the early months of Covid-19 vaccinations, several major demographic groups lagged in receiving shots, including Black Americans, Latino Americans and Republican voters. More recently, the racial gaps — while still existing — have narrowed. The partisan gap, however, continues to be enormous. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 86 percent of Democratic voters had received at least one shot, compared with 60 percent of Republican voters.

The political divide over vaccinations is so large that almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state. Because the vaccines are so effective at preventing serious illness, Covid deaths are also showing a partisan pattern. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America.

It’s worth remembering that Covid followed a different pattern for more than a year after its arrival in the U.S. Despite widespread differences in mask wearing — and scientific research suggesting that masks reduce the virus’s spread — the pandemic was if anything worse in blue regions. Masks evidently were not powerful enough to overcome other regional differences, like the amount of international travel that flows through major metro areas, which tend to be politically liberal.

Vaccination has changed the situation. The vaccines are powerful enough to overwhelm other differences between blue and red areas.

Wayne Madsen Report, Analysis: Voters in four elections reject anti-public health parties, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 27-28, 2021. Certain far-right political parties that hoped to capitalize on their anti-vaccine and anti-public health messages to gain power in elections during the last month have come away sorely disappointed.

Voters in California, Canada, Germany, and Iceland firmly rejected so-called "populist" parties and their candidates that argued against vaccination mandates and masking in public places.

New York Times, These health care workers would rather get fired than get vaccinated, Anne Barnard, Grace Ashford and Neil Vigdor, Updated Sept. 27, 2021. Deborah Conrad, a physician assistant in western New York, and Simmone Leslie, a hospital switchboard operator in Queens, have both worked long, risky hours during the pandemic. But now, both are prepared to lose their jobs rather than meet Monday’s state deadline for health care workers to get vaccinated.

In defying the order, they are resisting a step that public-health experts say is critical to save lives and end the pandemic. While they each cite differing reasons for their decisions — Ms. Leslie said her employer rejected her request for a medical exemption; Ms. Conrad referenced vaccine side effects she claimed to have seen but that veer from the scientific consensus — their recalcitrance embodies a conundrum facing New York.

Experts have called the mandate a clear-cut way for health care workers to prevent new waves of the virus from spreading, and to persuade doubters to get vaccinated. And health systems say the plan is crucial to keeping patients and staff safe.

Westchester Medical Center Health Network, where 94 percent of the systems’s 12,000 workers are vaccinated, called the mandate “a critical part of upholding our mission,” in a statement on Sunday.

But a vocal minority working within the health care system are themselves skeptics — and some, like Ms. Conrad, have imperiled the plan, even fighting the mandate in court.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 28, 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: 233,205,019, Deaths: 4,772,049
U.S. Cases:     43,942,335, Deaths:    709,119
India Cases:     33,697,581, Deaths:    447,406
Brazil Cases:    21,366,395, Deaths:    594,702

Washington Post, At least 213.8 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 28, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 185.3 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, Opinion: Kyrie Irving wants to leave a legacy. With his stance on vaccination, he just might, Sally Jenkins, right, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). The Nets’ Kyrie Irving wants to keep his vaccination status “private,” he said Monday. Kyrie Irving is too smart for you. He’s so smart, he can outwit germs and governments. He’s so smart, you can’t understand a word he’s saying. That’s how smart he is. His genius is utterly indecipherable to you and me, and while you may wish for some insight into the exquisite, diamond-chip workings of his multifaceted mind, you are not entitled to them because he prefers to keep them “private.”

Irving is so smart that everything he says sounds like a mystery unless it’s a contradiction. “I’m a human being first,” he said in refusing to share whether he is vaccinated against the coronavirus or to comment on whether he is anti-vaccine, as has been reported, a stance that could imperil other human beings because the vaccines reduce the chance of spread.

Given that New York City requires vaccination for indoor events, including sports arenas, will Irving be vaccinated for the opening of the season? “There’s just a lot of questions about what’s going on in the world of Kyrie, but I would like to keep that private,” Irving responded with a sense of his own unique and unquestionable importance. His remarks came via Zoom at the Brooklyn Nets’ media event Monday, presumably because he is unvaccinated and thus by law could not join the proceedings.

“Obviously I’m not able to be present there today,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m putting any limits on the future on my being able to join the team. And I just want to keep it that way.”

I’m sorry — keep it which way? Present or non-present?

Insurrection Probe / Trump Watch / Media News

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a file photo speaking Jan. 8 about the deadly pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to prevent certification of Democrat Joe Biden's presidential victory in November (Screengrab).

Palmer Report, Opinion: Nancy Pelosi nailed it, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 28, 2021. Back when congressional Republicans voted down a bipartisan investigation into the January 6th Capitol attack, a whole lot of media pundits were quick to declare that there would be no investigation and that the guilty parties would “get away with it all.” Of course nothing works that way, and it was always clear that Speaker Nancy Pelosi would just appoint a select committee instead.

But what was less clear was precisely what the makeup of that committee would be. For instance, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was allowed to pick five committee members – and if he hadn’t included Jim Jordan with his picks, he probably could have gotten all five of them. But with McCarthy being the doofus that he is, Pelosi ended up rejecting Jordan and one other pick, and then McCarthy responded by withdrawing all of his picks.

Yet McCarthy’s antics failed to prevent the committee from being bipartisan, because Pelosi was savvy enough to add Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger to the committee. Neither of these two House Republicans can necessarily be trusted in general. But Pelosi was savvy enough to figure out that they could be trusted when it came to the specific matter of January 6th.

Sure enough, the January 6th Committee – which has multiple Republican members – is aggressively moving forward with subpoenas and upcoming hearings. This is arguably a better result than if the Republicans had allowed a bipartisan commission to begin with, and it’s certainly a better result than if McCarthy had allowed his three non-rejected members to remain on the committee.

Nancy Pelosi has played the kind of multi-dimensional chess that produced a January 6th Committee that’s intent on getting to the truth and will be seen by most nonpartisan observers out there are being bipartisan. This was a predictable result, but Pelosi still deserves major credit for making it happen.

New York Times, Stephanie Grisham’s Book Details Trump’s ‘Terrifying’ Temper, Katie Rogers, Sept. 28, 2021. The former press secretary is reflective in her tell-all: “I should have spoken up more.” Stephanie Grisham’s book was kept a secret from her closest allies in the White House.

Stephanie Grisham, the former Trump White House press secretary perhaps best known for never holding a televised briefing with reporters, plans to release a tell-all book next week that accuses President Donald J. Trump of abusing his staff, placating dictators like Vladimir Putin of Russia, and making sexual comments about a young White House aide.

In her book, titled I’ll Take Your Questions Now, Ms. Grisham recalls her time working for a president she said constantly berated her and made outlandish requests, including a demand that she appear before the press corps and re-enact a certain call with the Ukrainian president that led to Mr. Trump’s (first) impeachment, an assignment she managed to avoid.

“I knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic,” Ms. Grisham writes, offering a reason for why she never held a briefing.

After serving as press secretary, Ms. Grisham worked in Melania Trump’s office. She resigned on Jan. 6 as a horde of Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol.

Her book was kept a secret from her closest allies in the White House, though by the time she departed Washington that number had dwindled. (She writes that, months before the election, she had moved to Kansas.) Her publisher, HarperCollins, calls the book “The most frank and intimate portrait of the Trump White House yet.”

New York Times, Trump Loses N.D.A. Case Against Omarosa Manigault Newman, Maggie Haberman, Sept. 28, 2021. Donald Trump had filed the case against Ms. Manigault Newman, a former White House aide and “Apprentice” star, after she wrote a tell-all book (shown above) about serving in his administration.

Former President Donald J. Trump has lost an effort to enforce a nondisclosure agreement against Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former White House aide and a star on “The Apprentice” who wrote a tell-all book about serving in his administration.

The decision in the case, which Mr. Trump’s campaign filed in August 2018 with the American Arbitration Association in New York, comes as the former president is enmeshed in a number of investigations and legal cases related to his private company.

“Donald has used this type of vexatious litigation to intimidate, harass and bully for years,” Ms. Manigault Newman said in a statement. “Finally the bully has met his match!”

The decision, dated on Friday and handed down on Monday, calls for her to collect legal fees from the Trump campaign.

Mr. Trump’s campaign filed the case shortly after Ms. Manigault Newman published her book, Unhinged. It claimed that she violated a nondisclosure agreement she had signed during the 2016 campaign stipulating that she would not reveal private or confidential information about his family, business or personal life.

The book paints a picture of an out-of-control president who is in a state of mental decline and is prone to racist and misogynistic behavior. Ms. Manigault Newman’s book also casts the former president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner (shown at left in a file photo), in a negative light. When Trump advisers tried to cast doubt on Ms. Manigault Newman’s accounts, she released audio recordings that backed up several of her claims.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, Mr. Trump said nothing about the arbitration case, and instead attacked Ms. Manigault Newman in personal terms.

The media- and image-obsessed Mr. Trump has for years used nondisclosure agreements as a way to prevent staff members from speaking about him publicly, and to deter them from making disparaging comments or writing books like Ms. Manigault Newman’s.

The arbitration is confidential, meaning that only the parties involved can release information about the case. In papers made available by Ms. Manigault Newman’s lawyer, John Phillips, the arbitrator, Andrew Brown, said that the definition of the type of comment protected by the nondisclosure agreement was so vague that it had been rendered meaningless. What was more, he wrote, the statements Ms. Manigault Newman had made hardly included privileged information.

“The statements do not disclose hard data such as internal polling results or donor financial information,” Mr. Brown wrote. “Rather, they are for the most part simply expressions of unflattering opinions, which are deemed ‘confidential information’ based solely upon the designation of Mr. Trump. This is exactly the kind of indefiniteness which New York courts do not allow to form the terms of a binding contract.”
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At another point, Mr. Brown wrote that the agreement “effectively imposes on Respondent an obligation to never say anything remotely critical of Mr. Trump, his family or his or his family members’ businesses for the rest of her life.”

The arbitrator added, “Such a burden is certainly unreasonable.”

Mr. Phillips, who is based in Florida, said the lawsuit had been an abuse of power by a sitting president. “It’s over,” he said. “We’ve won in Donald Trump and the Trump campaign’s chosen forum.”

Arbitration decisions do not create a precedent, according to Shira A. Scheindlin, a retired Federal District Court judge for the Southern District of New York. That means that there is no potential impact from the Manigault Newman case on ones filed against other Trump employees.

However, a ruling in one case “may be persuasive” in another, said Cliff Palefsky, a lawyer in San Francisco who is an expert in the arbitration process. In the decision in Ms. Manigault Newman’s case, the arbitrator referred to a ruling in a class-action suit filed in New York by a former Trump campaign aide, Jessica Denson. In that case, a judge ruled that the Trump campaign’s nondisclosure agreements were not enforceable.

Charles Harder, the defamation lawyer who had represented the Trumps over the years and who was handling Ms. Manigault Newman’s arbitration case, parted ways with the Trumps before the decision was issued.

Global Growth of Facism, Election Frauds

American Prospect, Opinion: Fight Fascism First, Robert Kuttner, right, Sept. 27, 2021. Robert Kagan’s must-read essay in The Washington Post, "Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here," gets the big picture right, but gets some tactical details seriously wrong.

• Washington Post, Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here, Robert Kagan

Kagan is all too accurate when he points out that Trump has captured the Republican Party and that Trumpers are now fully prepared to destroy democracy in order to win the 2022 and 2024 elections. "Trump’s grip on his supporters left no room for an alternative power center in the party," he points out. "One by one, the ‘adults’ resigned or were run off."

He is correct that Democrats, going about the normal business of negotiating their differences on the budget resolution, are not sufficiently mindful of the deeper threat of full-on fascism.

Kagan, right, is also right that the Republicans are playing a double game, behaving as a normal opposition party in trying to block or weaken the governing party’s program, while being enablers of dictatorship, quite like the German conservatives who threw in with Hitler, left, in 1932.

What to do? Here is where the wishful second part of Kagan’s powerful essay contradicts the unflinching first part. He writes that Republicans like Mitt Romney and the six other Republican senators who voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection should fashion themselves as Constitutional Republicans who, in the present emergency, are willing to form a national unity coalition in the Senate for the sole purpose of saving the republic.

Sure, that would be swell. But it’s not going to happen. And it won’t happen even if the Democrats reduce Biden’s Build Back Better program to 50 cents to "strive for a temporary governing consensus."

Rather than looking for anti-Trump Republicans, who Kagan accurately reminds us are as dead as dinosaurs, Democrats should be redoubling their efforts to get voting rights legislation, and to use the federal government’s police and prosecutorial powers to give no quarter to fascists seeking to overthrow what remains of our democracy.

Proof, Investigation: Trump Lawyer Admits Trump's Legal Team Was Seeking An Emergency Injunction Against Certification of Biden's Win As Trump Incited a Riot to Delay the Joint Session of Congress, Seth Abramson, left, Sept. 26-27, 2021. New revelation confirms the actions of Trump's legal team in the Willard "war room"—whose occupants were in direct contact with Trump—were designed to dovetail with the violent attack on the Capitol.

Introduction: On March 10, 2021, Proof published an article entitled “Here Is the Twelve-Point Plan Donald Trump Had for January 6.” Based on two months of research relating to January 6, Proof concluded that Trump’s plan for January 6 was built on the following foundation....

In a new interview with far-right activist and propagandist Stew Peters, Powell admits that Trump’s legal team filed for an injunction against Congress in the first days of January.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, right, and Rudy Giuliani falsely claiming election fraud last November at a press conference.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Sidney Powell just decided to take everyone down with her, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 27, 2021. Former Trump election lawyer Sidney Powell is not to be taken at her word. Not only does she constantly lie, she spins conspiracy theories so absurd that she comes off as mentally unhinged.

So when Powell appeared on something called “Steve Peters TV” this weekend and claimed that Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito were all in on the plot to overthrow the 2020 election, none of it’s to be believed without external confirmation.

Moreover, her story is laughable on its face. She’s claiming that Alito was somehow magically going to overturn the election results on January 7th – even though doing so would have required five Supreme Court votes. Obviously, in such a scenario, Alito wouldn’t have gotten a single vote beyond his own. For that matter, while Alito is a corrupt piece of crap, he’s not stupid enough to have been willing to try such an idiotic and guaranteed-to-fail plot.

All that said, it’s still noteworthy that Sidney Powell is making this accusation at all. While the accusation against Alito is obviously unhinged fiction aimed at taking the heat off herself, it’s clear that Powell has concluded she’s going down, and she’s looking to take as many people on her own side down with her as possible.

Moreover, since McCarthy, left, and Scalise are caught up in the January 6th conspiracy on at least some level, and it appears that Powell was at least in communication with them about it, she may have documents that could actually incriminate them.

It’s probably best if we ignore the Alito allegations as the obvious fiction that they are. Rather than getting distracted by that silliness, the real story here is that Sidney Powell has decided to try to take down some big-name folks who were involved in the 2020 election conspiracy. At the least, the January 6th Committee should seize the opportunity to subpoena Powell for all documents she has in relation to the 2020 election fraud conspiracy.

Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire wanted by the government of China for bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud and rape, is shown above with Trump ally and former 2016 campaign CEO Steve Bannon. Guo funds through his GTV Media Group conglomerate Bannon's "War Room" podcast and "Real America's Voice" Internet television broadcast and other propaganda supporting the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the overthrow of the the U.S. government, which is giving him political asylum in New York City and elsewhere.

Related Recent Headlines:

• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: International fascist collusion to overthrow the U.S. government, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, Election fraud, QAnon, Jan. 6: Extremists in Germany read from a pro-Trump script
• Washington Post, Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here, Robert Kagan
• Washington Post, Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret
• Washington Post, Report that found no evidence of fraud raises stakes for other GOP-backed ballot reviews
• Washington Post, Editorial: The nation faces financial calamity. Republicans will be to blame

Palmer Report, Opinion: House Republican Paul Gosar goes completely off the deep end, Bocha Blue, Sept. 28, 2021. Were George Orwell alive today, he would undoubtedly be horrified to see his classic book “1984” played out in real time by the GOP. And make no mistake, it IS being played out. An excellent example of this behavior is the Arizona non-audit. As you know, it was revealed that President Biden won Arizona AGAIN. How many times does that make it now?

But some in the GOP are blithely pretending the results said otherwise. In true 1984 fashion, their message is “don’t believe what your eyes show you.” “Believe what we say.”

Take lunatic Paul Gosar. Gosar (Insane, insurrection party, Arizona) is jubilantly insisting the non-audit was a “good start.” Yikes! Gosar claims the non-auditors were not given the “tools” to “make a full disclosure.” Do you have any idea what this means? Because I surely do not.

Gosar, right, is also demanding a rematch between President Biden and America’s monster. This rematch will never happen, and somewhere deep in the realms of what is left of his brain, I am convinced Gosar knows this. But it does make good copy to SAY he doesn’t.

It also brings compliments from the orange monster. The fact is, Biden keeps winning. Over and over, Biden wins. Like Jaques Brel’s Carousel, Biden’s wins keep “turning, turning ’til you can’t see.”

But some people, like Gosar, do not like this fact. It cramps their image and makes them look weak in front of their orange master. So, they feel they must keep lying — to themselves and the American people. So we must keep the failed non-audit in mind and shatter the false narrative of Gosar and his klan.

World News

Washington Post, Merkel’s party lost, should go into opposition, rival party says, Rick Noack and Loveday Morris, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). After preliminary results showed a narrow win over outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, the leader of the center-left Social Democrats said he has a mandate to form the next government.

The leader of the center-left Social Democrats on Monday said he has a mandate to form the next German government, after preliminary results showed a narrow victory for his party over its main rival, the conservative Christian Democrats.

It is the first time in more than a decade and a half that the Social Democrats have outpolled their conservative rivals as their long time leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, steps down.

“You can see a very happy SPD here,” Olaf Scholz, right, said from the party’s headquarters on Monday morning. He said his party had obtained the “mandate to lead the government.”

Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their smaller sister party “did not only lose significant votes, but they also received a message from the people: They shouldn’t be part of the government anymore, but should instead go into the opposition,” Scholz said.

Washington Post, What you need to know about Olaf Scholz, possibly Germany’s next chancellor, William Glucroft and Loveday Morris, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Olaf Scholz has managed what many in Germany had considered impossible: bringing the Social Democrats back from the dead.

Germany’s oldest political party, the center-left Social Democratic Party, known by its German acronym SPD, has languished in the polls for years. But in Sunday’s elections, the SPD pulled ahead, winning 26 percent of the vote, according to preliminary numbers. The center-right Christian Democratic Union won 24 percent of the vote, the lowest mark for the party since its founding in 1945.

The tight totals leave an unclear and lengthy path forward for Scholz to build a coalition. Scholz and Christian Democratic leader Armin Laschet have said they hope to have a coalition formed by Christmas.

Scholz’s party was the junior coalition partner to Chancellor Angela’s Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats in Germany’s outgoing government, the third time it joined its traditional rival in a coalition. It’s a position the SPD took on reluctantly — but one that has enabled Scholz to raise his profile nationally.

• Reuters, German Social Democrats beat conservatives in vote to decide Merkel successor

New York Times, Australia Took On China. Did It Get It Right? Chris Buckley and Damien Cave, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). The country is wrestling with the political and economic consequences of its sharp turn in policy and tone — including an erosion of tolerance.

Four years after declaring that it would “stand up” to China, Australia is wrestling with the economic and political consequences of a sharp turn in policy and tone that has helped send relations with Beijing into their deepest chill in decades.

Allies have applauded Australia for showing how the world’s smaller powers can redefine ties with China — a trailblazing push that deepened this month with Australia’s decision to acquire American nuclear-powered submarines. But to increasingly vocal critics, Australia also offers warnings about the risks of losing strategic focus in the heat of resisting China.

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police

New York Times, Murders Spiked in 2020 in Cities Across the United States, Neil MacFarquhar, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). The year-to-year increase in murders from 2019 was the largest since national record-keeping began in 1960. But overall, major crimes declined last year. The significant rise in homicides has roughly coincided with the 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The United States experienced its biggest one-year increase on record in murders in 2020, according to new figures released Monday by the F.B.I., with some cities hitting record highs.

Although major crimes were down overall, an additional 4,901 murders were committed in 2020 compared with the year before, the largest leap since national records started in 1960. The significant rise in homicides has roughly coincided with the 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The high murder rate has continued into 2021, although the pace has slowed as the year has progressed.

Overall, the toll of some 21,500 people killed last year is still well below the record set during the violence of the early 1990s. Still, several cities, like Albuquerque, Memphis, Milwaukee and Des Moines, are recording their highest murder numbers ever, according to the report.

There is no simple explanation for the steep rise. A number of key factors are driving the violence, including the economic and social toll taken by the pandemic and a sharp increase in gun purchases.

“It is a perfect storm,” said Chief Harold Medina of the Albuquerque Police Department. He cited Covid-19, the fallout from social justice protests and other contributors. “There is not just one factor that we can point at to say why we are where we are,” he said.

The report from the F.B.I., which tabulates crime numbers reported by almost 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, also showed that murders were more widespread, occurring in all regions of the United States and not limited to major cities.

R. Kelly during a hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on September 17, 2019 in Chicago, Illinois (Pool photo by Antonio Perez via Getty Images).

New York Times, How the Black Women Around R. Kelly’s Case Feel About His Conviction, Troy Closson, Sept. 28, 2021. The case could represent a turning point for the Me Too movement, which some women felt had not focused much attention on crimes against people of color.

When the singer Sparkle testified in a Chicago courtroom 13 years ago, she offered jurors a jarring account of sexual abuse: A man seen in a video urinating on and having sex with her teenage niece was R. Kelly, one of the biggest names in R&B music.

But even after others shared similar stories during Mr. Kelly’s first criminal trial, in Chicago in 2008, jurors acquitted him of the child pornography charges against him.

And so, a decade later, when the Me Too movement’s reckoning around sexual misconduct swept the country, Sparkle said she did not feel that it represented her experience. That changed on Monday, when Mr. Kelly, on trial in New York, was convicted of all nine counts against him.

“I didn’t even know that the Me Too movement was for us, Black women,” Sparkle, whose real name is Stephanie Edwards, said in an interview after the singer’s conviction. “Back then — and still today — Black women aren’t really cared about.”

Mr. Kelly’s case has been widely viewed as a crucial moment for Me Too, serving as the first high-profile trial since the movement took hold to feature an accuser whose victims were primarily Black women.

In the days and weeks that preceded the jury’s verdict, many observers said they feared the stories from a group of Black accusers, no matter how harrowing, might be dismissed.

Instead, Mr. Kelly’s conviction on Monday was viewed by many as a powerful validation of the accounts of both those who took the stand against him and others whose stories have never been made public.

But whether Mr. Kelly’s conviction represents a broader shift toward better treatment of Black victims of sexual abuse is still unknown.

“This moment will go one of two ways,” said Mikki Kendall, an author from Chicago who has written about feminism and intersectionality. “Either we will finally say that Black women and girls deserve to be protected. Or we’re going to say again, as we have, this idea that Black girls are ‘unrapeable’ because of their skin color.”

When Tarana Burke, a Black woman, started the original iteration of “Me Too” around 2007, she hoped to use the phrase to raise awareness of sexual assault and connect victims to resources.

New York Times, R. Kelly Is Convicted on All Counts After Decades of Abuse Accusations, Troy Closson, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). The R&B singer was found guilty of leading a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex. He could face life in prison.

R. Kelly, right, the multiplatinum R&B artist whose musical legacy became intertwined with dozens of accusations of sexual abuse, was found guilty on Monday of serving as the ringleader of a decades-long scheme to recruit women and underage girls for sex.

The jury in New York deliberated for about nine hours before convicting the singer of all nine counts against him, including racketeering and eight violations of an anti-sex trafficking law known as the Mann Act.

The decision represents the first criminal punishment against Mr. Kelly despite a trail of allegations of misconduct that extends for more than a quarter-century. His six-week trial exposed a harrowing system of trauma and abuse, commanded by the singer and enabled by his associates.

Mr. Kelly, 54, once one of the biggest names in popular music, now faces the possibility of life in prison, capping a remarkable reversal of fortune. As the verdict was read, he sat motionless in the courtroom, wearing a navy blue suit and glasses, with his facial expression hidden behind a mask.

To many observers, Mr. Kelly’s case represented a critical test of the inclusivity of the Me Too movement, which seeks to hold influential and powerful men accountable for sexual misbehavior. Never before in a high-profile Me Too-era trial had the large majority of the accusers been Black women.

Jacquelyn M. Kasulis, the acting U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, told reporters that the verdict sent a powerful message to men like Mr. Kelly.

She thanked the 11 men and women who accused him of misconduct at the trial.

“No one deserves what they experienced at his hands or the threats and harassment they faced in telling the truth about what happened to them. We hope that today’s verdict brings some measure of comfort and closure,” Ms. Kasulis said.

As he left the courtroom on Monday, one of Mr. Kelly’s lawyers said his defense team would consider an appeal.

New York Times, Man Who Blackmailed Girls to Send Explicit Images Is Sentenced to 20 Years, Vimal Patel, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Joshua Henry Punt, 39, posed online as a teenager and preyed on girls ranging in age from 12 to 16 in states across the country, the federal authorities said.

A man in Washington State who posed as a teenager online and blackmailed girls as young as 12 across the country to send him sexually explicit photos and videos was sentenced on Monday to 20 years in prison, the federal authorities said.

The man, Joshua Henry Punt, 39, of Ridgefield, Wash., pleaded guilty in April to using the messaging apps Kik and Snapchat to connect with the girls, pressure them to send him sexually explicit images of themselves and then use that material to demand more content with the threat of publicly posting the images in his possession, the Justice Department said.

Eight victims, ranging in age from 12 to 16, were identified across the United States, including in Arkansas, California, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and West Virginia, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington.

“This predatory defendant infiltrated our homes, using electronic access and social media to deceive, pressure and sexually exploit young girls across the country,” Tessa M. Gorman, the acting U.S. attorney, said in the statement. “We warn our children about the ‘dangerous stranger’ they might encounter on the street — we must be equally vigilant about the ones who are lurking online.”

Colin Fieman, a lawyer for Mr. Punt, called the case “just a tragic situation all around.”

“Joshua was the victim of extreme childhood abuse,” Mr. Fieman, a federal public defender, said in an interview on Monday night. “He’s schizophrenic. He’s never had any mental health support. So there were a lot of mitigating and complicating circumstances with the case that the judge took into careful account today.”

Investigators identified Mr. Punt as the administrator of a child pornography distribution group on Kik, where he demanded that new members share content and barred those who failed to do so, the statement said, adding that an undercover employee of the Federal Bureau of Investigation found a cache of child pornography after following links posted by Mr. Punt.

According to the federal authorities, Mr. Punt pleaded guilty in April to production of child pornography, enticement of a minor, distribution of child pornography and advertisement of child pornography. He will be required to register as a sex offender after completing his prison sentence.

Mr. Punt was arrested by local authorities in May 2019 and charged federally in November of that year, the authorities said.

Washington Post, Hinckley’s freedom is unprecedented. Others who tried to kill presidents faced very different fates, Gillian Brockell, Sept. 28, 2021. The man who shot President Ronald Reagan and three others in a 1981 assassination attempt will be granted an unconditional release by a judge, likely making him the first person to ever shoot a president and live to see freedom again.

Throughout U.S. history, five sitting presidents and one former president have been killed or wounded in assassination attempts. In all of the other incidents, the shooters were either executed or killed soon afterward.

John W. Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan, White House press secretary James Brady and two officers outside a Washington hotel on March 30, 1981, less than two months into Reagan’s presidency. Reagan suffered a punctured lung and internal bleeding and nearly died from his injuries.

Washington Post, Capital Gazette gunman sentenced to life in prison without parole for rampage that killed 5, Emily Davies and Katie Mettler, Sept. 28, 2021 The gunman who murdered five employees at the Capital Gazette newspaper will serve multiple consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

The sentence imposed Tuesday marks an end to the grueling legal battle that started on June 28, 2018, when Jarrod Ramos stormed the Annapolis newsroom with the intention of killing as many people as possible.

The sentencing hearing started Tuesday morning with emotional statements from the survivors of the attack and the loved ones of those who died.

Ramos, who meticulously plotted the attack, sat in the courtroom and watched each person as they delivered their victim impact statements.

Selene San Felice, a reporter who survived the shooting by hiding under a desk, spoke first.

“There were days I wondered why I lived or if I should live at all,” she said. “I live to spread the truth.”

“We will press on,” San Felice said.

The siblings, widows and children of those killed followed. They recalled how they learned their family member was one of the five victims and how life has changed for them since that day.

Ramos did not address the court during his sentencing hearing.

This summer, a jury found Ramos had the mental and emotional capacity to be held criminally responsible for the mass shooting. Although Ramos had pleaded guilty to the murders, he had argued he was not legally sane at the time and should be sent to a psychiatric hospital with the potential for release instead of prison. The jury had arrived at its verdict in less than two hours.

New York Times, Opinion: The A.C.L.U. Errs on R.B.G., Michelle Goldberg, right, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Recently, on the anniversary of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, the American Civil Liberties Union set out to pay tribute to her pro-choice heroism, and ended up making the sort of self-parodic blunder the right salivates over.

One of R.B.G.’s iconic quotes came from her 1993 Senate confirmation hearings, when, instead of shying away from commenting on reproductive rights like most Supreme Court nominees, she made a forthright case for their indispensability to human flourishing.

“The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a woman’s life, to her well-being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself. When government controls that decision for her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices,” Ginsburg said.

In a ham-handed attempt to make the quote conform to current progressive norms around gender neutrality, the A.C.L.U. rendered it this way in a tweet: “The decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a [person’s] life, to [their] well-being and dignity … When the government controls that decision for [people], [they are] being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for [their] own choices.”

This was a mistake for two reasons, one that’s easy to talk about, and one that’s hard.

Miami Herald, DeSantis sues Biden administration over immigration, issues broad state orders, too, Ana Ceballos and Alex Daugherty, Sept. 28, 2021. Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday “encouraged” state law enforcement officers to pull over drivers who are transporting migrants into the state if there is “reasonable” suspicion of a crime, as many Haitian migrants who were recently released at the U.S.-Mexico border are expected to settle in Florida.

The new policy, issued as part of a broad executive order, also prohibits state executive agencies from assisting the federal government in transporting migrants from the southwestern border to Florida.

Just two years ago, though, DeSantis made his top legislative priority a law that required state and local officials to fully cooperate with federal immigration agents.

“We’ve got to take every effort we can to make sure that we’re protecting the people of Florida, and that’s what we’re doing here today,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Fort Myers, where he also announced the state is suing President Joe Biden’s administration over its immigration practices.

New York Times, Miami’s Embattled Police Chief Compared City Leaders to Cuban Dictators, Patricia Mazzei, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Chief Art Acevedo was a flashy hire when he arrived in Miami six months ago. Now his job is in peril after a series of clashes with city commissioners.

Now Chief Acevedo is at the center of an archetypal Miami political drama, replete with references to Cuban Communism and corruption, that has roiled City Hall and threatened his job.

Even before he moved to Miami, Chief Acevedo was something of a celebrity police chief, known as an outspoken critic of former President Donald J. Trump — despite being a Republican himself — and as a prominent proponent of police reform, especially toward communities of color and immigrants.

But the Miami imbroglio is not over policy. It is a clash of personalities between an ambitious new outsider and powerful city commissioners miffed over both Chief Acevedo’s surprise appointment and his tendency to say exactly what he thinks.

“He was someone who could come in from the outside and really effect change,” Art Noriega, the city manager, told the City Commission in a wild meeting on Monday. “Where we’re at today in particular is a function of the style and the manner in which that change is effectuated.”

Chief Acevedo has accused several commissioners of thwarting his attempts to “change the culture” of the department, as he said he had been hired to do, by improperly meddling in personnel decisions.

Washington Post, Woman who said she wanted to shoot Pelosi in the ‘brain’ pleads guilty to misdemeanor, Rachel Weiner and Spencer S. Hsu, Sept. 28, 2021. A woman who said as she was leaving the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 that she wanted to shoot House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

A woman who said as she left the U.S. Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6 that she had hoped to murder House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) pleaded guilty Tuesday to a misdemeanor charge.

“I would like to accept my responsibility for what I did, for my part in January 6,” Dawn Bancroft, 59, of suburban Philadelphia said in federal court in Washington as she admitted to illegally demonstrating.

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan questioned why Bancroft was not being asked to take more responsibility, given the comment she admits making in a video as she left the building during the storming of the Capitol: “We were looking for Nancy to shoot her in the friggin’ brain, but we didn’t find her.”

Calling those words “horrible” and “clearly troubling,” Sullivan asked prosecutors why Bancroft was not charged with threatening a government official, which is a felony.

Bancroft pleaded guilty alongside her friend Diana Santos-Smith, a fellow Bucks County resident, to a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Murphy said Bancroft made the comment while leaving the building and there was no indication she intended to act on it.

“It was a dumb, stupid comment,” Bancroft told the judge, one she said she made in jest. “I did not mean it.”

Her attorney added that Bancroft did not post the video online; she shared it with her children and a few others, including a friend who provided it to the FBI.

Sullivan said Bancroft was “fortunate” not to face more charges but that the “outrageous statement” would come up again at her sentencing. He asked her to think about how “good people who never got into trouble with the law on Jan. 6 morphed into terrorists.”

Pelosi, who with Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6 presided over the ceremonial certification of President Biden’s election victory, was a particular target of the mob that overran the Capitol that day. Her office was ransacked, and rioters searched for her as they roamed the halls.

Sullivan was himself the target of a threatening voice mail in 2019, while he was overseeing the prosecution of former Trump appointee Michael Flynn. A Long Island man who told the judge that “a hot piece of lead will cut through your skull” was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

Bancroft and Santos-Smith came to Washington together by train, according to court records, and twice entered the Capitol building through broken windows. They stayed for about a minute each time, they said, deterred from going farther by the size of the crowd.

Sullivan told Santos-Smith that she would also face tough questions at sentencing.

“We’re going to have a long talk . . . about what the heck you were thinking,” he said. “How did you get yourself into this mess?”

Noting that on the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, former president George W. Bush had compared the danger of “violent extremists at home” to international terrorism, the judge said, “I agree with him.”

Both women are set to be sentenced on Jan. 25.

Sullivan, a federal judge since 1991, was appointed to the district court in 1994. He is one of several members of the bench who have publicly questioned whether participants in the Capitol assault are being treated too leniently by the Justice Department.

“You disgraced this country in the eyes of the world, and my inclination would be to lock you up. But the government is not asking for me to lock you up,” Judge Reggie B. Walton told another misdemeanor defendant on Friday. “Because it was an attack on our government . . . to see someone trying to destroy the Capitol of our country, and to see what you did is very, very troubling.”

More On U.S. Politics, Governance, Media

New York Times, Obama Breaks Ground on Presidential Center, Neil Vigdor, Sept. 28, 2021. Former President Barack Obama, along with Michelle Obama, the former first lady, broke ground on his presidential center on the South Side of Chicago. The project is estimated to cost $830 million and expected to take four years to build.

“All right. First one is going to be just sticking it in the ground. Ready? Go. All right. Look up. Smile. Is that a good one? One, two, three. That’s it.” [crowd clapping and cheering] “We envision this as a place where residents and visitors from all over the world come together and restore the promise of the people’s park. So that will be the core mission of the center and our foundation programing. We were married here, had our reception right down at South Shore Cultural Center. Our daughters were born here, right down the street at the hospital. We bought our first home here a few blocks away. It’s where I taught law and Michelle worked with students at the university and patients at the hospital. It’s where I announced my first campaign for public office.” “It’s about giving a little something back to the place that we absolutely, truly love, because to me this doesn’t feel so much like building something new. It feels like we’re helping to reveal what has always been here.”

More than four years after leaving office, Barack Obama broke ground on Tuesday on his presidential center on the South Side of Chicago, a legacy project that has been bogged down by a lengthy discord over its use of a public park and its potential impact on a historically neglected part of the city.

In an hourlong ceremony that was scaled down because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mr. Obama and Michelle Obama, the former first lady, scooped up dirt with commemorative shovels at the 19-acre site in Jackson Park, near the shores of Lake Michigan.

Joining the Obamas for the groundbreaking, which was streamed online, were Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Mayor Lori Lightfoot of Chicago.

“This day has been a long time coming,” Mr. Obama said. “The pandemic had other plans, so we’re keeping this small for now.”

Mr. Obama, 60, a Democrat who left office in January 2017, said that the presidential center would become a catalyst for job growth and economic development in the place where he came of age as a politician, husband and father. The project, he said, would also turn Chicago’s South Side into a destination not just for people to learn about his presidency but also for future leaders.

“Chicago is where I found the purpose that I had been seeking,” said Mr. Obama, who in 2008 became the first Black person elected to the U.S. presidency.

In a departure from similar projects recognizing former presidents, the center won’t actually be a presidential library. It won’t house Mr. Obama’s presidential papers, which will be digitized — a decision that has been a sore point for some presidential observers. Mr. Obama envisioned that the center would host concerts, cultural events, lectures, trainings and summits.

“We want this center to be more than a static museum or a source of archival research,” Mr. Obama said. “It won’t just be a collection of campaign memorabilia or Michelle’s ball gowns, although I know everybody will come see those. It won’t just be an exercise in nostalgia or looking backwards. We want to look forward.”

Construction of the presidential center, whose estimated price tag has soared from initial projections of $500 million to $830 million, is expected to take four years.

A 235-foot “museum tower” will be the focal point of the center. Words taken from Mr. Obama’s 2015 speech marking the 50th anniversary of the civil rights demonstrations in Selma, Ala., will wrap around the tower’s exterior to create a sunscreen. The center will include a Chicago Public Library branch, a great lawn, a children’s play area, a fruit and vegetable garden, and a teaching kitchen.

Washington Post, Analysis: How abortion laws in the U.S. compare to those in other countries, Daniela Santamariña, Youjin Shin, Sammy Westfall and Ruby Mellen, Electronically featured on Sept. 28, 2021.  Countries around the world have made it easier to get an abortion legally, but policies in many parts of the United States are making it harder.

In the last three decades, countries around the world have made it easier to legally get an abortion. In some parts of the United States, however, it’s gotten harder. Just this month, Mexico’s supreme court ruled to decriminalize the practice. Argentina’s Senate legalized abortion in December. Meanwhile, New Zealand, Thailand and Ireland have all taken steps to ease abortion restrictions in recent years.

The United States Supreme Court made abortion legal in 1973. But over the last few decades, access to the procedure has increasingly declined in more than a dozen states around the country that have since passed laws making it more difficult for people to get an abortion.

The most restrictive law to date is in Texas, a state with nearly 30 million people. The new law that came into effect in September outlaws most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, which is usually around six weeks into a pregnancy. There are exceptions for medical emergencies, though those are not clearly defined in the law, and no exceptions for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.

• China seeks to reduce abortions, as Beijing pushes for more children
• Women’s March plans return to D.C. to fight for abortion access

Washington Post, Opinion: Our child-care system has been failing women (and men and kids). That may soon change, Catherine Rampell, right, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). Most of the conversation about Democrats’ budget bill focuses on its $3.5 trillion in (gross) costs and whether that number should be lower or higher. Relatively little discussion addresses what we get for the money.

So, in that spirit, let’s talk about the merits of one particularly historic chunk of this legislation: the largest-ever U.S. investment in child care.

For more than 40 years, the majority of American women have been in the workforce. Which is another way of saying: For more than 40 years, the child-care system has been failing American women. It has been failing American men too, of course, but women are more likely to be their families’ primary caregivers.

High-quality care remains elusive and expensive. Full-time care for a child under 5 typically costs more than in-state college tuition. Even with these high prices, slots are often scarce and wait lists interminable. Such conditions have stressed the finances of working families, knocked women out of the labor force and locked kids out of high-quality care for generations.

Washington Post, Analysis: Vulnerable House Democrats say it really better be infrastructure week, Jacqueline Alemany and Theodoric Meyer, Sept. 28, 2021. Democrats the House majority in 2018 yesterday ramped up their warnings that further delaying the passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill could have dire political consequences in 2022.

House Democrats and their aides representing seats Republicans are targeting in next year’s midterms warned the deal must come to the floor and pass on Thursday, whether or not a vote occurs on the $3.5 trillion budget package by then (a very tall order). Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has committed to a Thursday vote, and said there are details to be negotiated on the reconciliation bill that won't be concluded by then.

“We had to accommodate the changes that were being necessitated. And we cannot be ready to say until the Senate passed the bill, we can’t do BIF [bipartisan infrastructure deal],” Pelosi told members, according to a source familiar with the discussion.

Press Run, Commentary: Headlines you won’t see: “GOP votes to derail U.S. economy,” Eric Boehlert, right, Sept. 28, 2021. Embracing their ever-expanding nihilist streak, Republicans remain committed to forcing the U.S. government to default on key payments by refusing to join with Democrats in lifting the debt ceiling this week.

Walking away from what had been a long-standing tradition of bipartisan votes in order to ensure a functioning government, regardless of which party was in power, the GOP is purposely creating a looming economic crisis for the Biden administration, and for America.

And the press, led by the New York Times, is helping the GOP get away with it.

The party’s unanimous vote on Monday against raising the ceiling signaled its obstructionist strategy. The government’s funding is now set to expire 12:01 a.m. on Friday.

The United States could plunge into an immediate recession thanks to Republicans’ refusal, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, who warns that 6 million jobs could be wiped out, sending the unemployment rate surging to 9 percent.

If the limit is not raised the government won’t be able to borrow more money, forcing officials to choose between missing payments on military salaries for more than one million troops, Social Security benefits for 50 million recipients, and the interest it owes to investors. (Trump’s massive 2017 tax cut means the government has fewer funds today, and therefore needs to borrow more.)

Republicans also filibustered the debt ceiling vote, which meant Democrats needed to meet a 60-vote threshold. “It’s sort of fun to watch their chaos,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), left, said of the Democrats.

Starting from the assumption that of course the party out of power is in favor of creating K2 financial collapse, the press continues to normalize radical, internal attacks on U.S. security.

“Mainstream media outlets have been treating the potential U.S. debt default as “good news” or an “opportunity” for the very Republicans who are provoking the fight — or chalking it up to “congressional dysfunction” and a problem for the Biden administration to solve,” Media Matters recently noted.

Retreating to its preferred "Both Sides" starting point, the Beltway press coverage often makes sure not to single out the GOP and its radical behavior. Refusing to publish accurate headlines such as, “Republicans Vote to Derail U.S. Economy,” news outlets prefer to dance around the disturbing truth by spreading the blame around and claiming the looming debt crisis is really “legislative gamesmanship,” as the New York Times recently stressed.

That newspaper has also covered the crisis as simply “a stalemate,” suggesting that “Congress” needs to act. The paper even claimed Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has been “thrust into a political role,” when she, along with business leaders, have simply beseeched Republicans not to create an unnecessary crisis this week. The whole spectacle was, “a standoff between Democrats and Republicans,” the Times assured readers, while uncritically quoting Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), who claimed Democrats were the ones “playing a dangerous political game with our economy and it’s absolutely unnecessary.”

Washington Post, Opinion: Stop focusing on the negative. Biden and Harris have gotten things done, Eugene Robinson, right, Sept. 28, 2021 (print ed.). No matter what happens in Congress over the next few days, the one thing even President Biden’s harshest critics cannot say is that his administration’s accomplishments are inconsequential. This is a White House that does big things at home and abroad.

Look at what Biden and Vice President Harris have done to reshape U.S. foreign policy — an area in which presidents largely have free rein. Previous administrations talked the talk. Biden is walking the walk in ways that have both our allies and our adversaries struggling to keep up.

The Obama administration talked for years about ending the war in Afghanistan and withdrawing American forces, but ended up agreeing to a troop surge instead. The Trump administration signed a bad deal, incompetently negotiated, to bring U.S. troops home but got booted out of office before being able to follow through. Biden could have tried to get out of the bargain. Instead, he went ahead and fulfilled it.

No, the withdrawal wasn’t pretty. But it happened. This nation’s longest war is over — any way you look at it, that’s a historic milestone, and one Biden has used to reshape U.S. goals abroad.

Biden and Harris are pulling off a shift in our foreign policy orientation that has been talked about for more than a decade — a “pivot” or “tilt” away from our traditional focus on Europe and the Middle East toward the region now called the Indo-Pacific, with an eye toward the rise of China as a competing superpower.

Biden secretly negotiated a new defense pact with Australia and Britain that will give the Australians nuclear-powered submarine technology as a check on China’s growing naval power. He hosted the first in-person summit of the Quad strategic alliance — the United States, Japan, Australia and India — in another initiative aimed at containing China’s regional ambitions. He sent Harris to Southeast Asia to shore up U.S. ties with Singapore and Vietnam.

China’s leaders hate all of these moves, which they see as hostile. It is unclear whether Biden’s shift in focus makes a potential confrontation over the fate of Taiwan more or less likely. Even if it doesn’t come to that, this reorientation matters, and it matters a lot.

Still, it is true that Biden’s political standing and the Democrats’ electoral prospects will probably turn on the success or failure of his domestic agenda. You can love that vision or hate it, but the one thing it can’t be called is modest.

Other Recent U.S. Political Headlines

• New York Times, With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, Desperate Women Cross State Lines
• Washington Post, Opinion: Taxing the rich is super popular. Democrats should talk more about it, Jennifer Rubin
  Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero
• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic

Sept. 27

Top Headlines

• Proof, Investigative Commentary: A January Lawsuit in Texas Appears to Be the Focus of a Seditious Conspiracy Involving Trump, His Lawyers and Political Aides, Texas Politicians, Stop the Steal, and the Capitol Attack, Seth Abramson
• Washington Post, Democrats outside Washington fear loss of historic opportunity
• Huff Post, R. Kelly Found Guilty On All Counts In Sexual Abuse Trial

Global Growth of Facism, Election Frauds

• American Prospect, Opinion: Fight Fascism First, Robert Kuttner
• Proof, Investigation: Trump Lawyer Admits Trump's Legal Team Was Seeking An Emergency Injunction Against Certification of Biden's Win As Trump Incited a Riot to Delay the Joint Session of Congress, Seth Abramson
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Sidney Powell just decided to take everyone down with her, Bill Palmer

U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

• New York Times, Republicans Block Government Funding, Refusing to Lift Debt Limit
• New York Times, Opinion: Biden Versus the Rip Van Winkle Caucus, Paul Krugman
• Washington Post, Opinion: Democrats: Political suicide is not a strategy, E.J. Dionne Jr.
• New York Times, Politics Updates: As Sinema resists the budget bill, she is set to raise money from business groups that oppose it

Virus Victims, Responses

• Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s legacy of death, Robert Harrington
• New York Times, Analysis: Red Covid, David Leonhard
• Wayne Madsen Report, Analysis: Voters in four elections reject anti-public health parties, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, These health care workers would rather get fired than get vaccinated
• New York Times, Live Updates: U.S. Vaccine Mandates Face Early Test in New York
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 706,317
• Washington Post, 213.7 million U.S. vaccinated
• Washington Post, Opinion: Kyrie Irving wants to leave a legacy. With his stance on vaccination, he just might, Sally Jenkins
• Washington Post, Staten Island crowd defies vaccine mandate by storming mall food court, video shows

U.S. Election Fraudsters, Insurrectionists, White Nationalists

• Washington Post, An elections supervisor embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat
• Washington Post, Opinion: Arizona’s election ‘audit’ comes up empty, but that won’t stop the lying, Karen Tumulty
• New York Times, Analysis: The “stop the steal” movement is racing forward, ignoring its Arizona humiliation
• Washington Post, Analysis: Arizona audit debunks Trump’s false claims, but misinformation still threatens electoral process, Dan Balz
• Legal Schnauzer, Epic hack of Epik website-hosting firm provides roughly 10 years of data about the rise of right-wing extremism that led to January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol, Roger Shuler

World News

• Washington Post, Merkel’s party lost, should go into opposition, rival party says
• Washington Post, What you need to know about Olaf Scholz, possibly Germany’s next chancellor
• Reuters, German Social Democrats beat conservatives in vote to decide Merkel successor
• New York Times, As Evergrande Totters, Beijing Believes It Can Prevent a ‘Lehman Moment,’
• New York Times, Australia Took On China. Did It Get It Right?
• New York Times, Théoneste Bagosora, a Mastermind of Rwanda Genocide, Dies at 80
• Washington Post, How Afghanistan’s security forces lost the war
• New York Times, How Ukraine Negotiated With the Taliban and Rescued 96 Afghans

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• New York Times, America’s Need to Pay Its Bills Has Spawned a Political Game
• Washington Post, Democrats lean into vaccine mandates, coronavirus response in Va. governor’s race
• New York Times, With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, Desperate Women Cross State Lines

U.S. Courts, Crime, Law, Police

• Washington Post, Supreme Court observers see trouble ahead as public approval of justices erodes, Robert Barnes and Seung Min Kim
• New York Times, Murders Spiked in 2020 in Cities Across the United States
• New York Times, He Taught Ancient Texts at Oxford. Now He Is Accused of Stealing Some
• Daily Beast, Analysis: What Matt Gaetz’s Legal Lineup Tells Us About His Troubles, Roger Sollenberger
• Law&Crime, Chicago Artist, 18, Shot and Killed in a Car in Front of Her Home by ‘Cowards’ Right After Halloween Shopping
• New York Times, She Bought Her Dream Home. Then a ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Changed the Locks
• Law&Crime, Bear-Pee-Drinking ‘Shaman’ Charged With Arson, Probed for More Ties to California Wildfires

U.S. Media News

• New York Times, Investigative Commentary: Ozy Media and a $40 Million Conference Call Gone Wrong, Ben Smith
• Washington Post, Russ Kick, writer, editor and ‘rogue transparency activist,’ dies at 52
• Daily Beast, Anti-Vax MAGA Cartoonist Says He’s Treating Severe COVID With Beet Juice

Top Stories

Pro-Trump insurrectionists erected a gallows in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and threatened to hang elected officials who failed to overturn presidential election results based on phony claims.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in a file photo speaking Jan. 8 about the deadly pro-Trump insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 to prevent certification of Democrat Joe Biden's presidential victory in November (Screengrab).

Proof, Investigative Commentary: A January Lawsuit in Texas Appears to Be the Focus of a Seditious Conspiracy Involving Trump, His Lawyers and Political Aides, Texas Politicians, Stop the Steal, and the Capitol Attack, Seth Abramson, left, Sept. 27, 2021. The January 6 Capitol attack appears to have been a planned stalling tactic aimed at clearing a path for Trump to retake the White House via a Supreme Court ruling — just as George W. Bush did in 2000.

Yesterday we learned that in late December of 2020, Donald Trump attorney Sidney Powell worked with top Trump Congressional ally Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) to file a petition for emergency injunction intended to reach the Supreme Court — a petition whose purpose was to block certification of Joe Biden’s election victory in Congress.

Gohmert, left — alongside members of the Arizona Republican Party who had long been in close contact with domestic terrorist Ali Alexander (of Trump adviser Roger Stone’s Stop the Steal “movement”) — filed his lawsuit on January 1, 2021.

While Dallas-based attorney Sidney Powell’s name didn’t appear on the filing, a firm located just over ten miles from Powell’s Dallas office did. The head of the tiny Dallas law firm is William Lewis Sessions, brother of top Trump Congressional ally Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX), a co-conspirator with Trump in the Trump-Ukraine and Trump-Venezuela scandals (discussed in exhaustive, fully sourced detail in the USA Today-bestselling 2020 book Proof of Corruption, published by Macmillan). Sessions, a vocal insurrectionist, was also, before January 6, an adjunct member of Powell’s Team Kraken, making regular contact with a small ring of dubious “intelligence experts” attached to her operation.

In an interview Powell recently did with far-right activist/propagandist Stew Peters, Powell, right, refers to the Gohmert-Sessions team using the first-person plural—“we”—confirming that, as Trump’s attorney in December 2020, she also considered herself a part of the legal team that filed Gohmert’s lawsuit, if not one named in the filing itself.

This is only the beginning of the connections between Trump’s legal team and a now historically controversial lawsuit — and only the beginning of what makes Gohmert’s lawsuit the new epicenter of criminal and Congressional investigations of January 6. Present indications are that Gohmert’s lawsuit, and its intersections with the attack on the U.S. Capitol, bear all the signs of a seditious conspiracy to overthrow the federal government.

Washington Post, Democrats outside Washington fear loss of historic opportunity, Sean Sullivan and Tyler Page, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Gilda Cobb-Hunter is furious with fellow Democrats. A veteran social worker, civil rights activist and the longest-serving member of the South Carolina House, she is losing patience with the infighting that has stalled efforts to enact the agenda the party sold to voters.

“I am seething at how Democrats continuously revert to the circular firing squad method of governing,” she said. “I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand why we continue to do that.”

As Democrats in Washington struggle through contentious negotiations over a sweeping domestic policy proposal, many party activists and officials across the country are watching with a collective head-shake and mounting anxiety.

They see Democrats in control of the White House and Congress, yet so far unable to resolve their differences over a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure and social safety net package.

They see in President Biden, left, a candidate who ran on unity but is now plagued by intraparty divisions. In House and Senate Democratic leaders, they see competing priorities and a reluctance to get their members in line.

Leading Democrats all want to expand heath-care access. They just don’t agree on the best way to do it.

'While many Democrats say that in the end, party leaders will find a way to pass their ambitious plan, some have started contemplating a nightmare scenario, in which the talks fall apart and Democrats are left explaining to voters who gave them the keys why they couldn’t get the car out of neutral.

“We’re running out of time,” said Sean Bagniewski, chair of the Polk County Democratic Party in Iowa. “The midterms are almost here.”

Having already passed the infrastructure portion with bipartisan support in the Senate, Democrats can finish the job without a single additional Republican vote thanks to the process, known as budget reconciliation, they are using to pass the spending for social programs. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a letter to colleagues Saturday that the House will aim to pass both measures this week.

Clinching enough Democratic support to make the whole thing work has proved elusive, putting Democrats in battleground states on edge.

• Washington Post, Biden’s $4 trillion agenda in peril with Democrats still at odds ahead of key House votes

Federal prosecutor Elizabeth Geddes points to R. Kelly during closing arguments in the trial in a courtroom sketch, Sept. 22, 2021 (Jane Rosenberg for Reuters).

Huff Post, R. Kelly Found Guilty On All Counts In Sexual Abuse Trial, Alanna Vagianos and Taryn Finley, Sept. 27, 2021. This is the first time the R&B singer has been convicted for sex crimes against minors and young women.

R. Kelly, right, the R&B singer who rose to fame in the 1990s, has been found guilty on all counts by a jury in the Brooklyn federal case against him for racketeering and charges relating to sex trafficking.

After nine hours of deliberation, a jury of seven men and five women found Kelly guilty on one count of racketeering and eight counts of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits transporting individuals across state lines for the purpose of prostitution. The verdict came in around 3:15 p.m. Eastern on Monday afternoon during the seventh week of the trial.

The sentencing is set for 10 a.m. Eastern on May 4, 2021.

The trial, which began mid-August, lasted six weeks. The jury heard testimony from 50 witnesses; 45 were called by the prosecution and only five were called by the defense. Out of the 45 witnesses who testified for the prosecution, 11 were accusers, six of whom testified they were underage at the time of their alleged sexual encounter with Kelly. Witnesses for the defense included a former security guard, Kelly’s accountant and an up-and-coming artist who says he worked with Kelly for over a decade.

The testimonies of the eight Jane Does and two John Does were the most memorable parts of the trial. Nearly all of the accusers described a terrifying environment of control and fear when they were in a sexual relationship with the R&B singer. Several testified that Kelly implemented strict rules that included calling him “Daddy,” subjected them to physical beatings, and controlled the clothes they wore, what they ate and where they were allowed to travel. One Jane Doe said Kelly punished her by making her smear her own feces on her face and in her mouth as he recorded her.

“He could put the fear of God in me very quickly,” one victim said of Kelly during her testimony.

• New York Times, R. Kelly’s Trial Is Captivating a Black Audience Online. Here’s Why, Troy Closson

Global Growth of Facism, Election Frauds

American Prospect, Opinion: Fight Fascism First, Robert Kuttner, right, Sept. 27, 2021. Robert Kagan’s must-read essay in The Washington Post, "Our Constitutional Crisis Is Already Here," gets the big picture right, but gets some tactical details seriously wrong.

• Washington Post, Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here, Robert Kagan

Kagan is all too accurate when he points out that Trump has captured the Republican Party and that Trumpers are now fully prepared to destroy democracy in order to win the 2022 and 2024 elections. "Trump’s grip on his supporters left no room for an alternative power center in the party," he points out. "One by one, the ‘adults’ resigned or were run off."

He is correct that Democrats, going about the normal business of negotiating their differences on the budget resolution, are not sufficiently mindful of the deeper threat of full-on fascism.

Kagan, right, is also right that the Republicans are playing a double game, behaving as a normal opposition party in trying to block or weaken the governing party’s program, while being enablers of dictatorship, quite like the German conservatives who threw in with Hitler, left, in 1932.

What to do? Here is where the wishful second part of Kagan’s powerful essay contradicts the unflinching first part. He writes that Republicans like Mitt Romney and the six other Republican senators who voted to convict Trump for inciting an insurrection should fashion themselves as Constitutional Republicans who, in the present emergency, are willing to form a national unity coalition in the Senate for the sole purpose of saving the republic.

Sure, that would be swell. But it’s not going to happen. And it won’t happen even if the Democrats reduce Biden’s Build Back Better program to 50 cents to "strive for a temporary governing consensus."

Rather than looking for anti-Trump Republicans, who Kagan accurately reminds us are as dead as dinosaurs, Democrats should be redoubling their efforts to get voting rights legislation, and to use the federal government’s police and prosecutorial powers to give no quarter to fascists seeking to overthrow what remains of our democracy.

Proof, Investigation: Trump Lawyer Admits Trump's Legal Team Was Seeking An Emergency Injunction Against Certification of Biden's Win As Trump Incited a Riot to Delay the Joint Session of Congress, Seth Abramson, left, Sept. 26-27, 2021. New revelation confirms the actions of Trump's legal team in the Willard "war room"—whose occupants were in direct contact with Trump—were designed to dovetail with the violent attack on the Capitol.

Introduction: On March 10, 2021, Proof published an article entitled “Here Is the Twelve-Point Plan Donald Trump Had for January 6.” Based on two months of research relating to January 6, Proof concluded that Trump’s plan for January 6 was built on the following foundation....

In a new interview with far-right activist and propagandist Stew Peters, Powell admits that Trump’s legal team filed for an injunction against Congress in the first days of January.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Trump attorneys Sidney Powell, right, and Rudy Giuliani falsely claiming election fraud last November at a press conference.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Sidney Powell just decided to take everyone down with her, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 27, 2021. Former Trump election lawyer Sidney Powell is not to be taken at her word. Not only does she constantly lie, she spins conspiracy theories so absurd that she comes off as mentally unhinged.

So when Powell appeared on something called “Steve Peters TV” this weekend and claimed that Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito were all in on the plot to overthrow the 2020 election, none of it’s to be believed without external confirmation.

Moreover, her story is laughable on its face. She’s claiming that Alito was somehow magically going to overturn the election results on January 7th – even though doing so would have required five Supreme Court votes. Obviously, in such a scenario, Alito wouldn’t have gotten a single vote beyond his own. For that matter, while Alito is a corrupt piece of crap, he’s not stupid enough to have been willing to try such an idiotic and guaranteed-to-fail plot.

All that said, it’s still noteworthy that Sidney Powell is making this accusation at all. While the accusation against Alito is obviously unhinged fiction aimed at taking the heat off herself, it’s clear that Powell has concluded she’s going down, and she’s looking to take as many people on her own side down with her as possible.

Moreover, since McCarthy, left, and Scalise are caught up in the January 6th conspiracy on at least some level, and it appears that Powell was at least in communication with them about it, she may have documents that could actually incriminate them.

It’s probably best if we ignore the Alito allegations as the obvious fiction that they are. Rather than getting distracted by that silliness, the real story here is that Sidney Powell has decided to try to take down some big-name folks who were involved in the 2020 election conspiracy. At the least, the January 6th Committee should seize the opportunity to subpoena Powell for all documents she has in relation to the 2020 election fraud conspiracy.

Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire wanted by the government of China for bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud and rape, is shown above with Trump ally and former 2016 campaign CEO Steve Bannon. Guo funds through his GTV Media Group conglomerate Bannon's "War Room" podcast and "Real America's Voice" Internet television broadcast and other propaganda supporting the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the overthrow of the the U.S. government, which is giving him political asylum in New York City and elsewhere.

Related Recent Headlines:

• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: International fascist collusion to overthrow the U.S. government, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, Election fraud, QAnon, Jan. 6: Extremists in Germany read from a pro-Trump script
• Washington Post, Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here, Robert Kagan
• Washington Post, Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret
• Washington Post, Report that found no evidence of fraud raises stakes for other GOP-backed ballot reviews
• Washington Post, Editorial: The nation faces financial calamity. Republicans will be to blame

U.S. Budget, Debt Limit, Infrastructure Hardball

New York Times, Republicans Block Government Funding, Refusing to Lift Debt Limit, Emily Cochrane, Sept. 27, 2021. Senate Republicans opposed legislation to avert a government shutdown and prevent a debt default at a critical moment for Democrats’ domestic agenda.

Senate Republicans on Monday blocked a spending bill needed to avert a government shutdown this week and a federal debt default next month, moving the nation closer to the brink of fiscal crisis as they refused to allow Democrats to lift the limit on federal borrowing.

With a Thursday deadline looming to fund the government — and the country moving closer to a catastrophic debt-limit breach — the stalemate in the Senate reflected a bid by Republicans to undercut President Biden and top Democrats at a critical moment, as they labor to keep the government running and enact an ambitious domestic agenda.

Republicans who had voted to raise the debt cap by trillions when their party controlled Washington argued on Monday that Democrats must shoulder the entire political burden for doing so now, given that they control the White House and both houses of Congress.

Their position was calculated to portray Democrats as ineffectual and overreaching at a time when they are already toiling to iron out deep party divisions over a $3.5 trillion social safety net and climate change bill, and to pave the way for a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure measure whose fate is linked to it.

The package that was blocked on Monday, which also included emergency aid to support the resettlement of Afghan refugees and disaster recovery, would keep all government agencies funded through Dec. 3 and increase the debt ceiling through the end of 2022. But after the bill cleared the House a week earlier with just Democratic votes, it fell far short of the 60 votes needed to move forward in the Senate on Monday.

The vote was 48 to 50 to advance the measure. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, was among those voting “no,” a procedural maneuver to allow the bill to be reconsidered at some point. But there were no immediate details about next steps.

The resulting cloud of fiscal uncertainty marked yet another challenge for Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders, who are facing a daunting set of tasks as they press to keep the government funded, scrounge together the votes for the infrastructure bill — also slated for a vote on Thursday — and resolve their disputes over the broader budget plan. They must also hatch a new strategy for raising the statutory limit on federal borrowing, which officials have said is on track to be reached as early as mid- to late October.

New York Times, Opinion: Biden Versus the Rip Van Winkle Caucus, Paul Krugman, Sept. 27, 2021. Political reporting often portrays progressives as impractical and intransigent, unwilling to make the compromises needed to get things done, while centrists are realistic pragmatists. What’s happening in Congress right now, however, is just the opposite.

The Democratic Party’s left wing is advancing sensible, popular policies like negotiating on drug prices and cracking down on wealthy tax cheats, and has shown itself willing to make major compromises to advance President Biden’s agenda. In particular, the $3.5 trillion in spending Biden is asking for over the next decade is much less than progressives originally wanted. The party’s conservative wing, however, seems willing to risk blowing up its own president’s prospects rather than give an inch.

What’s going on? Contrary to legend, many of the balking Democrats don’t come from swing districts; anyway, the Biden economic agenda is popular almost everywhere. For example, its main elements command overwhelming support in West Virginia. Furthermore, does anyone really imagine that the outcome of the midterm elections will depend on whether the eventual package, if there is one, is $3.5 trillion or $1.5 trillion?

We can, of course, invoke the usual suspects: Corporate money and wealthy donors are surely having an impact. But I was struck by something Eric Levitz of New York magazine said in a recent article on this subject, which helped clarify a point I’ve been groping toward. Namely, some Democrats seem to have formed their perceptions about both economics and politics during the Clinton years and haven’t updated their views since.

That is, it makes a lot of sense to see Biden’s problems getting his plans across the finish line as being caused by the Rip Van Winkle caucus, Democrats who checked out intellectually a couple of decades ago and haven’t caught up with America as it now is.

Washington Post, Opinion: Democrats: Political suicide is not a strategy, E.J. Dionne Jr., right, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Perhaps President Biden’s ambitious domestic program will suffer death by a thousand misconceptions. But as soon as you look at it that way, you’ll see why congressional Democrats are more likely to embrace the large measure of social reform they promised in last year’s election.

This is because the single largest misconception is that Democrats have a political death wish. Such gloom, encouraged by the torrent of threats and counterthreats now emanating from the party’s various factions, confuses the inevitable struggles within a highly diverse political coalition for a party-wide blindness to costs of failure.

“If we were in Europe, we’d be 30 different political parties,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) told me, with just a touch of exaggeration. But McGovern, who chairs the Rules Committee, believes his colleagues understand the bottom-line truth: “If we can’t deliver on this, God help us in the next election.”

What would not be okay: for Democrats to walk away from the best opportunity they have had in at least two generations to repair and reconstruct our nation’s social contract. Despite all their grousing, I think they know that.

New York Times, Politics Updates: As Sinema resists the budget bill, she is set to raise money from business groups that oppose it, Staff Reports, Sept. 27, 2021. Texas Republicans propose a new congressional map that aims to protect the party’s incumbents; ‘I was wrong’: Liz Cheney announces support for same-sex marriage, reversing a longstanding position.

Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, below left, the inscrutable Democrat who may hold the key to passing her party’s ambitious social policy and climate bill, is scheduled to have a fund-raiser on Tuesday afternoon with five business lobbying groups, many of which fiercely oppose the bill.

Under Ms. Sinema’s political logo, the influential National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and the grocers’ PAC, along with lobbyists for roofers and electrical contractors and a small business group called the S-Corp political action committee, have invited association members to an undisclosed location on Tuesday afternoon for 45 minutes to write checks for between $1,000 and $5,800, payable to Sinema for Arizona.

The planned event comes during a make-or-break week for President Biden’s agenda, when House Democrats are trying to pass a trillion-dollar infrastructure bill that Ms. Sinema helped negotiate, and trying to nail down the details of a social policy and climate bill that could spend as much as $3.5 trillion over the next decade.

Ms. Sinema has said she cannot support a bill that large, and has privately told Senate Democratic colleagues that she is averse to the corporate and individual tax rate increases that both the House and Senate tax-writing committees had planned to use to help pay for the measure.

In both positions, she is likely to find a receptive audience at the fund-raiser. The S-Corp PAC, for instance, has told its members the rate increases in the package that passed the House Ways and Means Committee “would kneecap private companies” like theirs that pay taxes through the individual tax system, not the corporate tax system.

In a Senate that is equally divided between Republicans and members who caucus with the Democrats, a single vote can decide the fate of legislation, and Ms. Sinema has not been shy about using that power. Exactly what she will and will not accept in the final bill is not yet clear, but colleagues say she is going through its contents methodically.

Texas Republicans propose a new congressional map that aims to protect the party’s incumbents.

Republicans in the Texas Legislature proposed a new congressional map on Monday that would preserve the party’s advantage in the state’s delegation to Washington amid booming population growth spurred by communities of color.

The new map was designed with an eye toward incumbency and protecting Republicans’ current edge; the party now holds 23 of the state’s 36 congressional seats. Rather than trying to make significant gains, the party appears to be bolstering incumbents who have faced increasingly tough contests against an ascendant Democratic Party in Texas.

Indeed, in the proposed map, there is only one congressional district in the state where the margin of the 2020 presidential election would have been less than five percentage points, an indication that the vast majority of the state’s 38 districts will not be particularly competitive.

Texas was the only state in the country to be awarded two new congressional districts during this year’s reapportionment, which is taking place after the 2020 census. The state’s Hispanic population grew by two million people over the past 10 years, and is now just 0.4 percentage points behind that of the Anglo population.

But the map proposed by the Republican-controlled State Senate redistricting committee, led by State Senator Joan Huffman, would decrease the number of predominantly Hispanic districts in the state from eight to seven, and would increase the number of majority-white districts from 22 to 23.

Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming, said in an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night that she was “wrong” to oppose same-sex marriage, reversing a longstanding position.

Ms. Cheney, right, famously came out against same-sex marriage in a television interview in 2013, while running for Senate in Wyoming, saying she believed “in the traditional definition of marriage.” Mary Cheney, her sister who is gay and married with children, wrote online at the time that Liz was “on the wrong side of history.”

The issue sparked a public rift inside the close-knit and high-profile political family. Dick Cheney, the former vice president and Ms. Cheney’s father, became an unlikely advocate for gay rights when he stated in 2004 that he supported Mary, and that “freedom means freedom for everyone.”

On Sunday night, Liz Cheney said her father had been right the whole time. “I love my sister very much,” she said. “I love her family very much and I was wrong. It’s a very personal issue, very personal for my family. I believe my dad was right and my sister and I have had that conversation.”

New York Times, America’s Need to Pay Its Bills Has Spawned a Political Game, Jim Tankersley, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Republicans and Democrats have long sparred over raising the debt ceiling. But this time, the odds are growing that the U.S. could default.

Virus Victims, Responses

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s legacy of death, Robert Harrington (self-portrait by the author, a professional artist, at right), Sept. 26, 2021 (PM). The whim of a sufficiently powerful but lazy, stupid and transactional narcissist can sometimes make or break the world. On the day of Donald Trump’s first public utterance about Covid-19, January 22, 2020, he said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from Chy-na. It’s going to be just fine.”

He decided to understate and minimize the danger of it. It was a foregone conclusion that the rabid gaggle of cretins we sometimes more charitably refer to as his base would follow him in lockstep — like a division of Schutzstaffel following Hitler at a Nuremberg rally. His every pronouncement on the topic quickly ossified into Holy Writ.

That was bad news for the world, because now we are all in one hell of a mess. There are now more than 700,000 dead from coronavirus in the United States alone. American deaths comprise 14.82% of all Covid-19 deaths worldwide even though Americans represent only 4.25% of the total population of the world. What’s more, America is home to 9.8 million active Covid cases which is more than all the Covid cases in all the countries of the world — combined.

Let me just say that again in case you missed it. America has more active Covid cases than the rest of the world. Combined. Put another way, 52% of all Covid cases worldwide are American cases. To a large extent you can thank Donald Trump and his cavalier, slipshod, deceitful, mixed message way of dealing with this horrible, deadly disease.

Trump found a way to influence some Americans to approach the outbreak of the worldwide pandemic in a way that is uniquely Trumpian, uniquely wrong. He taught some Americans to disdain and mock people for wearing masks. He ridiculed Joe and Jill Biden for wearing masks out in the open air, as if wearing a mask for a second longer than necessary is some great crime against humanity that should not be tolerated, when in actuality taking masks off too early or not wearing them at all is the real crime, because it’s killing people. He promoted crackpot remedies so quack treatments became a priority over prevention. When he got vaccinated he did so in secret, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

We owe much if not most of our frightful predicament to the world’s most ludicrous man, a man that a bunch of ludicrous people elected president of the United States. It’s beyond belief how stupid some people can be, and some of us reading (and even writing) these words may one day die of their stupidity.

New York Times, Analysis: Red Covid, David Leonhardt, right, Sept. 27, 2021. Covid’s partisan pattern is growing more extreme. During the early months of Covid-19 vaccinations, several major demographic groups lagged in receiving shots, including Black Americans, Latino Americans and Republican voters. More recently, the racial gaps — while still existing — have narrowed. The partisan gap, however, continues to be enormous. A Pew Research Center poll last month found that 86 percent of Democratic voters had received at least one shot, compared with 60 percent of Republican voters.

The political divide over vaccinations is so large that almost every reliably blue state now has a higher vaccination rate than almost every reliably red state. Because the vaccines are so effective at preventing serious illness, Covid deaths are also showing a partisan pattern. Covid is still a national crisis, but the worst forms of it are increasingly concentrated in red America.

It’s worth remembering that Covid followed a different pattern for more than a year after its arrival in the U.S. Despite widespread differences in mask wearing — and scientific research suggesting that masks reduce the virus’s spread — the pandemic was if anything worse in blue regions. Masks evidently were not powerful enough to overcome other regional differences, like the amount of international travel that flows through major metro areas, which tend to be politically liberal.

Vaccination has changed the situation. The vaccines are powerful enough to overwhelm other differences between blue and red areas.

Wayne Madsen Report, Analysis: Voters in four elections reject anti-public health parties, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 27, 2021. Certain far-right political parties that hoped to capitalize on their anti-vaccine and anti-public health messages to gain power in elections during the last month have come away sorely disappointed.

Voters in California, Canada, Germany, and Iceland firmly rejected so-called "populist" parties and their candidates that argued against vaccination mandates and masking in public places.

New York Times, These health care workers would rather get fired than get vaccinated, Anne Barnard, Grace Ashford and Neil Vigdor, Updated Sept. 27, 2021. Deborah Conrad, a physician assistant in western New York, and Simmone Leslie, a hospital switchboard operator in Queens, have both worked long, risky hours during the pandemic. But now, both are prepared to lose their jobs rather than meet Monday’s state deadline for health care workers to get vaccinated.

In defying the order, they are resisting a step that public-health experts say is critical to save lives and end the pandemic. While they each cite differing reasons for their decisions — Ms. Leslie said her employer rejected her request for a medical exemption; Ms. Conrad referenced vaccine side effects she claimed to have seen but that veer from the scientific consensus — their recalcitrance embodies a conundrum facing New York.

Experts have called the mandate a clear-cut way for health care workers to prevent new waves of the virus from spreading, and to persuade doubters to get vaccinated. And health systems say the plan is crucial to keeping patients and staff safe.

Westchester Medical Center Health Network, where 94 percent of the systems’s 12,000 workers are vaccinated, called the mandate “a critical part of upholding our mission,” in a statement on Sunday.

But a vocal minority working within the health care system are themselves skeptics — and some, like Ms. Conrad, have imperiled the plan, even fighting the mandate in court.

New York Times, Live Updates: U.S. Vaccine Mandates Face Early Test in New York, Staff Reports, Sept. 27, 2021. Tens of thousands of health care workers could lose their jobs if they refuse a Covid shot by Monday. Here’s the latest pandemic news.

• Sydney plans to start leaving its lockdown in October.
• Nepal eases rules for visitors to help revive its tourism industry.
• The global economy looks solid, but there are risks ahead.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 27, 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: 232,672,955, Deaths: 4,763,652
U.S. Cases:     43,750,983, Deaths:    706,317
India Cases:     33,678,786, Deaths:    447,225
Brazil Cases:    21,351,972, Deaths:    594,484

Washington Post, At least 213.7 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 27, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 183.9 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, Opinion: Kyrie Irving wants to leave a legacy. With his stance on vaccination, he just might, Sally Jenkins, right, Sept. 27, 2021.The Nets’ Kyrie Irving wants to keep his vaccination status “private,” he said Monday. Kyrie Irving is too smart for you. He’s so smart, he can outwit germs and governments. He’s so smart, you can’t understand a word he’s saying. That’s how smart he is. His genius is utterly indecipherable to you and me, and while you may wish for some insight into the exquisite, diamond-chip workings of his multifaceted mind, you are not entitled to them because he prefers to keep them “private.”

Irving is so smart that everything he says sounds like a mystery unless it’s a contradiction. “I’m a human being first,” he said in refusing to share whether he is vaccinated against the coronavirus or to comment on whether he is anti-vaccine, as has been reported, a stance that could imperil other human beings because the vaccines reduce the chance of spread.

Given that New York City requires vaccination for indoor events, including sports arenas, will Irving be vaccinated for the opening of the season? “There’s just a lot of questions about what’s going on in the world of Kyrie, but I would like to keep that private,” Irving responded with a sense of his own unique and unquestionable importance. His remarks came via Zoom at the Brooklyn Nets’ media event Monday, presumably because he is unvaccinated and thus by law could not join the proceedings.

“Obviously I’m not able to be present there today,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m putting any limits on the future on my being able to join the team. And I just want to keep it that way.”

I’m sorry — keep it which way? Present or non-present?

 Washington Post, Staten Island crowd defies vaccine mandate by storming mall food court, video shows, Paulina Villegas, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). As customers enjoyed their Saturday afternoon at Staten Island Mall and prepared to dig in to their meals, a raucous, maskless crowd of dozens opposing New York City’s indoor vaccination mandate stormed into the food court while chanting, “U-S-A!”

Their goal: to eat at the food court without showing proof of vaccination.

U.S. Election Fraudsters, Insurrectionists, White Nationalists

Washington Post, An elections supervisor embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat, Emma Brown, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Mesa County, Colo., Clerk Tina Peters is accused of sneaking an unauthorized person into her office to make copies of Dominion voting-machine hard drives — copies that later ended up online and in the hands of conspiracy theorists.

Legal Schnauzer, Epic hack of Epik website-hosting firm provides roughly 10 years of data about the rise of right-wing extremism that led to January 6 attack on U.S. Capitol, Roger Shuler, Sept. 27, 2021. The story of perhaps the most important data breach in U.S. history has erupted over roughly the past two weeks. The tale is in its infancy, so it's too early to say in what direction it might head. But it clearly could provide revelations about Alabama's toxic political and legal culture -- mainly because Montgomery-connected extremist Ali (Akbar) Alexander appears to be a central character. Here are at least three questions the breach could help answer:

(1) Who was behind the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by apparent supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump?

(2) Who is behind right-wing corruption in Alabama, and beyond, and what forms does it take?

(3) How did one of our two major political parties turn into a haven for those wracked by disinformation, race-based fears and hatred, and disrespect for the rule of law -- becoming essentially a cult of personality, with few (if any) defining governing principles beyond maintaining power, at all costs?

What is the gist of the story?

World News

Washington Post, Merkel’s party lost, should go into opposition, rival party says, Rick Noack and Loveday Morris, Sept. 27, 2021. After preliminary results showed a narrow win over outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats, the leader of the center-left Social Democrats said he has a mandate to form the next government.

The leader of the center-left Social Democrats on Monday said he has a mandate to form the next German government, after preliminary results showed a narrow victory for his party over its main rival, the conservative Christian Democrats.

It is the first time in more than a decade and a half that the Social Democrats have outpolled their conservative rivals as their long time leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel, steps down.

“You can see a very happy SPD here,” Olaf Scholz, right, said from the party’s headquarters on Monday morning. He said his party had obtained the “mandate to lead the government.”

Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their smaller sister party “did not only lose significant votes, but they also received a message from the people: They shouldn’t be part of the government anymore, but should instead go into the opposition,” Scholz said.

Washington Post, What you need to know about Olaf Scholz, possibly Germany’s next chancellor, William Glucroft and Loveday Morris, Sept. 27, 2021. Olaf Scholz has managed what many in Germany had considered impossible: bringing the Social Democrats back from the dead.

Germany’s oldest political party, the center-left Social Democratic Party, known by its German acronym SPD, has languished in the polls for years. But in Sunday’s elections, the SPD pulled ahead, winning 26 percent of the vote, according to preliminary numbers. The center-right Christian Democratic Union won 24 percent of the vote, the lowest mark for the party since its founding in 1945.

The tight totals leave an unclear and lengthy path forward for Scholz to build a coalition. Scholz and Christian Democratic leader Armin Laschet have said they hope to have a coalition formed by Christmas.

Scholz’s party was the junior coalition partner to Chancellor Angela’s Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats in Germany’s outgoing government, the third time it joined its traditional rival in a coalition. It’s a position the SPD took on reluctantly — but one that has enabled Scholz to raise his profile nationally.

Reuters, German Social Democrats beat conservatives in vote to decide Merkel successor, Thomas Escritt and Paul Carrel, Sept. 26, 2021. Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel, right,

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed, but both groups believed they could lead the next government.

With neither major bloc commanding a majority, and both reluctant to repeat their awkward "grand coalition" of the past four years, the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel's conservatives.

Agreeing a new coalition could take months, and will likely involve the smaller Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

"We are ahead in all the surveys now," the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said in a round table discussion with other candidates after the vote.

"It is an encouraging message and a clear mandate to make sure that we get a good, pragmatic government for Germany," he added after earlier addressing jubilant SPD supporters.

The SPD's rise heralds a swing left for Germany and marks a remarkable comeback for the party, which has recovered some 10 points in support in just three months to improve on its 20.5% result in the 2017 national election.

Scholz, 63, would become the fourth post-war SPD chancellor after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder. Finance minister in Merkel's cabinet, he is a former mayor of Hamburg.

Scholz's conservative rival Armin Laschet, signalled his bloc was not ready yet to concede, though his supporters were subdued.

New York Times, As Evergrande Totters, Beijing Believes It Can Prevent a ‘Lehman Moment,’ Keith Bradsher, Sept. 27, 2021. Control of the banking system allows Beijing to prevent a broader collapse, officials believe, while censorship and police powers can stifle protests.

In any other country, the sudden collapse of a corporate titan with more than $300 billion in debt would send shock waves across the economy. Headlines would blare. Banks would shudder. Investors would panic.

A corporate collapse of that scale may happen soon. But it would be in China, where the Communist Party keeps a firm grip on money, corporate boardrooms, the media and the broader society. Those controls may be facing one of their toughest tests yet, but Beijing is signaling that it feels up to the challenge — even if it will first try to teach big investors and companies a bitter lesson about lending recklessly.

The financial world is watching the struggles of China Evergrande Group, one of the largest property developers on earth and certainly the most indebted. Last week, a deadline to make an $83 million payment to foreign investors came and went with no indication that Evergrande had met its obligations, raising questions about what would happen if its huge debt load went sour.

The Chinese government doesn’t want to move in yet because it hopes Evergrande’s struggles will show other Chinese companies that they need to be disciplined in their finances, say people with knowledge of its deliberations who insisted on anonymity. But it has an array of financial tools that it believes are strong enough to stem a financial panic if matters worsen.

The government is “still going to provide a guarantee” for much of Evergrande’s activities, said Zhu Ning, deputy dean of the Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, “but the investors are going to have to sweat.”

New York Times, Australia Took On China. Did It Get It Right? Chris Buckley and Damien Cave, Sept. 27, 2021. The country is wrestling with the political and economic consequences of its sharp turn in policy and tone — including an erosion of tolerance.

Four years after declaring that it would “stand up” to China, Australia is wrestling with the economic and political consequences of a sharp turn in policy and tone that has helped send relations with Beijing into their deepest chill in decades.

Allies have applauded Australia for showing how the world’s smaller powers can redefine ties with China — a trailblazing push that deepened this month with Australia’s decision to acquire American nuclear-powered submarines. But to increasingly vocal critics, Australia also offers warnings about the risks of losing strategic focus in the heat of resisting China.

New York Times, Théoneste Bagosora, a Mastermind of Rwanda Genocide, Dies at 80, Abdi Latif Dahir, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Mr. Bagosora was convicted of genocide for ordering a massacre in the capital and the killing of top officials, including the prime minister.

Théoneste Bagosora, a senior Rwandan military figure who was one of the masterminds of the Rwandan genocide, died on Saturday in a prison in Mali. He was 80.

His death was confirmed by an official with the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague. The official did not specify the cause of death.

Mr. Bagosora was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in 2008 and was serving a 35-year sentence, which was reduced from life in prison. He was the cabinet director for Rwanda’s Ministry of Defense during the 1994 genocide, in which ethnic Hutu extremists killed as many as 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in just 100 days.

In the three days after April 6, 1994, when the plane of the Rwandan president, Juvenal Habyarimana, crashed, Mr. Bagosora was found to have “assumed the power of the highest authority” in the Ministry of Defense, besides holding significant influence on political affairs.

More On U.S. Politics, Governance

Washington Post, Democrats lean into vaccine mandates, coronavirus response in Va. governor’s race, Karina Elwood, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Democrat Terry McAuliffe plans to focus on his approval, and Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin’s disapproval, of vaccine and other pandemic-related mandates in the final weeks of the race for Virginia governor.

New York Times, With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, Desperate Women Cross State Lines, Sabrina Tavernise, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). As the new law prohibits abortions at a very early stage of pregnancy, many women are now traveling out of state for the procedure.

Other U.S. Political Headlines

• Washington Post, Opinion: Taxing the rich is super popular. Democrats should talk more about it, Jennifer Rubin
  Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero
• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic

U.S. Courts, Crime, Law, Police

Washington Post, Supreme Court observers see trouble ahead as public approval of justices erodes, Robert Barnes and Seung Min Kim, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). The Supreme Court’s approval rating is plummeting, its critics are more caustic, and justices are feeling compelled to plead the case to the public that they are judicial philosophers, not politicians in robes.

All of this as the court embarks Oct. 4 on one of the most potentially divisive terms in years. Docketed cases concern gun control, separation of church and state, and the biggest showdown in decades on the future of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion.

Meanwhile, a presidential commission studying the court is being bombarded with criticism from the left, and occasionally the right, that the justices are too political, too powerful and serve for too long.

Justices say they have philosophical — not partisan — differences

Even those who value the court see trouble ahead.

“Not since Bush v. Gore has the public perception of the court’s legitimacy seemed so seriously threatened,” the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute’s executive director, Irv Gornstein, said last week at a preview of the court’s upcoming term.

A Gallup poll released last week said Americans’ opinions of the Supreme Court have dropped to a new low, with only 40 percent approving of the justices’ job performance. “At this point, less than a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents approve of the job the court is doing,” said Gallup, which has been tracking the trend since 2000.

A recent survey by Marquette University Law School documented the same dramatic drop. Its numbers showed public approval sliding from 60 percent in July to 49 percent in September.

In recent weeks, three justices — the newest, Amy Coney Barrett, the most senior, conservative Clarence Thomas, and liberal Stephen G. Breyer — have defended in speeches and interviews the court’s decision-making and independence.

New York Times, Murders Spiked in 2020 in Cities Across the United States, Neil MacFarquhar, Sept. 27, 2021. The year-to-year increase in murders from 2019 was the largest since national record-keeping began in 1960. But overall, major crimes declined last year. The significant rise in homicides has roughly coincided with the 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The United States experienced its biggest one-year increase on record in murders in 2020, according to new figures released Monday by the F.B.I., with some cities hitting record highs.

Although major crimes were down overall, an additional 4,901 murders were committed in 2020 compared with the year before, the largest leap since national records started in 1960. The significant rise in homicides has roughly coincided with the 18 months of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The high murder rate has continued into 2021, although the pace has slowed as the year has progressed.

Overall, the toll of some 21,500 people killed last year is still well below the record set during the violence of the early 1990s. Still, several cities, like Albuquerque, Memphis, Milwaukee and Des Moines, are recording their highest murder numbers ever, according to the report.

There is no simple explanation for the steep rise. A number of key factors are driving the violence, including the economic and social toll taken by the pandemic and a sharp increase in gun purchases.

“It is a perfect storm,” said Chief Harold Medina of the Albuquerque Police Department. He cited Covid-19, the fallout from social justice protests and other contributors. “There is not just one factor that we can point at to say why we are where we are,” he said.

The report from the F.B.I., which tabulates crime numbers reported by almost 16,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, also showed that murders were more widespread, occurring in all regions of the United States and not limited to major cities.

New York Times, She Bought Her Dream Home. Then a ‘Sovereign Citizen’ Changed the Locks, Sarah Maslin Nir, Updated Sept. 27, 2021. A New Jersey woman was preyed upon by a fast-growing extremist group that claims its members are sovereign Moors, not bound by U.S. laws.

The official-looking letters started arriving soon after Shanetta Little bought the cute Tudor house on Ivy Street in Newark. Bearing a golden seal, in aureate legalistic language, the documents claimed that an obscure 18th-century treaty gave the sender rights to claim her new house as his own.

She dismissed the letters as a hoax.

And so it was with surprise that Ms. Little found herself in her yard on Ivy Street on a June afternoon as a police SWAT team negotiated with a man who had broken in, changed her locks and hung a red and green flag in its window. He claimed he was a sovereign citizen of a country that does not exist and for whom United States laws do not apply.

Ms. Little was a victim of a ploy known as paper terrorism, a favorite tactic of an extremist group that is one of the fastest growing, according to government experts and watchdog organizations. Known as the Moorish sovereign citizen movement, and loosely based around a theory that Black people are foreign citizens bound only by arcane legal systems, it encourages followers to violate existent laws in the name of empowerment. Experts say it lures marginalized people to its ranks with the false promise that they are above the law.

New York Times, He Taught Ancient Texts at Oxford. Now He Is Accused of Stealing Some, Colin Moynihan, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). Hobby Lobby, the craft chain that helped build a collection for the Museum of the Bible, has sued Dirk Obbink, asserting he sold it stolen artifacts.

He had impeccable credentials. No one disputes that.

Dirk Obbink was an esteemed lecturer at the University of Oxford. He had received a MacArthur Foundation grant in 2001 for his work with papyrus, and held a prominent post helping to run the Oxyrhynchus Papyri — the world’s largest collection of ancient papyri, held by the Egypt Exploration Society and housed at Oxford’s Sackler Library.

So roughly a decade ago when the craft shop chain Hobby Lobby began to build a collection of ancient artifacts related to the Bible, it made sense to touch base with Obbink.

Hobby Lobby’s president, Steve Green, was leading an effort to create a national museum that focused on the Bible. So between 2010 and 2013, the chain says it paid about $7 million dollars to Obbink for seven batches of antiquities including ancient papyri with New Testament writings.

Some of those artifacts, according to the Exploration Society, would end up at the Museum of the Bible, which opened in Washington four years ago.

Now, Hobby Lobby is suing Obbink, saying that 32 items it bought from him were stolen from the Exploration Society, which identified some of those artifacts as having come from its collection at Oxford.

Obbink has yet to respond to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Brooklyn. Lawyers for the chain said they recently served the papers on a houseboat on the Weirs Mill Stream near the River Thames, where he was thought to be living.

U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL, at center, former Florida State Rep. Chris Dorworth, left, then of the Ballard Partners lobbying firm, and former Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg, at right, posed for the photograph above outside the White House in June of 2019.

Daily Beast, Analysis: What Matt Gaetz’s Legal Lineup Tells Us About His Troubles, Roger Sollenberger, Sept. 27, 2021. There have hardly been any developments in the alleged case against Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). But the lawyers he’s hired indicate that he’s not out of the woods.

While the federal sex crimes investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has not fueled the kinds of explosive headlines it generated when the news first broke in late March, the case shows no signs of a slowdown.

In fact, legal experts told The Daily Beast, the perceived lull is nothing outside the norm and can be chalked up to a number of factors—including a wide range of charges that investigators could be exploring. Although Gaetz and his allies like to interpret the lack of charges as an indication of innocence, the delays could just as easily suggest that the charges that could be coming down the pike are extremely grave and complex.

And if you were looking for an indication of just how seriously Gaetz himself is taking the prospect of charges, look no further than the high-powered team of attorneys the beleaguered Florida man has brought on for his defense.

That team features a trio of powerful litigators from New York City, well outside the bounds of the Middle District of Florida, where the Justice Department investigation is being handled.

Gaetz is personally represented by Marc Mukasey, who has defended the Trump Organization in several high-profile disputes, as well as Isabelle Kirshner, a partner at Clayman & Rosenberg LLP. Kirshner is a top Manhattan criminal defense attorney who also represented former New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman after multiple women accused him of physical assault.

Separately, the Gaetz campaign—Friends of Matt Gaetz—also looked north when in June it retained New York-based trial lawyer Marc Fernich. Fernich’s client list includes child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and convicted sex trafficker Keith Raniere, who led the NXIVM cult. While Fernich is familiar with sex crimes cases, he does not have experience with campaign finance law.

The assembled team seems to reflect the self-styled Florida man’s politics, personality, and public relations strategy.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Matt Gaetz gives away that he knows he’s totally screwed, Bill Palmer, Sept. 27, 2021. Matt Gaetz keeps publicly insisting that he’s been exonerated, even though no such thing has happened. ABC News and other sources have made clear that the only reason he hasn’t been indicted yet is that his associate Joel Greenberg gave prosecutors too much evidence, and it’s taking time to work through it all and build an even more comprehensive criminal case, thus increasing the odds of Gaetz being convicted at trial.

Now, even as Gaetz’s words keep insisting he’s out of danger and not worried about any of it, his actions are saying the precise opposite. The Daily Beast has revealed that Gaetz has hired a criminal defense attorney whose other clients have included child rapist Jeffrey Epstein and at least one sex trafficker.

This strongly points to Gaetz expecting to be indicted and put on trial for these kinds of crimes. It’s been clear for awhile that Gaetz will be indicted. But we’ve been wondering if Gaetz really would be indicted for things like underage sex trafficking, or if the indictment would merely include less severe but more easily provable charges. Now it looks like Gaetz is indeed expecting to be put on trial for the very worst of charges he’s being investigated for.

Law&Crime, Chicago Artist, 18, Shot and Killed in a Car in Front of Her Home by ‘Cowards’ Right After Halloween Shopping, Colin Kalmbacher, Sept. 27, 2021. A young woman in Chicago was shot and killed Sunday evening in front of her own home–just after finishing up some shopping for Halloween. Melissa “Azul” de la Garza, 18, was shot several times while sitting in her car in front of the family residence on the city’s southwest side.

“It is a nightmare,” the victim’s grandmother, Clara de la Garza, added in Spanish. “Who is going to fill this hole? It’s unbelievable how this city is being consumed by violence.”

The young artist was one of at least eight people killed in Chicago over the weekend. The Windy City has long been plagued by gun violence and the ever-present specter of murder is an integral aspect of the beleaguered metropolis’s contemporary identity.

The victim’s father said that his daughter was a talented artist who had received a scholarship.

“It’s hard to put in words the loss we are feeling, for someone to take away my 18-year-old warrior princess,” the fallen artist’s dad, Jose de la Garza, said in comments to various local outlets. “She had a scholarship. She was a wrestler and took second place in state. Just doing everything the best way we’ve taught her. For someone to come and take that away for no reason. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Law&Crime, Bear-Pee-Drinking ‘Shaman’ Charged With Arson, Probed for More Ties to California Wildfires, Kana Ruhalter, Sept. 27, 2021. A California woman who said she self-identifies as a “shaman” has been charged with igniting a wildfire that has destroyed hundreds of homes and structures and burned some 8,500 acres.

The Redding Record Searchlight reports Alexandra Souverneva is now being investigated for a potential connection to other fires in California, per Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett. Souverneva, 30, told officials that while she had been hiking to Canada, she became thirsty and attempted to start a fire to boil some bear urine.

The woman was unsuccessful in starting the fire but drank the urine anyway, and then “continued walking uphill from the creek bed,” when she noticed the smoke and called for help.

Souverneva was asked to empty her pockets, which revealed a lighter, two CO2 cartridges, and an item “containing a green leafy substance she admitted to smoking that day.”

She was subsequently arrested and taken to Shasta County Jail. Souverneva pleaded not guilty, to which the judge responded by increasing her bail from $100,000 to $150,000. The Fawn Fire was at 45 percent containment on Sunday night.

U.S. Media News

New York Times, Investigative Commentary: Ozy Media and a $40 Million Conference Call Gone Wrong, Ben Smith, Sept. 27, 2021 (print ed.). A Goldman Sachs team joined a call with Ozy Media and YouTube. Things got weird, our media columnist Ben Smith writes, when they noticed a strange voice.

This past winter, Goldman Sachs was closing in on a $40 million investment in Ozy, a digital media company founded in 2013, and there seemed to be a lot of reasons to do the deal. Ozy boasted of a large audience for its general interest website, its newsletters and its videos, and the company had a charismatic chief executive, Carlos Watson, a onetime cable news anchor who had worked at Goldman Sachs early in his career. And, crucially, Ozy said it had a great relationship with YouTube, where many of its videos attracted more than a million views.

That’s what the Zoom videoconference on Feb. 2 that Ozy arranged between the Goldman Sachs asset management division and YouTube was supposed to be about. The scheduled participants included Alex Piper, the head of unscripted programming for YouTube Originals. He was running late and apologized to the Goldman Sachs team, saying he’d had trouble logging onto Zoom, and he suggested that the meeting be moved to a conference call, according to four people who were briefed on the meeting, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal details of a private discussion.

Washington Post, Russ Kick, writer, editor and ‘rogue transparency activist,’ dies at 52, Harrison Smith, Sept. 24, 2021. Russ Kick, a writer, editor and self-described “rogue transparency activist” who pried loose government records, using Freedom of Information Act requests to obtain overlooked documents and peek behind the curtain of official secrecy, died Sept. 12 at his home in Tucson. He was 52.

Driven in part by a distrust of authority and an obsession with trivia, he wrote news articles for the Village Voice and edited myth-busting books such as “You Are Being Lied To” (2001) and “Everything You Know Is Wrong” (2002), which brought together the voices of scholars and journalists — including Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky — to correct “media distortion, historical whitewashes and cultural myths.”

Mr. Kick’s work on a book series marked a temporary departure from some of his abiding interests: crusading against government secrecy and holding powerful people and institutions accountable.

Working largely on his own, without institutional support, Mr. Kick filed FOIA requests to obtain documents related to U.S. biological and chemical warfare programs, U.S. Border Patrol facilities, animal experimentation and a host of other issues. “Oftentimes it was those mundane requests that would be a critical resource years down the line,” said Michael Morisy, the co-founder and chief executive of MuckRock, a nonprofit news site where Mr. Kick had worked the past two years.

In an email interview, he added that Mr. Kick was “omnipresent” in the FOIA community, “the person you’d turn to every time there was a question about document arcana or the ins-and-outs of obscure filings.” Mr. Kick was also known as one of the first to regularly publish original documents in full, rather than to simply share quotes or transcriptions, according to Washington Post FOIA director Nate Jones

Daily Beast, Anti-Vax MAGA Cartoonist Says He’s Treating Severe COVID With Beet Juice, Jamie Ross, Sept. 27, 2021. Ben Garrison, the MAGA world cartoonist who has posted a load of anti-vax propaganda during the pandemic, says he’s come down with a bad case of COVID—and is turning to beet juice to save himself.

Garrison made a name for himself during the Trump years with viral cartoons that were heavy with conspiracy theories and depicted the exercise-avoiding ex-president as a hyper-masculine, square-jawed beefcake.

Speaking to Gizmodo, Garrison confirmed he and his wife have caught COVID and revealed his ineffectual self-treatment. “We’re taking Ivermectin and various vitamins including a lot of zinc,” Garrison said, who also revealed that he’s been guzzling beet juice. Unlike the vaccine, none of his named treatments have been proven to do anything to treat or prevent falling sick with the coronavirus. However, Garrison remains defiant in his views, saying: “We will never take their foul spike protein-producing jabs, which are neither safe nor effective. They’re not real vaccines.”

Sept. 26

Top Headlines

• Reuters, German Social Democrats beat conservatives in vote to decide Merkel successor,
• Washington Post, Germany Elections: Exit polls show dead heat in race to succeed Merkel
• New York Times, Live Updates: Germany Votes in an Election That Doesn’t Include Angela Merkel
• Washington Post, Biden’s $4 trillion agenda in peril with Democrats still at odds ahead of key House votes

Global Growth of Facism, Election Frauds

• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: International fascist collusion to overthrow the U.S. government, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, Election fraud, QAnon, Jan. 6: Extremists in Germany read from a pro-Trump script
• Washington Post, Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here, Robert Kagan
• Washington Post, Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret
• Washington Post, Report that found no evidence of fraud raises stakes for other GOP-backed ballot reviews
• Washington Post, Editorial: The nation faces financial calamity. Republicans will be to blame

Virus Victims, Responses

• Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s legacy of death, Robert Harrington
• New York Times, Editorial: This Is No Way to End a Pandemic
• Washington Post, Idaho morgues are running out of space for bodies as covid-19 deaths mount
• New York Times, ‘I Need an Army’: Across America, Schools Cram for Their Covid Tests
• Washington Post, Changes in booster shot guidance lead to confusion for doctors, patients
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 706,058
• Washington Post, 213.2 million U.S. vaccinated

U.S. Election Fraudsters, Insurrectionists, White Nationalists

• Washington Post, An elections supervisor embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat
• Washington Post, Opinion: Arizona’s election ‘audit’ comes up empty, but that won’t stop the lying, Karen Tumulty
• New York Times, Analysis: The “stop the steal” movement is racing forward, ignoring its Arizona humiliation
• Washington Post, Analysis: Arizona audit debunks Trump’s false claims, but misinformation still threatens electoral process, Dan Balz

World News

• Washington Post, How Afghanistan’s security forces lost the war
• New York Times, How Ukraine Negotiated With the Taliban and Rescued 96 Afghans

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• Washington Post, Opinion: Taxing the rich is super popular. Democrats should talk more about it, Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero
• New York Times, With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, Desperate Women Cross State Lines
• New York Times, Democrats Fear Failure to Deliver in Congress Could Be Fatal in Midterms
• Washington Post, Democrats lean into vaccine mandates, coronavirus response in Va. governor’s race
• Washington Post, Harris, assigned to tackle volatile issues, quietly builds a network

U.S. Courts, Crime, Law, Police

• Washington Post, Supreme Court observers see trouble ahead as public approval of justices erodes, Robert Barnes and Seung Min Kim
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Judge goes after Trump Organization in New York probe, Bill Palmer
• Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered. This was the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history. Few remember it, Dana Hedgpeth
• Washington Post, Thousands flee raging California Fawn fire as woman arrested with lighter in her pocket
• New York Times, He Taught Ancient Texts at Oxford. Now He Is Accused of Stealing Some

Top Stories

Reuters, German Social Democrats beat conservatives in vote to decide Merkel successor, Thomas Escritt and Paul Carrel, Sept. 26, 2021. Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel.

The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed, but both groups believed they could lead the next government.

With neither major bloc commanding a majority, and both reluctant to repeat their awkward "grand coalition" of the past four years, the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel's conservatives.

Agreeing a new coalition could take months, and will likely involve the smaller Greens and liberal Free Democrats (FDP).

"We are ahead in all the surveys now," the Social Democrats' chancellor candidate, Olaf Scholz, said in a round table discussion with other candidates after the vote.

"It is an encouraging message and a clear mandate to make sure that we get a good, pragmatic government for Germany," he added after earlier addressing jubilant SPD supporters.

The SPD's rise heralds a swing left for Germany and marks a remarkable comeback for the party, which has recovered some 10 points in support in just three months to improve on its 20.5% result in the 2017 national election.

Scholz, 63, right, would become the fourth post-war SPD chancellor after Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schroeder. Finance minister in Merkel's cabinet, he is a former mayor of Hamburg.

Scholz's conservative rival Armin Laschet, signalled his bloc was not ready yet to concede, though his supporters were subdued.

"It hasn't always been the first-placed party that provided the chancellor," Laschet, 60, told the round table. "I want a government where every partner is involved, where everyone is visible - not one where only the chancellor gets to shine," he said in an early attempt to woo smaller parties.

Schmidt ruled in the late 1970s and early 1980s in coalition with the FDP even though his Social Democrats had fewer parliamentary seats than the conservative bloc.

Washington Post, Germany Elections: Exit polls show dead heat in race to succeed Merkel, Loveday Morris, Rick Noack and Florian Neuhof, Sept. 26, 2021. Top parties neck and neck in German election, according to exit polls; Climate change a top concern for German voters, polls say.

Germany’s parliamentary elections are underway, and just one thing is certain: The era of Chancellor Angela Merkel, below, who has been in power for 16 years, is coming to an end. The race for her successor remains wide open. Two parties are battling it out on top: Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union and the center-left Social Democratic Party. The Greens appear behind in the polls but remain a big factor in possible post-election efforts to craft a coalition government.

New York Times, Live Updates: Germany Votes in an Election That Doesn’t Include Angela Merkel, Staff Reports, Sept. 26, 2021. The European Union’s most populous democracy chooses a new Parliament today in a ballot that will have global ramifications. Here’s the latest.

• Washington Post, Germany’s young ‘Merkel generation’ tilts toward Greens over climate worries. But will older voters follow?
  

 Washington Post, Biden’s $4 trillion agenda in peril with Democrats still at odds ahead of key House votes, Tony Romm, Sept. 26, 2021. The bickering continued as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) doubled down on her plan to bring two proposals -- one to improve infrastructure, another to advance trillions in long-sought party priorities -- to the full chamber in the days ahead.

Global Growth of Facism, Election Frauds

Proof, Investigation: Trump Lawyer Admits Trump's Legal Team Was Seeking An Emergency Injunction Against Certification of Biden's Win As Trump Incited a Riot to Delay the Joint Session of Congress, Seth Abramson, left, Sept. 26, 2021. New revelation confirms the actions of Trump's legal team in the Willard "war room"—whose occupants were in direct contact with Trump—were designed to dovetail with the violent attack on the Capitol.

Introduction: On March 10, 2021, Proof published an article entitled “Here Is the Twelve-Point Plan Donald Trump Had for January 6.” Based on two months of research relating to January 6, Proof concluded that Trump’s plan for January 6 was built on the following foundation....

In a new interview with far-right activist and propagandist Stew Peters, Powell admits that Trump’s legal team filed for an injunction against Congress in the first days of January.

Seth Abramson, shown above and at right, is founder of Proof and is a former criminal defense attorney and criminal investigator who teaches digital journalism, legal advocacy, and cultural theory at the University of New Hampshire. A regular political and legal analyst on CNN and the BBC during the Trump presidency, he is a best-selling author who has published eight books and edited five anthologies.

Abramson is a graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and the Ph.D. program in English at University of Wisconsin-Madison. His books include a Trump trilogy: Proof of Corruption: Bribery, Impeachment, and Pandemic in the Age of Trump (2020); Proof of Conspiracy: How Trump's International Collusion Is Threatening American Democracy (2019); and Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America (2018).

Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire wanted by the government of China for bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud and rape, is shown above with Trump ally and former 2016 campaign CEO Steve Bannon. Guo funds through his GTV Media Group conglomerate Bannon's "War Room" podcast and "Real America's Voice" Internet television broadcast and other propaganda supporting the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the overthrow of the the U.S. government, which is giving him political asylum in New York City and elsewhere.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: International fascist collusion to overthrow the U.S. government, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 26, 2021 (authorized for republication in an excerpt form after first pubication on Sept. 9 behind the paywall of the Wayne Madsen Report. The author is national security expert who has appeared on all but one major U.S. broadcast and cable news networks. He is a former Navy Intelligence Officer and NSA analyst, and author of 20 books, including the forthcoming, "The Rise of the Fascist Fourth Reich: The Era of Trumpism and the Far-Right."

Not since the planned 1934 fascist coup against the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt by various right-wing, fascist, and Nazi forces, backed by wealthy Wall Street interests, has the United States faced a coordinated plot by Americans and foreign interests to overthrow democracy in the United States.

In 1933 and 1934, the fascist coup planning, which was exposed by retired Marine Corps General Smedley Butler, were directly linked to Adolf Hitler's Germany, Benito Mussolini's Italy, and French Croix de Feu fascist political leaders. Groups supporting a coup against FDR included groups ranging from the pro-Mussolini American Legion to Nazi organizations like the Silver Legion of America, the German American Bund, Friends of New Germany, the Ku Klux Klan, the Sentinels of the Republic, and the Crusaders.

Today, substitute the government of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Chinese expatriate billionaire Guo Wengui, and groups like the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Boogaloo Bois, and Falun Gong, and you will see that history is merely repeating itself with different countries and groups involved in establishing a fascist dictatorship in America, Brazil, and other nations.

Steve Bannon's effort to create an international fascist movement, which is known as simply as "The Movement," has brought together Donald Trump loyalists with the Brazilian government of Bolsonaro and his family. Trump and Bolsonaro loyalists are actively attempting to corrupt and destroy the electoral underpinnings of democratic rule in the United States, Brazil, and third countries, for example, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and others.

Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo Bolsonaro, a member of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies, the Latin American leader of Bannon's Movement, and Trump's personal choice but failed nominee as Brazil's ambassador in Washington, was very active with the attempted January 6 coup attempt in Washington.

Eduardo Bolsonaro participated in an insurrection eve "War Council" held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC. Other participants in the war council included Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, Rudolph Giuliani, MyPillow's Mike Lindell, disgraced ex-National Security Adviser under trump Lt. General Michael Flynn, and lawyer Sidney Powell. Eduardo Bolsonaro also held a meeting at the White House on January 4 with Ivanka Trump and separately with expatriate Brazilian fascist political adviser and astrologer Olavo de Carvalho. Carvalho, who has been dubbed the "Rush Limbaugh" of Brazil, lives south of Richmond, Virginia in Dinwiddie County. Carvalho, a close associate of Bannon, is a "flat earther," climate change and Covid-19 pandemic denier, and anti-vaccine (anti-vaxx) proponent.

The House Select Committee on the January 6 insurrection would do well to cooperate with Brazilian Senator Jacques Wagner (PT-Bahia) of the Workers' Party of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Wagner is conducting a Senate investigation of Eduardo Bolsonaro's role in the January 6 coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol. Wagner asked the then-Brazilian Foreign Minister, Ernest Araujo, someone who has erroneously called Nazism a "leftist" movement, to answer eight questions [right] dealing with the roles played by Bolsonaro's son and the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, DC into the January 5 war council at the Trump hotel and additional meetings between Eduardo Bolsonaro and "several other members of the Republican Party."

Those who diminish the importance of the January 6 coup attempt by calling it a "riot" or a "violent protest" fail to understand that it is the subject of formal legislative investigations by the U.S. House and the Brazilian Senate. That fact, alone, points to the January 6 event being a vast international conspiracy.

Bannon's operations, including his own involvement in the January 6 insurrection, have been financed by Guo Wengui and Lindell, as well as previously by the multi-billionaire hedge fund father-daughter team of Robert and Rebekah Mercer.

On August 10, 2021, Eduardo Bolsonaro was back in the United States attending Lindell's kooky "cyber symposium" in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Bannon emceed the live-streamed symposium. Bolsonaro gave Lindell a "Make America Great Again" hat signed by Donald Trump. Bolsonaro said he had met Trump at his Bedminster, New Jersey on August 9 and Trump asked him to give the hat to Lindell. Bolsonaro gave a speech on how Brazil's election system was as "rigged" as that of the United States. Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly threatened that he might cancel the 2022 presidential election, which polls currently indicate that he would lose to the leftist Lula da Silva in a landslide.

Former Trump White House adviser Jason Miller, the CEO of the right-wing social media platform GETTR, participated in the September 3-4 Conservative Political Action Conference Brasil (CPAC Brasil) conference in Brasilia, the nation's capital. On September 7, Jair Bolsonaro urged tens of thousands of his supporters who gathered in Brasilia to storm the Brazilian Supreme Court and imprison the justices, including Alexandre de Moraes, who has been leading an investigation of President Bolsonaro and members of his family, including Eduardo, for corruption. Miller and his delegation met with Jair and Eduardo Bolsonaro in Brasilia.

The House January 6 committee should also invite Justice Moraes to share on a confidential basis any information he has gleaned on the Bolsonaros involvement with the attempted January 6 coup in Washington. Jair Bolsonaro has repeatedly threatened a military coup in Brazil to cement his rule over the country.

The Fourth Reich movement of Donald Trump and his fellow fascists is the focus of the forthcoming editor's book titled, "The Rise of the Fascist Fourth Reich: The Era of Trumpism and the Far-Right."

Washington Post, Election fraud, QAnon, Jan. 6: Extremists in Germany read from a pro-Trump script, Isaac Stanley-Becker, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). Apocalyptic messages circulating ahead of German elections on Sunday import conspiratorial rhetoric from the United States.

One message advocated “occupying election offices.”

Another warned of “coronavirus tyranny.”

And a third extolled former president Donald Trump and Q, the shadowy oracle of the extremist ideology QAnon, for inspiring a new social movement prepared to take back power from the state. “America is waking up and ready to fight,” it vowed.

The calls to action came not in anticipation of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol. Rather, they emerged this month in Germany, within a far-right group on the messaging app Telegram, where neo-Nazis and doomsday preppers foresee what’s known as “Day X” — the collapse of the German state and assassination of high-ranking officials.

Such apocalyptic messages — posted in the run-up to German elections on Sunday — import conspiratorial, anti-government rhetoric broadcast in the U.S., according to screenshots of the since-deleted chatroom reviewed by The Washington Post.

A crowd of Trump supporters surrounded a newly erected set of wooden gallows outside the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. "Hang Mike Pence!" members of the crowd shouted at times about the Republican Vice President who had announced that he could not comply with the president's call to block election certification that day. The wooden gallows near the Capitol Reflecting Pool

Washington Post, Opinion: Our constitutional crisis is already here, Robert Kagan, right, Brookings Institution fellow, best-selling author and former State Department official, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The United States is heading into its greatest political and constitutional crisis since the Civil War, with a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves. The warning signs may be obscured by the distractions of politics, the pandemic, the economy and global crises, and by wishful thinking and denial. But about these things there should be no doubt:

First, Donald Trump will be the Republican candidate for president in 2024. The hope and expectation that he would fade in visibility and influence have been delusional. He enjoys mammoth leads in the polls; he is building a massive campaign war chest; and at this moment the Democratic ticket looks vulnerable. Barring health problems, he is running.

Second, Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.

Meanwhile, the amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. An Arizona bill flatly states that the legislature may “revoke the secretary of state’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election” by a simple majority vote. Some state legislatures seek to impose criminal penalties on local election officials alleged to have committed “technical infractions,” including obstructing the view of poll watchers.

The stage is thus being set for chaos. Imagine weeks of competing mass protests across multiple states as lawmakers from both parties claim victory and charge the other with unconstitutional efforts to take power. Partisans on both sides are likely to be better armed and more willing to inflict harm than they were in 2020. Would governors call out the National Guard? Would President Biden nationalize the Guard and place it under his control, invoke the Insurrection Act, and send troops into Pennsylvania or Texas or Wisconsin to quell violent protests? Deploying federal power in the states would be decried as tyranny. Biden would find himself where other presidents have been — where Andrew Jackson was during the nullification crisis, or where Abraham Lincoln was after the South seceded — navigating without rules or precedents, making his own judgments about what constitutional powers he does and doesn’t have.

Today’s arguments over the filibuster will seem quaint in three years if the American political system enters a crisis for which the Constitution offers no remedy.

Most Americans — and all but a handful of politicians — have refused to take this possibility seriously enough to try to prevent it. As has so often been the case in other countries where fascist leaders arise, their would-be opponents are paralyzed in confusion and amazement at this charismatic authoritarian. They have followed the standard model of appeasement, which always begins with underestimation. The political and intellectual establishments in both parties have been underestimating Trump since he emerged on the scene in 2015. They underestimated the extent of his popularity and the strength of his hold on his followers; they underestimated his ability to take control of the Republican Party; and then they underestimated how far he was willing to go to retain power. The fact that he failed to overturn the 2020 election has reassured many that the American system remains secure, though it easily could have gone the other way — if Biden had not been safely ahead in all four states where the vote was close; if Trump had been more competent and more in control of the decision-makers in his administration, Congress and the states. As it was, Trump came close to bringing off a coup earlier this year. All that prevented it was a handful of state officials with notable courage and integrity, and the reluctance of two attorneys general and a vice president to obey orders they deemed inappropriate.

These were not the checks and balances the Framers had in mind when they designed the Constitution, of course, but Trump has exposed the inadequacy of those protections. The Founders did not foresee the Trump phenomenon, in part because they did not foresee national parties. They anticipated the threat of a demagogue, but not of a national cult of personality. They assumed that the new republic’s vast expanse and the historic divisions among the 13 fiercely independent states would pose insuperable barriers to national movements based on party or personality. “Petty” demagogues might sway their own states, where they were known and had influence, but not the whole nation with its diverse populations and divergent interests.

Such checks and balances as the Framers put in place, therefore, depended on the separation of the three branches of government, each of which, they believed, would zealously guard its own power and prerogatives. The Framers did not establish safeguards against the possibility that national-party solidarity would transcend state boundaries because they did not imagine such a thing was possible. Nor did they foresee that members of Congress, and perhaps members of the judicial branch, too, would refuse to check the power of a president from their own party.

Robert Kagan, author of the long column excerpted above, is the Stephen & Barbara Friedman Senior Fellow with the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He is a contributing columnist at the Washington Post. His new book is The Jungle Grows Back: America and Our Imperiled World” (Knopf, 2018). He previously wrote the New York Times bestseller, The World America Made (Knopf, 2012), as well as other books about history and global affairs.

For his writings, Politico Magazine named Kagan one of the “Politico 50” in 2016, the “thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2016.” His most recent pieces include The Twilight of the Liberal World Order” in “Brookings Big Ideas for America” and “Backing into World War III in Foreign Policy. He served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988 as a member of the policy planning staff, as principal speechwriter for Secretary of State George P. Shultz, and as deputy for policy in the Bureau of Inter-American Affairs. He is married to longtime State Department official Victoria Nuland and holds a doctorate in American history from American University.

Washington Post, Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret, Drew Harwell, Hannah Allam, Jeremy B. Merrill and Craig Timberg, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The colossal hack of Epik, an Internet-services company popular with the far right, has been called the “mother of all data lodes” for extremism researchers. In the real world, Joshua Alayon worked as a real estate agent in Pompano Beach, Fla., where he used the handle “SouthFloridasFavoriteRealtor” to urge buyers on Facebook to move to “the most beautiful State.”

But online, data revealed by the massive hack of Epik, an Internet-services company popular with the far right, signaled a darker side. Alayon’s name and personal details were found on invoices suggesting he had once paid for websites with names such as racisminc.com, whitesencyclopedia.com, christiansagainstisrael.com and theholocaustisfake.com.

The information was included in a giant trove of hundreds of thousands of transactions published this month by the hacking group Anonymous that exposed previously obscure details of far-right sites and launched a race among extremism researchers to identify the hidden promoters of online hate.

After Alayon’s name appeared in the breached data, his brokerage, Travers Miran Realty, dropped him as an agent, as first reported by the real estate news site Inman. The brokerage’s owner, Rick Rapp, told The Washington Post that he didn’t “want to be involved with anyone with thoughts or motives like that.”

Alayon told The Post that he does not own the ‘racisminc,’ Holocaust-denial or other Web addresses but declined to say if he had owned them in the past; the records were hacked earlier this year. But in a screenshot of his Epik account, which he sent to The Post, the information for four other domains he currently owns matches the private records that can be found in the Epik breach.

Asked why his name, email address and other personal information were listed in company invoices for the ‘racisminc’ and Holocaust-denial domains, Alayon said the data was “easily falsifiable,” that he was the possible victim of extortion and that The Post was “fake news.”

The breach of Epik’s internal records has cast a spotlight on a long-hidden corner of the Internet’s underworld, and researchers expect it could take months before they can process the full cache — the equivalent of tens of millions of pages. Many are digging for information on who owns and administers extremist domains about which little was previously known.

Epik, based outside Seattle, said in a data-breach notice filed with Maine’s attorney general this week that 110,000 people had been affected nationwide by having their financial account and credit card numbers, passwords and security codes exposed. An earlier data-breach letter from the company, filed to comply with Montana law, was signed by the “Epic Security Team,” misspelling the company’s name. An Epik spokesperson said it was a simple typo.

Washington Post, Editorial: The nation faces financial calamity. Republicans will be to blame, Editorial Board, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The White House on Thursday instructed federal agencies to prepare for an imminent government shutdown, in case Congress fails to pass a stopgap funding bill by Sept. 30. Government shutdowns are expensive and disruptive, and they deservedly sully the nation’s image and sense of self-respect. But at this point a lapse in government services should be the least of Americans’ worries. The nation faces an epochal financial disaster if Congress fails to raise the debt limit, forcing the country to default on its obligations and inviting a global financial panic.

If that happens, there will be no doubt about who is at fault: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), left, and his Republican caucus, who are playing games with the full faith and credit of the United States.

Democrats joined with Republicans to suspend the debt ceiling during the Trump administration. But Mr. McConnell suddenly declares that the majority is solely responsible for performing this unattractive task, even though he pioneered the routine use of the filibuster to force any and all Senate legislation to overcome a 60-vote threshold. With only 50 votes, and Republicans unwilling to lift a finger to avoid financial calamity, Democrats’ only option would be to use the arcane “reconciliation” procedure. Senate experts believe this would be possible, but it would require a couple of weeks of complex parliamentary maneuvering and some Republican cooperation in the Senate Budget Committee. Meanwhile, the treasury is on the verge of running out of money.

Other than sticking it to Democrats, what is the point? Using reconciliation, Democrats would have to raise the debt limit by a specific dollar amount, not just suspend it for a time, as Republicans did under President Donald Trump. This would enable Republicans to run attack ads blasting Democrats for expanding the debt by some large, specific number. Never mind that raising the debt limit does not approve any new spending; it merely permits the treasury to finance the spending Congress already has okayed.

Virus Victims, Responses

Palmer Report, Opinion: Donald Trump’s legacy of death, Robert Harrington (self-portrait by the author, a professional artist, at right), Sept. 26, 2021. The whim of a sufficiently powerful but lazy, stupid and transactional narcissist can sometimes make or break the world. On the day of Donald Trump’s first public utterance about Covid-19, January 22, 2020, he said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from Chy-na. It’s going to be just fine.”

He decided to understate and minimize the danger of it. It was a foregone conclusion that the rabid gaggle of cretins we sometimes more charitably refer to as his base would follow him in lockstep — like a division of Schutzstaffel following Hitler at a Nuremberg rally. His every pronouncement on the topic quickly ossified into Holy Writ.

That was bad news for the world, because now we are all in one hell of a mess. There are now more than 700,000 dead from coronavirus in the United States alone. American deaths comprise 14.82% of all Covid-19 deaths worldwide even though Americans represent only 4.25% of the total population of the world. What’s more, America is home to 9.8 million active Covid cases which is more than all the Covid cases in all the countries of the world — combined.

Let me just say that again in case you missed it. America has more active Covid cases than the rest of the world. Combined. Put another way, 52% of all Covid cases worldwide are American cases. To a large extent you can thank Donald Trump and his cavalier, slipshod, deceitful, mixed message way of dealing with this horrible, deadly disease.

Trump found a way to influence some Americans to approach the outbreak of the worldwide pandemic in a way that is uniquely Trumpian, uniquely wrong. He taught some Americans to disdain and mock people for wearing masks. He ridiculed Joe and Jill Biden for wearing masks out in the open air, as if wearing a mask for a second longer than necessary is some great crime against humanity that should not be tolerated, when in actuality taking masks off too early or not wearing them at all is the real crime, because it’s killing people. He promoted crackpot remedies so quack treatments became a priority over prevention. When he got vaccinated he did so in secret, as if it was something to be ashamed of.

It’s ironic when you stop to think about it. People are being abused for the innocuous act of wearing a mask and getting vaccinated, which harms no one but helps everyone, and sometime next year a million Americans will be dead because many of them didn’t wear a mask and didn’t get vaccinated. It’s an outrageous misapplication of common sense so infuriating it’s almost impossible to believe it can really happen in a world of big-brained, rational mammals. But there it is.

Coronavirus will soon become endemic to the world. Coronavirus is getting more time to mutate because many of us have volunteered to provide it with the necessary time to do so. There is absolutely nothing stopping the virus from becoming, say, 10 times more contagious and 50 times more deadly, aside from our bafflingly persistent good luck.

Another great irony is that virtually all of the anger and outrage and bellicose complaining is coming from the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers responsible for our misery and death, as if it is they and not us who are being put upon. I think we need to start shouting them down. I think we need to start out-complaining them. I think it’s time to make vaccines and the wearing of masks mandatory — and never mind the phoney cries of fascism and counterfeit claims of violations of Constitutional rights.

We owe much if not most of our frightful predicament to the world’s most ludicrous man, a man that a bunch of ludicrous people elected president of the United States. It’s beyond belief how stupid some people can be, and some of us reading (and even writing) these words may one day die of their stupidity. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.

New York Times, Editorial: This Is No Way to End a Pandemic, Editorial Board, Sept. 26, 2021. A year ago, before any Covid vaccine had been authorized for use, former President Donald Trump all but promised that a shot would be available before Election Day. When Food and Drug Administration regulators suggested that he was mistaken, he accused them of deliberately slow-walking their authorizations in an attempt to influence the coming election — and threatened to override them.

At least some segments of the public were outraged: It was not the first time Mr. Trump had interfered with the agency, and health officials warned that his careless remarks would undermine vaccine confidence. The F.D.A. responded forcefully, tightening its review criteria and communicating directly with the public about the changes. The agency’s commissioner, Dr. Stephen Hahn, engaged in a standoff with the president who appointed him, and in the end, public safety was placed above political expedience.

This year, it’s President Biden who has gotten ahead of the F.D.A., announcing a plan to make Covid booster shots available to all vaccinated Americans long before the agency finished its evaluations of the nation’s three authorized vaccines. Rather than push back against this maneuver, acting F.D.A. Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock endorsed it. Two of the agency’s top vaccine regulators resigned in protest, taking with them a wealth of knowledge and experience that will be both urgently needed and difficult to replace in the months ahead.

The kerfuffle has once again undermined an agency that is supposed to be the regulatory gold standard not just in the United States but around the world.

To be sure, the F.D.A. is not the only entity grappling with confusion and contradiction. The world’s largest vaccine makers say they will soon have enough shots to inoculate just about the entire global population, but they can’t seem to get those doses to the lower-income countries that need them most. The leaders of the world’s richest countries, including the United States, say they are committed to global vaccine equity and have collectively pledged to donate hundreds of millions of doses to lower-income countries. But it is not entirely clear how those countries’ current or projected supplies measure up against their promises to share.

The case for Mr. Biden’s booster program is shaky. Most doctors agree that the additional shot makes sense for older and immunocompromised people, who face a higher risk of serious illness if they suffer a breakthrough infection. Yet the data suggests and experts have argued that hardly any hospitalizations or deaths will be prevented by giving boosters to other groups like frontline workers, because their risk is so low to begin with. Still, health officials across the country report that people are clamoring for boosters, and according to data from the C.D.C., more than a million people have already gotten one — in many cases by lying about their vaccination status, experts say.

Washington Post, Idaho morgues are running out of space for bodies as covid-19 deaths mount, Derek Hawkins, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The dire situation in Idaho, one of the least-vaccinated states in the country, is another grisly illustration of what happens when a state fails to contain infections.

New York Times, ‘I Need an Army’: Across America, Schools Cram for Their Covid Tests, Emily Anthes and Sabrina Imbler, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). Some districts have established robust virus testing programs, but many others are struggling.

Washington Post, Changes in booster shot guidance lead to confusion for doctors, patients, Carissa Wolf, Frances Stead Sellers, Ashley Cusick and Kim Mueller, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The muddle came to a head with this week’s showdown between the CDC’s advisers and its director. Health care providers are now trying to get answers to patients’ questions — and their own.

Even in Idaho, which has one of the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates in the country, clinics have been gearing up for an onslaught of calls and emails requesting booster shots.

Administrators at the Primary Health Medical Group updated their website Thursday and then set about redoing it Friday, when government eligibility recommendations for boosters suddenly changed to include workers in high-risk jobs. Even then, the clinic’s CEO had to figure out which occupations that meant.

“Who’s at high risk? I had to look it up. Is it firemen? I don’t know,” said David Peterman. “This is so confusing to the public and creates mistrust. And we can’t have that right now. Right now, we need the public to say, ‘let’s get vaccinated.’ And for those that need boosters, we need to say, ‘that this is safe, and this is what we need to do.’”

Confusion over boosters, which has been brewing for months, heightened over the past week as government regulators and advisers met to hash out the pros and cons of doling out third doses.

Hours of meetings culminated in a showdown Thursday: The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory group narrowed the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation for who should get a third Pfizer shot, only to be overruled in a late-night announcement by the CDC director: Along with Americans 65 and older, nursing home residents and people ages 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions that the advisory panel had suggested should get shots, Rochelle Walensk, left, added the people in high-risk jobs.

“It’s a communications crisis,” said Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who received worried calls Thursday evening from health care workers who thought they would not be eligible for the shots, followed by messages Friday from colleagues wondering when and where to get them.

• New York Times, C.D.C. Chief Overrules Panel; Recommends Pfizer Booster for Workers at Risk
• Washington Post, Pfizer booster now available to older Americans and those at higher-risk, Lena H. Sun and Laurie McGinley

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 26, 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: 232,397,750, Deaths: 4,759,359
U.S. Cases:     43,725,604, Deaths:    706,058
India Cases:     33,652,745, Deaths:    446,948
Brazil Cases:    21,343,304, Deaths:    594,246

 Washington Post, At least 213.2 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 26, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 183.4 million people, 54.8 percent of the eligible population, 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.

U.S. Election Fraudsters, Insurrectionists, White Nationalists

Washington Post, An elections supervisor embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat, Emma Brown, Sept. 26, 2021. Mesa County, Colo., Clerk Tina Peters is accused of sneaking an unauthorized person into her office to make copies of Dominion voting-machine hard drives — copies that later ended up online and in the hands of conspiracy theorists.

Washington Post, Opinion: Arizona’s election ‘audit’ comes up empty, but that won’t stop the lying, Karen Tumulty, right, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The conspiracy-theory-addled farce of an election “audit” in Arizona has come up empty. Or rather, after rummaging through 2.1 million ballots cast last year in the state, the Republican-led effort confirmed that President Biden won Maricopa County, the state’s largest, and came up with a victory margin for him there that was even greater than the official tally.

All of this came after six months in which Republican leaders of the Arizona state Senate commissioned an obscure Florida firm called Cyber Ninjas to do a hand recount of ballots, analyze voter registration rolls and inspect county tabulating machines. Their bizarre techniques included examining the paper on which ballots were printed for signs of bamboo fibers that might lend substance to a groundless theory that fake ballots had been flown in from South Korea. Most of Cyber Ninjas’ $5.7 million project was funded by private organizations that have perpetuated the myth of rampant voter fraud.

Were we living in a more rational time, this confirmation that Arizona’s official results were on the up and up would help put to rest the toxic lie that the 2020 election was stolen from former president Donald Trump. That falsehood has become an article of faith with a GOP base that remains in his thrall; in a recent CNN poll, nearly 6 in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said that “believing that Donald Trump won the 2020 election” was very or somewhat important to them.

Evidence produced by Trump’s own allies that the electoral system is sound would not come as good news to these people. Nor are the findings in Arizona likely to deter similar “audits” in other states that Trump lost — among them, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

• New York Times, Analysis: The “stop the steal” movement is racing forward, ignoring its Arizona humiliation

World News

Washington Post, How Afghanistan’s security forces lost the war, Susannah George, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). Building Afghanistan’s national security forces was one of the most ambitious and expensive aspects of two decades of U.S.-led war. The United States spent billions of dollars training and equipping police, soldiers and special forces. But it resulted in failure.

New York Times, How Ukraine Negotiated With the Taliban and Rescued 96 Afghans, Michael Schwirtz, Electronically featured on Sept. 26, 2021. One of few countries willing to fly rescue missions into Afghanistan since the U.S. left, it says it has a different definition of danger.

U.S. Politics, Governance

Washington Post, Opinion: Taxing the rich is super popular. Democrats should talk more about it, Jennifer Rubin, Sept. 26, 2021. Understandably, President Biden has focused his speeches about the reconciliation package on the legislation’s spending items. After all, subsidized child care (or free, for low-income Americans), paid family leave, universal pre-K and the like are all very popular with the public.

But just as popular, if not more so, are tax hikes on the super-rich and major corporations. It is no coincidence that Biden has begun to put more emphasis on the tax side of the equation, revealing Republicans’ populism to be utterly insincere. Indeed, a Pew Research Center poll released Thursday showed 61 percent favor tax hikes on the wealthy while only 49 percent favor the spending items in the reconciliation bill.

Washington Post, Democrats lean into vaccine mandates, coronavirus response in Va. governor’s race, Karina Elwood, Sept. 26, 2021. Democrat Terry McAuliffe plans to focus on his approval, and Republican opponent Glenn Youngkin’s disapproval, of vaccine and other pandemic-related mandates in the final weeks of the race for Virginia governor.

Washington Post, Analysis: Arizona audit debunks Trump’s false claims, but misinformation still threatens electoral process, Dan Balz, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). Another door slammed shut Friday on the ceaseless and fraudulent campaign by Donald Trump to claim fraud about the 2020 election.

The fact that the door closed will not stop Trump from continuing to make his baseless claims about last year’s vote. It should but probably won’t chasten Republican leaders who have refused to fully face up to the consequences of what Trump is doing.

The consequences are the threat to future elections. The consequences are the danger that future close elections will be subjected to similar false claims that inspire more doubts about the integrity of the vote and more disputed outcomes. The consequences are the distinct risk that partisanship will be routinely injected into the counting of votes. The idea that it can’t happen here should be tossed aside if Trump and his acolytes maintain their current course, which they will.

New York Times, Democrats Fear Failure to Deliver in Congress Could Be Fatal in Midterms, Jonathan Martin, Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The inability of moderates and progressives to reach a deal could fuel Republican attacks and result in consequences as soon as November in Virginia.

With President Biden’s approval ratings falling below 50 percent after the most trying stretch of his young administration, pushing through his ambitious legislative agenda has taken on a new urgency for Democratic lawmakers.

Recognizing that a president’s popularity is the best indicator for how his party will fare in the midterm elections, Democrats are confronting a stark prospect: If Mr. Biden doesn’t succeed in the halls of Congress this fall, it could doom his party’s majorities at the polls next fall.

Not that such a do-or-die dilemma is itself sufficient to stop Democrats’ intraparty squabbling, which the president on Friday termed a “stalemate.” Divisions between moderates and liberals over the substance, the price tag and even the legislative timing of Mr. Biden’s twin priorities, a bipartisan public works bill and broader social welfare legislation, could still undermine the proposals.

But it is increasingly clear to Democratic officials that beyond fully taming the still-raging pandemic, the only way Mr. Biden can rebound politically — and the party can retain its tenuous grip on power in the Capitol — is if he and they are able to hold up tangible achievements to voters.

New York Times, With Abortion Largely Banned in Texas, Desperate Women Cross State Lines, Sabrina Tavernise, Sept. 26, 2021. As the new law prohibits abortions at a very early stage of pregnancy, many women are now traveling out of state for the procedure.

Washington Post, Harris, assigned to tackle volatile issues, quietly builds a network, Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Sept. 26, 2021 (print ed.). The role has allowed her to establish independence from a Biden administration that has disappointed many activists.

Other U.S. Political Headlines

• Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero
• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic

U.S. Courts, Crime, Law, Police

Palmer Report, Opinion: Judge goes after Trump Organization in New York probe, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 26, 2021. Since late 2019 it’s been clear that New York authorities are aiming to put Donald Trump and others in prison for their financial crimes, while also pulling the plug on the Trump Organization for being nothing more than a front for those financial crimes.

Earlier this year the New York Attorney General signed on to the Manhattan District Attorney’s criminal probe, which has since resulted in criminal indictments against the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg – with bigger name indictments certainly to follow. But the New York Attorney General is also still probing the Trump Organization on a civil level, and that case is finally coming to a head.

As is generally the case with these kinds of investigations, the Trump Organization has been doing everything it can to delay turning over incriminating documents to the New York Attorney General. But now the Washington Post says that a judge has stepped in and ordered the Trump Organization to immediately comply, or else the Attorney General’s office will be allowed to go in and search the documents and take whatever it wants.

This sets up a no-win situation for those running the Trump Organization. If they turn over the documents, they’ll incriminate themselves. If they refuse to turn over the documents, the New York Attorney General will just come in and take them anyway. And if Trump Organization people destroy the documents, they risk going down for felony obstruction of justice. Keep in mind that in these scenarios, prosecutors often already have copies of at least some of the documents in question, making it easy for them to determine whether anything has been omitted or destroyed.

Keep in mind that while the judge’s order only applies to the civil probe, any criminal evidence that’s uncovered can be turned into a criminal matter. We’ve already seen the New York Attorney General do precisely that with other aspects of this case. So if the documents in question end up proving criminal acts, it’ll translate to more criminal indictments. Then again, cooperating witnesses like Michael Cohen have publicly confirmed that New York already has enough evidence to criminally indict Trump anyway – so these documents would only serve to help pile on.

Washington Post, Supreme Court observers see trouble ahead as public approval of justices erodes, Robert Barnes and Seung Min Kim, Sept. 26, 2021. The Supreme Court’s approval rating is plummeting, its critics are more caustic, and justices are feeling compelled to plead the case to the public that they are judicial philosophers, not politicians in robes.

All of this as the court embarks Oct. 4 on one of the most potentially divisive terms in years. Docketed cases concern gun control, separation of church and state, and the biggest showdown in decades on the future of Roe v. Wade and the constitutional right to an abortion.

Meanwhile, a presidential commission studying the court is being bombarded with criticism from the left, and occasionally the right, that the justices are too political, too powerful and serve for too long.

Justices say they have philosophical — not partisan — differences

Even those who value the court see trouble ahead.

“Not since Bush v. Gore has the public perception of the court’s legitimacy seemed so seriously threatened,” the Georgetown Supreme Court Institute’s executive director, Irv Gornstein, said last week at a preview of the court’s upcoming term.

A Gallup poll released last week said Americans’ opinions of the Supreme Court have dropped to a new low, with only 40 percent approving of the justices’ job performance. “At this point, less than a majority of Republicans, Democrats and independents approve of the job the court is doing,” said Gallup, which has been tracking the trend since 2000.

A recent survey by Marquette University Law School documented the same dramatic drop. Its numbers showed public approval sliding from 60 percent in July to 49 percent in September.

In recent weeks, three justices — the newest, Amy Coney Barrett, the most senior, conservative Clarence Thomas, and liberal Stephen G. Breyer — have defended in speeches and interviews the court’s decision-making and independence.

Washington Post, RetropolisThe Past, Rediscovered. This was the worst slaughter of Native Americans in U.S. history. Few remember it, Dana Hedgpeth, Sept. 26, 2021. The Bear River Massacre of 1863 near what’s now Preston, Idaho, left roughly 350 members of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation dead, making it the bloodiest — and most deadly — slaying of Native Americans by the U.S. military, according to historians and tribal leaders.

The Indians were slain after soldiers came into a valley where they were camping for the winter and attacked, leaving roughly 90 women and children among the dead.

The death toll, historians say, exceeded some of the country’s most horrific Indian slayings, including the 1864 slaying at Colorado’s Sand Creek, where 130 Cheyennes were killed. And the death count was nearly double the roughly 150 Sioux killed at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, four days after Christmas in 1890.

Washington Post, Thousands flee raging California Fawn fire as woman arrested with lighter in her pocket, Ellen Francis, Sept. 26, 2021. Workers at a quarry in Shasta County said they saw the woman, who is suspected of arson, trespassing.

Thousands of people have fled their homes to escape a wildfire engulfing a forest in California’s north, which authorities believe was sparked deliberately.

Police have arrested a 30-year-old woman on charges of igniting the Fawn fire. Workers at a quarry in Shasta County said they saw the woman trespassing last Wednesday before the fire erupted in a remote canyon, according to Cal Fire, the state’s forestry and fire protection department.

As firefighters battled the flames through the night, she walked out of the shrubs toward them, looking for medical help, the statement issued Thursday said.

New York Times, He Taught Ancient Texts at Oxford. Now He Is Accused of Stealing Some, Colin Moynihan, Electronically featured on Sept. 26, 2021. Hobby Lobby, the craft chain that helped build a collection for the Museum of the Bible, has sued Dirk Obbink, asserting he sold it stolen artifacts.

He had impeccable credentials. No one disputes that.

Dirk Obbink was an esteemed lecturer at the University of Oxford. He had received a MacArthur Foundation grant in 2001 for his work with papyrus, and held a prominent post helping to run the Oxyrhynchus Papyri — the world’s largest collection of ancient papyri, held by the Egypt Exploration Society and housed at Oxford’s Sackler Library.

So roughly a decade ago when the craft shop chain Hobby Lobby began to build a collection of ancient artifacts related to the Bible, it made sense to touch base with Obbink.

Hobby Lobby’s president, Steve Green, was leading an effort to create a national museum that focused on the Bible. So between 2010 and 2013, the chain says it paid about $7 million dollars to Obbink for seven batches of antiquities including ancient papyri with New Testament writings.

Some of those artifacts, according to the Exploration Society, would end up at the Museum of the Bible, which opened in Washington four years ago.

Now, Hobby Lobby is suing Obbink, saying that 32 items it bought from him were stolen from the Exploration Society, which identified some of those artifacts as having come from its collection at Oxford.

Obbink has yet to respond to the lawsuit, which was filed in federal court in Brooklyn. Lawyers for the chain said they recently served the papers on a houseboat on the Weirs Mill Stream near the River Thames, where he was thought to be living.

Sept. 25

Top Headlines

• Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero
• Washington Post, Report that found no evidence of fraud raises stakes for other GOP-backed ballot reviews
• New York Times, U.S. Reaches Agreement to Release Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou
• Washington Post, China frees Canada’s ‘two Michaels’, jailed for more than 1,000 days, after Huawei’s Meng cuts deal with U.S.
• Washington Post, Dying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week. In South America, the climate future has arrived
• New York Times, C.D.C. Chief Overrules Panel; Recommends Pfizer Booster for Workers at Risk
• Washington Post, Draft report of GOP-backed ballot review in Arizona confirms Biden’s win

Virus Victims, Responses

• New York Times, ‘I Need an Army’: Across America, Schools Cram for Their Covid Tests
• New York Times, States Begin a Complex Booster Shot Rollout for Pfizer Recipients
• Washington Post, Changes in booster shot guidance lead to confusion for doctors, patients
• Washington Post, Doctor who has lost over 100 patients to covid says some deny virus from their deathbeds: ‘I don’t believe you’
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 705,293
• Washington Post, 213.2 million U.S. vaccinated

U.S. Election Fraudsters, Insurrectionists, White Nationalists

• Washington Post, Opinion: Arizona’s election ‘audit’ comes up empty, but that won’t stop the lying, Karen Tumulty
• New York Times, Analysis: The “stop the steal” movement is racing forward, ignoring its Arizona humiliation
• Washington Post, Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret
• New York Times, Among Those Who Marched Into the Capitol on Jan. 6: An F.B.I. Informant

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• World Crisis Radio, Opinion: Arizona election fraudit by cyber-nimrods ends in humiliating fiasco, Webster G. Tarpley
• Washington Post, Sen. Grassley, the oldest GOP senator at 88, announces he will seek another term
• Palmer Report, Opinion: The real reason Chuck Grassley is seeking reelection yet again, Jesse Green
• Washington Post, Rep. Karen Bass plans to announce run for mayor of Los Angeles
• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: The U.S. is the only major nation that numbers its legislative districts rather than naming them, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, Live Political Updates: Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Citing ‘Inhumane’ Deportations
• New York Times, Regulators Racing Toward First Major Rules on Cryptocurrency
• Palmer Report, Opinion: The real reason Donald Trump is going after Mary Trump, Bill Palmer
• New York Times, Arizona’s Criticized Election Review Nears End, but Copycats Are Coming
• Palmer Report, Opinion: The January 6th Committee subpoenas have gone out – and yes, they’re going to succeed, Bill Palmer
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Covid and Trumpism lead to coups and rumors of coups, Wayne Madsen

World News

• New York Times, Rebuking Biden, Iran’s Chief Diplomat Demands More Sanctions Relief
• New York Times, To Get Back Executive, China Brandishes a Hardball Tactic: Seizing Foreigners
• New York Times, Days Before Vote, Merkel Is Where She Didn’t Want to Be: On the Stump
• Washington Post, Germany’s far-right stokes new grievances for voters: Masks rules and vaccine mandates
• New York Times, Live Business Updates: China Declares All Cryptocurrency Transactions Illegal
• New York Times, A Dangerous Scramble to Evacuate Afghan Nonprofit Workers
• Washington Post, As the Taliban bars some girls from school, their mothers’ dreams are also shattered
• Washington Post, A Taliban founder says cutting off hands as punishment will be ‘necessary for security’
• New York Times, Afghan Uyghurs Fear Deportation as Taliban Cozy Up to China
• New York Times, Thousands of Haitians Allowed to Stay in U.S. as Texas Camp Clears Out
• New York Times, Europe Tightens Purse Strings to Try to Pressure Poland and Hungary
• New York Times, Thousands of Boko Haram Members Surrendered. They Moved In Next Door
• Washington Post, White House blames Boris Johnson after U.S. press corps denied opportunity to ask questions

Top Stories

Washington Post, Biden defends his social agenda bill, saying the cost will be zero, Seung Min Kim and Tony Romm, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). The president argued that the cost of the package — composed of significant investments in health care, climate, education and the social safety net — will be offset by tax hikes on the wealthy and big corporations.

President Biden promised Friday that his sweeping domestic agenda package will cost “nothing” because Democrats will pay for it through tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations, a show of confidence despite the struggles of congressional Democrats to bridge internal divisions on myriad issues.

The remarks were an attempt by Biden to assuage some of the cost concerns pointedly expressed by the moderate Democrats about the size of the legislation — composed of significant investments in health care, climate, education and the social safety net — as the bill’s fate teeters on Capitol Hill.

The total spending outlined in the plan is $3.5 trillion, but moderates such as Sens. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) have said they will not support so high a figure. Support from both senators is needed because the Senate’s 50-50 split means every Democrat must back the bill for it to pass.

On Friday, Biden made the case, one his top aides began pushing last week, that the ultimate price tag will be nothing, because Democrats will pay for their expansive package with sources of revenue that are popular with voters.

“It is zero price tag on the debt we’re paying. We’re going to pay for everything we spend,” Biden said in remarks from the State Dining Room at the White House.

Biden also faced broader questions from reporters about his administration’s struggle to contend with a range of issues, from the Afghanistan pullout to Haitian immigration to a potential government shutdown. The president said he had inherited crises both foreseen and unforeseen, and he counseled patience.

“There’s a lot, I’m sure, along the line that there are things I could have done better,” Biden said. “But I make no apologies for my proposals, how I’m proceeding and why I think by the end of the year, we’re going to be in a very different place.”

• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic

Washington Post, Report that found no evidence of fraud raises stakes for other GOP-backed ballot reviews, Amy Gardner, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.).  Arizona ballot review commissioned by Republicans reaffirms Biden’s win. A GOP-commissioned report that did not find evidence fraud tainted Arizona’s 2020 election has intensified the fight over similar partisan ballot reviews in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, with former president Donald Trump pressing for such examinations and Democrats stepping up their efforts to block them.

The outcome of the GOP-backed recount in Maricopa County, Ariz., which concluded that President Biden won the state’s largest county by even more votes than the certified results, raises the stakes for the Republican leaders who have gone along with Trump’s demands for “forensic audits” in other states.

While no evidence of widespread fraud has emerged, they have pushed forward at a potential cost of millions in taxpayer dollars — and the risk of further eroding public confidence in U.S. elections, particularly among their own voters.

“Eventually, you have to find fraud, and they haven’t,” said Rohn Bishop, the county GOP chairman in Fond du Lac, Wis., and a frequent critic of Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen. “Are we going to be a serious political party that tries to win an election, or are we going to keep talking about these kooky, fringe audits?”

• Washington Post, Texas secretary of state’s office announces audit of 2020 election results after Trump calls for one
• Washington Post, House Jan. 6 panel issues subpoenas for Meadows, Scavino, others, Tom Hamburger, Jacqueline Alemany and Carol D. Leonnig
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The billionaire wanted by China who funded insurrection propaganda and a near Sino-U.S. nuclear war, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown

New York Times, U.S. Reaches Agreement to Release Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou, Katie Benner and Dan Bilefsky, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). Ms. Wanzhou will return to China in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing in a sanctions violation case, a person familiar with the deal said.

The Justice Department has reached an agreement that will allow Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, to return to China in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing in a sanctions violation case, a person familiar with the deal said on Friday.

Ms. Meng, who has been detained in Canada since 2018, has agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement that is expected to be entered in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday afternoon.

Ms. Meng will ad­mit to some wrong­do­ing, and federal prosecutors will defer and then ultimately drop the charges against her, the person said. ­As part of the agreement, she will not enter a guilty plea.

The Canadian authorities arrested Ms. Meng, 49, the technology giant’s chief financial officer, in December 2018 at Vancouver International Airport, at the request of the United States. Ms. Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, instantly became one of the world’s most famous detainees.

The Justice Department indicted Ms. Meng and Huawei, the telecom company founded by her father, Ren Zhengfei, in January 2018. It accused the firm and its chief financial officer of a decade-long effort to steal trade secrets, obstruct a criminal investigation and evade economic sanctions on Iran.

The charges underscored efforts by the Trump administration to directly link Huawei with the Chinese government, after long suspecting that the company worked to advance Beijing’s economic and political ambitions and undermine American interests.

Her arrest had thrust Canada into the middle of a battle between two global superpowers.

The deal to release Ms. Meng could signal a more conciliatory approach in Washington’s stance toward Beijing under the Biden administration.

If it leads to the release of two Canadians imprisoned in China, it could also provide a lift to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who was re-elected this week with a minority government after calling an unpopular snap election. Mr. Trudeau’s inability to secure their freedom has cast a shadow over his premiership.

China detained the two imprisoned Canadians, the former diplomat Michael Kovrig and the businessman Michael Spavor, soon after Ms. Meng’s arrest, in what has been widely viewed in Canada as hostage diplomacy. In August, a court in northeastern China, where Mr. Spavor has lived, sentenced him to 11 years in prison after declaring him guilty of spying.

Washington Post, China frees Canada’s ‘two Michaels’, jailed for more than 1,000 days, after Huawei’s Meng cuts deal with U.S., Amanda Coletta, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). The two Canadians imprisoned in China for 1,020 days in what Western officials decried a blatant display of “hostage diplomacy” have been released from prison and are “on their way home,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday.

The release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — known here as the “two Michaels” — came hours after Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies, reached a deal with the U.S. Justice Department that allowed her to return to China in exchange for acknowledging some wrongdoing in a criminal case.

Canadian officials arrested Meng, 49, in Vancouver in December 2018, at the behest of U.S. officials who sought her extradition on bank and wire fraud charges related to allegations that she misled a bank about Huawei’s relationship with a subsidiary in Iran. Several days later, China detained Kovrig and Spavor in what was widely seen as tit-for-tat retaliation — and sent ties between Ottawa and Beijing into a sharp nosedive.

Trudeau, whose minority government was returned to office this week after a snap election, said in Ottawa that Kovrig, a former diplomat, and Spavor, a businessman, had boarded a plane leaving China at 7:30 p.m. Ottawa time. They were accompanied by Canada’s ambassador to China.

• New York Times, To Get Back Executive, China Brandishes a Hardball Tactic: Seizing Foreigners

Washington Post, Dying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week. In South America, the climate future has arrived, Diego Laje, Anthony Faiola and Ana Vanessa Herrero, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). So low are levels of the Paraná running through Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina that some ranchers are herding cattle across dried-up riverbeds typically lined with cargo-toting barges. Raging wildfires in Paraguay have brought acrid smoke to the limits of the capital. Earlier this year, the rushing cascades of Iguazu Falls on the Brazilian-Argentine frontier reduced to a relative drip.

Climate change is playing havoc with Mexico’s monarch butterfly migration

The droughts this year are extensions of multiyear water shortages, with causes that vary from country to country. Yet for much of the region, the droughts are moving up the calendar on climate change — offering a taste of the challenges ahead in securing an increasingly precious commodity: water.

Virus Victims, Responses

New York Times, ‘I Need an Army’: Across America, Schools Cram for Their Covid Tests, Emily Anthes and Sabrina Imbler, Sept. 25, 2021.  Some districts have established robust virus testing programs, but many others are struggling.

New York Times, States Begin a Complex Booster Shot Rollout for Pfizer Recipients, Noah Weiland, Reed Abelson and Jan Hoffman, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). Health officials are preparing to start giving booster shots to older and at-risk Americans while trying to make sense of new eligibility guidelines.

State health officials rushed on Friday to roll out campaigns to provide coronavirus booster shots for millions of vulnerable people who got the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and to help a confused public understand who qualifies for the extra shots.

Among their challenges: making sure that recipients of the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines know that they are not yet eligible for boosters, reaching isolated elderly people and informing younger adults with medical conditions or jobs that place them at higher risk that they might be eligible under the broad federal rules.

“Those of us overseeing vaccine rollouts don’t have a clear idea of what to do,” said Dr. Clay Marsh, West Virginia’s Covid-19 czar.

In his state, pharmacies sent staff members into the largest nursing homes on Friday to administer booster doses. In Vermont, health officials opened booster shot appointments to people 80 and older on Friday, and said many other eligible people could get them starting next week. But the state said it was waiting for clarity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on which workers and medical conditions would qualify.

In virus-battered North Dakota, officials struggling to make sense of the federal guidance delayed a broad booster rollout until next week, with a focus on reaching elderly residents and those in long-term care settings, said Kylie Hall, an adviser to the state’s Health Department.

Washington Post, Changes in booster shot guidance lead to confusion for doctors, patients, Carissa Wolf, Frances Stead Sellers, Ashley Cusick and Kim Mueller, Sept. 25, 2021. The muddle came to a head with this week’s showdown between the CDC’s advisers and its director. Health care providers are now trying to get answers to patients’ questions — and their own.

Even in Idaho, which has one of the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates in the country, clinics have been gearing up for an onslaught of calls and emails requesting booster shots.

Administrators at the Primary Health Medical Group updated their website Thursday and then set about redoing it Friday, when government eligibility recommendations for boosters suddenly changed to include workers in high-risk jobs. Even then, the clinic’s CEO had to figure out which occupations that meant.

“Who’s at high risk? I had to look it up. Is it firemen? I don’t know,” said David Peterman. “This is so confusing to the public and creates mistrust. And we can’t have that right now. Right now, we need the public to say, ‘let’s get vaccinated.’ And for those that need boosters, we need to say, ‘that this is safe, and this is what we need to do.’”

Confusion over boosters, which has been brewing for months, heightened over the past week as government regulators and advisers met to hash out the pros and cons of doling out third doses.

Hours of meetings culminated in a showdown Thursday: The Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory group narrowed the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation for who should get a third Pfizer shot, only to be overruled in a late-night announcement by the CDC director: Along with Americans 65 and older, nursing home residents and people ages 50 to 64 with underlying medical conditions that the advisory panel had suggested should get shots, Rochelle Walensk, left, added the people in high-risk jobs.

“It’s a communications crisis,” said Robert Murphy, executive director of the Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who received worried calls Thursday evening from health care workers who thought they would not be eligible for the shots, followed by messages Friday from colleagues wondering when and where to get them.

• New York Times, C.D.C. Chief Overrules Panel; Recommends Pfizer Booster for Workers at Risk
• Washington Post, Pfizer booster now available to older Americans and those at higher-risk, Lena H. Sun and Laurie McGinley

Washington Post, Doctor who has lost over 100 patients to covid says some deny virus from their deathbeds: ‘I don’t believe you,’ Andrea Salcedo, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). Matthew Trunsky’s post detailing his interactions with eight covid patients highlights the resistance and mistreatment some health-care workers face while caring for patients who have put off or declined getting the vaccine.

Matthew Trunsky is used to people being angry at him.

As a pulmonologist and director of the palliative care unit at a Beaumont Health hospital in southeastern Michigan, Trunsky sees some of the facility’s sickest patients and is often the bearer of bad news.

He gets it. No one is prepared to hear a loved one is dying.

But when a well-regarded intensive care unit nurse told him during a recent shift that the wife of an unvaccinated covid patient had berated her when she informed the woman of her husband’s deteriorating condition, Trunsky, who has lost more than 100 patients to the coronavirus, reached his breaking point.

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When he got home that evening, he made himself a sandwich and opened Facebook.

Still sporting his black scrubs, he began to vent. He wrote about a critically ill patient who disputed his covid-19 diagnosis. Another threatened to call his lawyer if he wasn’t given ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that is not approved for treating covid. A third, Trunsky wrote, told the doctor they would rather die than take one of the vaccines.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 25, 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: 231,990,471, Deaths: 4,753,170
U.S. Cases:     43,668,680, Deaths:    705,293
India Cases:       3,624,419, Deaths:    446,690
Brazil Cases:    21,327,616, Deaths:    593,698

Washington Post, At least 213.2 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 25, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 183.4 million people, 54.8 percent of the eligible population, 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.

U.S. Election Fraudsters, Insurrectionists, White Nationalists

Washington Post, Opinion: Arizona’s election ‘audit’ comes up empty, but that won’t stop the lying, Karen Tumulty, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). The conspiracy-theory-addled farce of an election “audit” in Arizona has come up empty. Or rather, after rummaging through 2.1 million ballots cast last year in the state, the Republican-led effort confirmed that President Biden won Maricopa County, the state’s largest, and came up with a victory margin for him there that was even greater than the official tally.

All of this came after six months in which Republican leaders of the Arizona state Senate commissioned an obscure Florida firm called Cyber Ninjas to do a hand recount of ballots, analyze voter registration rolls and inspect county tabulating machines. Their bizarre techniques included examining the paper on which ballots were printed for signs of bamboo fibers that might lend substance to a groundless theory that fake ballots had been flown in from South Korea. Most of Cyber Ninjas’ $5.7 million project was funded by private organizations that have perpetuated the myth of rampant voter fraud.

Were we living in a more rational time, this confirmation that Arizona’s official results were on the up and up would help put to rest the toxic lie that the 2020 election was stolen from former president Donald Trump. That falsehood has become an article of faith with a GOP base that remains in his thrall; in a recent CNN poll, nearly 6 in 10 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said that “believing that Donald Trump won the 2020 election” was very or somewhat important to them.

Evidence produced by Trump’s own allies that the electoral system is sound would not come as good news to these people. Nor are the findings in Arizona likely to deter similar “audits” in other states that Trump lost — among them, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

New York Times, Analysis: The “stop the steal” movement is racing forward, ignoring its Arizona humiliation, Reid J. Epstein and Nick Corasaniti, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). Former President Donald J. Trump and his loyalists redoubled their efforts to mount a full-scale relitigation of the 2020 election.

Any fleeting thought that the failure of the Arizona exercise to unearth some new trove of Trump votes or a smoking gun of election fraud might derail the so-called Stop the Steal movement dissipated abruptly. As draft copies of the report began to circulate late Thursday, Trump allies ignored the new tally, instead zeroing in on the report’s specious claims of malfeasance, inconsistencies and errors by election officials.

Significant parts of the right treated the completion of the Arizona review as a vindication — offering a fresh canard to justify an accelerated push for new voting limits and measures to give Republican state lawmakers greater control over elections. It also provided additional fuel for the older lie that is now central to Mr. Trump’s political identity: that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“The leaked report conclusively shows there were enough fraudulent votes, mystery votes, and fake votes to change the outcome of the election 4 or 5 times over,” Mr. Trump said in a statement early Friday evening, one of seven he had issued about Arizona since late Thursday. “There is fraud and cheating in Arizona and it must be criminally investigated!”

For Mr. Trump, Republican candidates vying to appeal to voters in primary races, and conservative activists agitating for election reviews in their own states, the 91-page document served as something of a choose-your-own-adventure guide. These leaders encouraged their supporters to avert their eyes from the conclusion that Mr. Biden had indeed won legitimately, and to instead focus on fodder for a new set of conspiracy theories.

“Now that the audit of Maricopa is wrapping up, we need to Audit Pima County — the 2nd largest county in AZ,” Mark Finchem, a Republican candidate for secretary of state in Arizona who supported the effort in Maricopa, wrote on Twitter. “There are 35k votes in question from multiple sources & I want answers.”

Even Republicans who do not subscribe to false claims of election fraud are using investigations to justify more restrictive voting laws. In Michigan, State Senator Ed McBroom, a Republican who leads his chamber’s elections committee and wrote an unsparing report in July debunking an array of Trump-inspired fraud claims, said Friday that the discovery of potential avenues for election fraud — not evidence of fraud itself — was reason enough to pass new voting restrictions.

Washington Post, Fallout begins for far-right trolls who trusted Epik to keep their identities secret, Drew Harwell, Hannah Allam, Jeremy B. Merrill and Craig Timberg, Sept. 25, 2021. The colossal hack of Epik, an Internet-services company popular with the far right, has been called the “mother of all data lodes” for extremism researchers. In the real world, Joshua Alayon worked as a real estate agent in Pompano Beach, Fla., where he used the handle “SouthFloridasFavoriteRealtor” to urge buyers on Facebook to move to “the most beautiful State.”

But online, data revealed by the massive hack of Epik, an Internet-services company popular with the far right, signaled a darker side. Alayon’s name and personal details were found on invoices suggesting he had once paid for websites with names such as racisminc.com, whitesencyclopedia.com, christiansagainstisrael.com and theholocaustisfake.com.

The information was included in a giant trove of hundreds of thousands of transactions published this month by the hacking group Anonymous that exposed previously obscure details of far-right sites and launched a race among extremism researchers to identify the hidden promoters of online hate.

After Alayon’s name appeared in the breached data, his brokerage, Travers Miran Realty, dropped him as an agent, as first reported by the real estate news site Inman. The brokerage’s owner, Rick Rapp, told The Washington Post that he didn’t “want to be involved with anyone with thoughts or motives like that.”

Alayon told The Post that he does not own the ‘racisminc,’ Holocaust-denial or other Web addresses but declined to say if he had owned them in the past; the records were hacked earlier this year. But in a screenshot of his Epik account, which he sent to The Post, the information for four other domains he currently owns matches the private records that can be found in the Epik breach.

Asked why his name, email address and other personal information were listed in company invoices for the ‘racisminc’ and Holocaust-denial domains, Alayon said the data was “easily falsifiable,” that he was the possible victim of extortion and that The Post was “fake news.”

The breach of Epik’s internal records has cast a spotlight on a long-hidden corner of the Internet’s underworld, and researchers expect it could take months before they can process the full cache — the equivalent of tens of millions of pages. Many are digging for information on who owns and administers extremist domains about which little was previously known.

Epik, based outside Seattle, said in a data-breach notice filed with Maine’s attorney general this week that 110,000 people had been affected nationwide by having their financial account and credit card numbers, passwords and security codes exposed. An earlier data-breach letter from the company, filed to comply with Montana law, was signed by the “Epic Security Team,” misspelling the company’s name. An Epik spokesperson said it was a simple typo.

U.S. Politics, Governance

World Crisis Radio, Opinion: Arizona election fraudit by cyber-nimrods ends in humiliating fiasco, Webster G. Tarpley, right, Sept. 25, 2021. Arizona election fraudit by cyber-nimrods ends in humiliating fiasco for MAGAts, confirming Biden win;

On orders from Trump, Texas launches own fraudit; Pennsylvania GOP wants to intimidate all voters; Trump sponsors puppet secretaries of state he hopes will help him steal elections; Rep. Thompson’s House January 6 committee subpoenas Bannon, Meadows, Scavino, and Kashyap Patel; Coup scenario revealed; White House refuses to implement executive privilege to shield Trump;

AG Garland must act now to enforce law in defense of general welfare; Immigration is greatest US strategic asset for dealing with China, and should be carefully developed;

CDC’s Walensky saves the day for administration by offering Pfizer covid boosters to nurses, teachers, and other exposed workers, in additon to over-65s and immunocompromised; Despite recent Trump defeats, defeatism now a fad among media elite.

Washington Post, Sen. Grassley, the oldest GOP senator at 88, announces he will seek another term, Eugene Scott, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the oldest Republican senator at age 88 and a major player in securing confirmation of dozens of conservative federal judges, announced Friday that he will seek another six-year term.

“It’s 4 a.m. in Iowa so I’m running,” Grassley said in a predawn tweet that included an image of him jogging. “I do that 6 days a week. Before I start the day I want you to know what Barbara and I have decided. I’m running for re-election — a lot more to do, for Iowa. We ask and will work for your support. Will you join us?”

The decision by Grassley, who has served in the U.S. Congress since Jimmy Carter’s presidency, boosts Republican prospects for holding the seat next year, when control of the chamber will be at stake. Recent polling has shown Grassley with a sizable lead over Democratic challenger Abby Finkenauer.

How the 2022 Senate map is shaping up

Perhaps Grassley’s most consequential impact on the country has been his recent tenure as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position that gave him significant influence in pushing through the nominations of dozens of judges during the Trump presidency as well as three Supreme Court justices, including the divisive nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Palmer Report, Opinion: The real reason Chuck Grassley is seeking reelection yet again, Jesse Green, Sept. 25, 2021. US Senatorial fossil Chuck Grassley was first elected to the Senate in 1980 and has been in the Senate longer than over a third of the people of Iowa have been alive. He just announced that he is running for reelection next year. And spouting off about how he’s going to work for Iowans and making it a better place to live and work in. While several Democrats have announced their intention to challenge Chuck, it looks increasingly likely former US Representative Abby Finkenauer will be the Democratic candidate.

Do I think that Chuck would serve a full term if he was reelected? Nope. He’s 88 years old now and will be 89 when the election was held. Personally, I think the GQP plan is he would serve for a bit, then “suddenly” decide to retire and Gov. Kim “CovidKim” Reynolds would appoint his rather useless grandson Pat to his seat. Then in 2028 Pat would have the incumbent advantage going in to that election. It would not surprise me if there was already a deal to that effect in the works.

Washington Post, Rep. Karen Bass plans to announce run for mayor of Los Angeles, Sean Sullivan and Tyler Pager, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.).  Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) is planning to announce that she will run for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, joining a high-stakes race to run the second-most populous city in the country.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations, said an official announcement is expected soon. It will possibly happen next week, barring unexpected changes, they said.

“Los Angeles is facing a humanitarian crisis in homelessness and a public health crisis in the disproportionate impact this pandemic has had on Angelenos,” Bass spokesman Zach Seidl said in a statement, when asked for comment. “She does not want to see these two issues tear the city apart. Los Angeles has to come together. That’s why

Bass, right, is a close ally of President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She was a finalist to be Biden’s running mate last year and was a lead negotiator on Capitol Hill in bipartisan talks to overhaul policing laws. Those talks ended this week.

Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: The U.S. is the only major nation that numbers its legislative districts rather than naming them, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 24-25, 2021. In order to facilitate the undemocratic election process known as gerrymandering -- the decennial process of redrawing congressional, state, county, and municipal electoral units into unrepresentative and deceptive geographical contortions that favor one party over the other -- the United States finds itself virtually alone in the world in designating districts with numbers rather than place names.

District gerrymandering is unique to the United States. The method ensures that many districts are not wedded very long to their constituents, which permits political parties and their candidates to choose their voters rather than the voters choosing their representatives.

WMR has discovered that only three other countries in the world number their electoral units. They are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Malta and Nepal.

World News

New York Times, Rebuking Biden, Iran’s Chief Diplomat Demands More Sanctions Relief, David E. Sanger, Michael Crowley and Rick Gladstone, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.). The foreign minister for Iran’s new hard-line government said it would demand a higher price for limiting its nuclear program than it did in the 2015 deal.

Accusing President Biden of continuing “the thick file of the Trump sanctions against Iran,’’ the new, hard-line Iranian foreign minister said on Friday that in return for agreeing to limits on its nuclear program, his country would demand far more sanctions relief than it received under the 2015 nuclear deal.

In two lengthy interviews with journalists during the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, his first as Iran’s top diplomat, Hossain Amirabdollahian said that Iran would return “very soon” to negotiations in Vienna. But Tehran, he said, had received “contradictory messages” from Washington about restoring the agreement jettisoned by Donald J. Trump more than three years ago.

The foreign minister represents a new government that is more closely tied to the military and openly antagonistic to the West than its predecessor, and his repeated insistence on gaining more benefits in return for returning to the deal points to a looming impasse with the United States.

American officials have said that if Iran wants to see other sanctions lifted, it must be prepared for what Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has described as a “longer and stronger” accord than the original, which runs through 2030 — one that would significantly extend the time period when Iran would not be permitted to hold more than a token amount of nuclear fuel.

 New York Times, To Get Back Executive, China Brandishes a Hardball Tactic: Seizing Foreigners, Chris Buckley and Katie Benner, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.).  The speed at which Beijing returned two Canadians in exchange for a Huawei executive may signal China’s comfort with the tactic. All three arrived in their home countries on Saturday, ending a 1,030-day standoff between the U.S. and China but leaving deeper issues unresolved.

Washington Post, Germany’s far-right stokes new grievances for voters: Masks rules and vaccine mandates, Loveday Morris, Sept. 25, 2021 (print ed.).  Flanked by campaign posters promising a return to "normality," Alice Weidel, a lead election candidate for Germany's far-right, railed against coronavirus lockdowns and what she said was "discrimination" against the unvaccinated.

Then she moved on to vaccinations for kids.

"Hands off our children," she said to cheers in Görlitz, Germany's most eastern city. The crowd had gathered for one of the last campaign events of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, ahead of national elections Sunday. The vote will set Germany on a new course after 16 years with Angela Merkel as leader.

The anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination mandate message is a new rallying cry for the AfD, which became the country's third-largest political force when it won 13 percent of the vote in the country's last parliamentary elections in 2017.

It did so then by stoking a wave of anti-immigration sentiment in the wake of the migrant crisis that saw Chancellor Angela Merkel open the nation's doors to more than a million refugees, many of whom fled Syria's deadly civil war.

The AfD hasn’t abandoned its bread-and-butter issues of immigration and integration, which also feature heavily in election speeches. But after initially voicing support for coronavirus measures as the pandemic ravaged Europe, it has now put at the center of its campaign fighting what it describes as the overbearing rules.

Washington Post, A Taliban founder says cutting off hands as punishment will be ‘necessary for security,’ Ellen Francis, Sept. 24, 2021. A founder of the Taliban, who became notorious for imposing its harsh rule the last time the militants governed Afghanistan, says they plan to bring back executions and amputations.

“Cutting off hands is very necessary for security,” Nooruddin Turabi told the Associated Press. The country’s rulers are deciding whether they will dole out these punishments in public in the way they once did — sometimes at a Kabul sports stadium with crowds watching — he added.

“No one will tell us what our laws should be,” said the former justice minister who heads prisons.

Now in his 60s, Turabi ran the Taliban’s ministry of vice and virtue during its last term from 1996, until the United States launched its longest war in 2001.

At the time, that department’s morality police enforced its severe version of Islamic criminal law — banning cassette tapes and patrolling the streets to restrict women from going out.

When the Taliban marched back into power last month, just as U.S. forces left after 20 years of conflict, the Islamist movement formed an all-male cabinet and revived the ministry.

The Taliban is bringing back its feared ministry of ‘vice’ and ‘virtue’

Its comeback only added to questions about the Taliban’s assurances that it has changed. Like world powers, many Afghans are watching and waiting warily as the militants promise more tolerance, all the while showing signs that intimidation will remain central to their control.

Sept. 24

Top Headlines

• New York Times, C.D.C. Chief Overrules Panel; Recommends Pfizer Booster for Workers at Risk
• Washington Post, Pfizer booster now available to older Americans and those at higher-risk
• Washington Post, Draft report of GOP-backed ballot review in Arizona confirms Biden’s win
• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates
• Washington Post, House Jan. 6 panel issues subpoenas for Meadows, Scavino, others
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic
• Washington Post, Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown

U.S. Democracy, Transparency

• Washington Post, Opinion: Trump is going back to Georgia. Did he break the law there? Norman Eisen, Donald Ayer, Gwen Keyes Fleming and Joshua Matz
• HuffPost, Democrats Discussing 2 Options To Change The Filibuster To Pass Voting Rights Laws
• Future of Freedom Foundation, Opinion: Biden Will Continue the JFK Cover-Up, Jacob G. Hornberger

#MeToo Horrors, Women's Health

• Washington Post, In Larry Nassar’s shadow, a larger sex abuse case at the University of Michigan
• Washington Post, House poised to pass legislation creating statutory right to abortion amid battle over Texas law
• Washington Post, Opinion: Two miscarriages of justice reveal a sickening disparity, Ruth Marcus

  U.S. Crime, Courts, Law

• New York Times, U.S. Reaches Agreement to Release Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou
• Washington Post, Federal arrest warrant issued for Brian Laundrie, fiance of Gabby Petito, on fraud-related charge
• Washington Post, Perspective: Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford have a lot to talk about. A new podcast lets us listen in, Margaret Sullivan
• Raw Story, Judge orders Trump Org to turn over docs as New York AG accuses company of ‘hiding behind excuses’

Virus Victims, Responses

• Washington Post, Doctor who has lost over 100 patients to covid says some deny virus from their deathbeds: ‘I don’t believe you’
• New York Times, People with serious conditions are waiting weeks for non-Covid surgeries as hospitals are inundated once again
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 699,748
• Washington Post, 212.9 million U.S. vaccinated

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• New York Times, Opinion: Are Centrists in the Thrall of Right-Wing Propaganda? Paul Krugman
• Washington Post, Sen. Grassley, the oldest GOP senator at 88, announces he will seek another term
• Washington Post, Rep. Karen Bass plans to announce run for mayor of Los Angeles
• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: The U.S. is the only major nation that numbers its legislative districts rather than naming them, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, Live Political Updates: Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Citing ‘Inhumane’ Deportations
• New York Times, Regulators Racing Toward First Major Rules on Cryptocurrency
• Palmer Report, Opinion: The real reason Donald Trump is going after Mary Trump, Bill Palmer
• New York Times, Arizona’s Criticized Election Review Nears End, but Copycats Are Coming
• Palmer Report, Opinion: The January 6th Committee subpoenas have gone out – and yes, they’re going to succeed, Bill Palmer
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Covid and Trumpism lead to coups and rumors of coups, Wayne Madsen

World News

• New York Times, Days Before Vote, Merkel Is Where She Didn’t Want to Be: On the Stump
• Washington Post, Germany’s far-right stokes new grievances for voters: Masks rules and vaccine mandates
• New York Times, Live Business Updates: China Declares All Cryptocurrency Transactions Illegal
• New York Times, A Dangerous Scramble to Evacuate Afghan Nonprofit Workers
• Washington Post, As the Taliban bars some girls from school, their mothers’ dreams are also shattered
• Washington Post, A Taliban founder says cutting off hands as punishment will be ‘necessary for security’
• New York Times, Afghan Uyghurs Fear Deportation as Taliban Cozy Up to China
• New York Times, Thousands of Haitians Allowed to Stay in U.S. as Texas Camp Clears Out
• New York Times, Europe Tightens Purse Strings to Try to Pressure Poland and Hungary
• New York Times, Thousands of Boko Haram Members Surrendered. They Moved In Next Door
• Washington Post, White House blames Boris Johnson after U.S. press corps denied opportunity to ask questions

Top Stories

New York Times, C.D.C. Chief Overrules Panel; Recommends Pfizer Booster for Workers at Risk, Apoorva Mandavilli and Benjamin Mueller, Sept. 24, 2021  In a highly unusual decision, the C.D.C. director, Rochelle Walensky, below left, reversed a move by agency advisers and endorsed additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for health care workers, teachers and other workers at risk.

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday overruled a recommendation by an agency advisory panel that had refused to endorse booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine for frontline workers. It was a highly unusual move for the director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, but aligned C.D.C. policy with the Food and Drug Administration’s endorsements over her own agency’s advisers.

The C.D.C.’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Thursday recommended the boosters for a wide range of Americans, including tens of millions of older adults and younger people at high risk for the disease. But they excluded health care workers, teachers and others whose jobs put them at risk. That put their recommendations at odds with the F.D.A.’s authorization of booster shots for all adults with a high occupational risk.

Dr. Walensky’s decision was a boost for President Biden’s campaign to give a broad segment of Americans access to boosters. The White House had come under criticism for getting ahead of the regulatory process.

The White House could begin promoting and rolling out a plan for booster shots as soon as Friday. That would be in keeping with the administration’s previously announced plan to offer the additional doses this week.

The C.D.C.’s statement arrived well past midnight, a sign of the complicated and confusing decision-making surrounding the boosters. The C.D.C. advisers similarly spent two days debating who should get boosters and when, and could not agree on whether occupational risk should qualify as a criterion.

“I am surprised that Dr. Walensky overturned one of the four A.C.I.P. votes today, and I believe others will be as well,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease expert at Stanford and the American Academy of Pediatrics liaison to the committee.

But the vote on boosters for occupational risk “was close,” Dr. Maldonado said, and agreed with Dr. Walensky’s decision.

“This addresses not only waning immunity but those at high risk of exposure,” Dr. Maldonado added.

Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the C.D.C. director, reversed a move by agency advisers and endorsed boosters for health care workers, teachers and others.
Her highly unusual decision aligns with the F.D.A.’s recommendation and helps President Biden’s plan to make booster shots available to more Americans.

• Washington Post, Pfizer booster now available to older Americans and those at higher-risk, Lena H. Sun and Laurie McGinley

Washington Post, Draft report of GOP-backed ballot review in Arizona confirms Biden’s win, Rosalind S. Helderman, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). A Republican-commissioned review of nearly 2.1 million ballots cast last year in Arizona confirmed the accuracy of the official results and President Biden’s win in Maricopa County, according to a draft report prepared by private contractors who conducted the recount.

The draft was obtained by The Washington Post late Thursday night in advance of a planned public release of a final version on Friday.

The ultimate findings will cap a costly and drawn-out recount launched by the GOP-led Arizona Senate that had been championed by former president Donald Trump and kept alive false claims that fraud tainted the election in the state’s most populous county. The process was pilloried by election experts who warned that the methods used by the firm hired to run the review were sloppy and biased.

After nearly six months and almost $6 million — most of it given by groups that cast doubt on the election results — the draft report shows that the review concluded that 45,469 more ballots were cast for Biden in Maricopa County than for Trump, widening Biden’s margin by 360 more votes than certified results.

• Washington Post, Texas secretary of state’s office announces audit of 2020 election results after Trump calls for one

New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). A White House analysis using an unconventional methodology says the wealthiest Americans pay far less in taxes than others.

President Biden is leaning into his push to increase taxes on the rich as he seeks to unify Democrats in the House and Senate behind a $3.5 trillion bill that would expand federal efforts to fight climate change, reduce the cost of child care, expand educational access, reduce poverty and more.

“I’m sick and tired of the super-wealthy and giant corporations not paying their fair share in taxes,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, amplifying an argument that Democratic strategists believe will help sell his economic agenda to the public and potentially lift the party’s candidates in midterm elections. “It’s time for it to change.”

To buttress that argument, White House economists published on Thursday a new analysis that seeks to show a gap between the tax rate that everyday Americans face and what the richest owe on their vast holdings.

The analysis suggests that the wealthiest 400 households in America — those with net worth ranging between $2.1 billion and $160 billion — pay an effective federal income tax rate of just over 8 percent per year on average. The White House is basing that tax rate on calculations using data on high earners’ income, wealth and taxes paid from the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

The analysis, from researchers at the Office of Management and Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers, is an attempt to bolster Mr. Biden’s claims that billionaires are not paying what they actually should owe in federal taxes, and that the tax code rewards wealth, not work.

Washington Post, House Jan. 6 panel issues subpoenas for Meadows, Scavino, others, Tom Hamburger, Jacqueline Alemany and Carol D. Leonnig, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). The committee said it is seeking records surrounding the planning of the Jan. 6 rally that was held ahead of the attack on the Capitol and any interactions the individuals had with President Donald Trump.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has issued subpoenas to two top Trump White House officials, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, right, and former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, as well as to Kash Patel, who was serving as chief of staff to the acting defense secretary that day. An additional subpoena targets longtime Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon.

The subpoenas were announced Thursday evening by the committee, which has moved its inquiry in to a new more aggressive stage after requesting White House records last month and sending preservation requests for records to telecom and social media companies.

Even before the subpoenas were made public Thursday, Trump and his team condemned the select committee’s inquiry, vowing to fight its demands for documents and interviews with claims of executive privilege. A debate about a former president’s ability to restrict access to information and individuals has already begun in Washington — and is likely to become dramatically more intense now that these first subpoenas have been issued.

Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown

The executive privilege questions will be especially focused on Meadows and Scavino due to their roles in the White House and access to Trump at the time of the attack. Questions to Patel would likely deal with the committee’s concerns over Trump’s communications with the Pentagon and efforts to stay in office after Jan. 20. Bannon was a leading advocate of making Jan. 6 a key moment in Trump’s efforts to stay in office.

Along with asking the Meadows, Scavino, Patel and Bannon to hand over certain records, the committee is instructing the four men to appear for depositions in mid-October.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The billionaire wanted by China who funded insurrection propaganda and a near Sino-U.S. nuclear war, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 23-24, 2021. Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire wanted by the government of China for bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud and rape, sits comfortably in New York City in his penthouse in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel overlooking Central Park, sipping $1 million-a-kilogram rare tea, all the while under the umbrella of U.S. political asylum protection status.

Meanwhile, through his GTV Media Group conglomerate, Guo is simultaneously funding propaganda supporting the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the overthrow of the government giving him political asylum. Specifically, Guo funds, through his Guo Media company, Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast and "Real America's Voice" Internet television broadcast. The two are shown above in a file photo.

In a recent Real America's Voice segment, Bannon claimed that on the night of January 5, 2021, he, Rudolph Giuliani, and senior members of the Trump administration plotted from the Willard Hotel in Washington the January 6th attempted coup d'état to "kill the Biden presidency in the crib." Moreover, Guo's media influence operations in calling for the overthrow of the government of China -- words heeded by then-President Donald Trump -- almost ended up in a nuclear war between the U.S. and China.

Why are two Green Card holders from China permitted to wage a war of insurrection and sedition against the United States from New York City? More importantly, why is Bannon permitted to reprise the wartime treasonous roles of Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Lord Haw-Haw, Seoul City Sue, and Sister Mary in sowing sedition, insurrection, and treason?

Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue, Mike DeBonis, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). Capitol Hill is headed for a reprise of the 2013 debt-ceiling crisis even though the fiscal and political landscapes have shifted.

The outlines of the clash that brought America to the brink of default in the fall of 2013 were straightforward. Claiming the mantle of fiscal rectitude, Republicans stood firm against an increase in the federal borrowing limit. Democrats lambasted the GOP for playing politics with the nation’s credit, risking a calamitous default.

On the surface, not much appears to have changed in the eight years since the last congressional debt crisis roiled Capitol Hill. But as leaders of the two parties settle into familiar roles this week, they are doing so against a markedly different political landscape.

While both parties continued to advance policies that add substantially to the debt, roughly $10 trillion, the public’s interest in the issue has dramatically waned.

A 2013 Gallup poll in 2013 found that one-fifth of Americans saw the federal budget as the nation’s top problem. In August, only 2 percent of Americans thought the same.

Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). Officials stress this is part of standard practice but it comes amid multiple fiscal fights in Washington.

The White House budget office notified federal agencies on Thursday to begin preparations for the first shutdown of the U.S. government since the coronavirus pandemic began, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill struggle to reach a funding agreement.

Administration officials stress the request is in line with traditional procedures seven days ahead of a shutdown and not a commentary on the likelihood — or lack thereof — a congressional deal. Both Democrats and Republicans have made clear they intend to fund the government before its funding expires on Sept. 30, but time is running out and lawmakers are aiming to resolve an enormous set of tasks to in a matter of weeks.

House Democrats earlier this week approved a measure to fund the government, suspend the debt ceiling and approve emergency aid such as disaster relief. But that plan is expected to die in the Senate amid GOP refusal to support Democratic attempts to lift the debt ceiling.

Washington Post, Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown, Tom Hamburger and Jacqueline Alemany, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). The White House is leaning toward releasing information to Congress about what Donald Trump and his aides were doing during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol despite the former president’s objections — a decision that could have significant political and legal ramifications.

Trump has said he will cite “executive privilege” to block information requests from the House select committee investigating the events of that day, banking on a legal theory that has successfully allowed presidents and their aides to avoid or delay congressional scrutiny for decades, including during the Trump administration.

But President Biden’s White House plans to err on the side of disclosure given the gravity of the events of Jan. 6, according to two people familiar with discussions who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.

In response to questions about White House deliberations over what information to release, Biden spokesman Michael J. Gwin said the president views the attack on the Capitol as “a dark stain on our country’s history” and is “deeply committed to ensuring that something like that can never happen again, and he supports a thorough investigation.”

Can Trump use executive privilege to stall the Jan. 6 investigation?

Members of the investigative committee argue that Trump no longer enjoys the protection of executive privilege, encouraging the White House to push aside institutional concerns about sharing information with Congress and aid the panel in an investigation focused on what Democrats and a handful of Republicans have called an assault on democracy.

“It’s not really relevant because there’s no president involved — there’s no such thing as a former president’s executive privilege,” said Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), a committee member who teaches constitutional law. “That’s extremely dilute and not really relevant.”

U.S. Democracy, Transparency 

Washington Post, Opinion: Trump is going back to Georgia. Did he break the law there? Norman Eisen, Donald Ayer, Gwen Keyes Fleming and Joshua Matz, Sept. 24, 2021. The former president’s claims of fraud could leave him open to criminal charges.

On Saturday, former president Donald Trump will go to Georgia, ostensibly to rally supporters. But this visit also marks Trump’s return to a state where he is under investigation for possible crimes against nearly 5 million Georgia voters — namely, his efforts to subvert and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state.

Our extensive new Brookings Institution report probes these efforts in depth, and analyzes publicly available evidence in connection with the reported ongoing investigation by the Fulton County district attorney, Fani Willis.

Whether Trump will in fact be charged must await Willis’s decision, based on all the evidence and consideration of the presumption of innocence to which all Americans are entitled. But there is no doubt that attempting to subvert democracy — to effectively disenfranchise millions of Georgians, and particularly Georgians of color — is not just wrong; it is potentially criminal.

Trump’s call is still a crime, even if he believes his own fraud fantasies

The centerpiece of Trump’s Georgia interference is his now infamous phone call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, during which Trump repeatedly insisted that he had won Georgia “by hundreds of thousands of votes” and demanded that Raffensperger “find 11,780 votes” — exactly one more vote than the margin of Joe Biden’s 11,779-vote victory in the state. But Trump’s actions went far beyond his solicitations and threats on this one call. He also personally contacted other officials in Georgia — including the governor, the attorney general and the secretary of state’s chief investigator — to urge them to alter the election outcome.

HuffPost, Democrats Discussing 2 Options To Change The Filibuster To Pass Voting Rights Laws, Paul Blumenthal, Sept. 24, 2021. Those choices include a filibuster carve-out for voting rights or bringing back a talking filibuster.

Democrats are currently discussing two ways to change the Senate’s filibuster rules in order to pass voting rights legislation. The options under consideration include a special carve-out from filibuster rules for voting rights legislation or the implementation of a new kind of talking filibuster.

The push to enact new voting rights legislation has been on a collision course with the Senate’s filibuster rules ever since Jan. 6. Democrats won control of the Senate that day with wins announced in both Georgia Senate run-off elections, and supporters of ex-President Donald Trump attacked the U.S. Capitol in an effort to halt the counting of the electoral votes underway at the time.
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Democratic control of the Senate gave the party full control of the government for the first time in a decade and the ability to pursue a Democratic agenda, including voting rights. Meanwhile, the insurrection and the election fraud lies spread by ex-President Donald Trump have inspired Republican-run states to enact new restrictions on voting.

While Democrats were already destined to introduce voting rights as the No. 1 priority for legislation in both chambers, Republican reactions to Trump’s lies have made it an urgent necessity to enshrine voting rights in legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) declared in March that “failure is not an option” on voting rights. “Everything is on the table” to pass a voting rights bill, he added.

Since then, Democrats have seen their first voting rights bill, the For The People Act, blocked by Republican filibusters twice in the Senate after passing the House on a near party-line vote (one Democrat voted no). Those filibusters followed Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) attributing his opposition to the bill to its lack of bipartisan backing, but then announcing he would support a slimmed-down compromise version that he claimed could win Republican support.

A group of eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus introduced the Freedom To Vote Act, Manchin’s compromise bill, on Sept. 14. Manchin is now shopping the bill around to find the Republican support he believes exists.

But the few Republicans who might be interested, like Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine), have already stated their opposition. A Schumer-promised floor vote on Manchin’s compromise may come as early as next week. Republicans are expected to filibuster Manchin’s bill then.

What comes next is unclear. The only way to pass the bill is for Democrats to change filibuster rules. With a bare 50-vote majority, every Democrat needs to agree to do that. And two senators, Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), oppose eliminating or reforming the filibuster.

That hasn’t stopped conversations from happening. According to sources inside and outside of Congress, the options Democrats are currently discussing include a potential carve-out for voting rights from the filibuster rules or the restoration of a talking filibuster.

A carve-out would create a new precedent in Senate rules that legislation on voting rights would not be subject to the chamber’s rules requiring 60 votes to begin or end debate on a bill and move to a final majority vote, a process known as cloture. This is similar to the nuclear option of eliminating the filibuster altogether, but more of a tactical strike.

Such a carve-out would be adopted the same way previous filibuster carve-outs have been, as in 2013 for voting on all judicial and executive branch nominees save Supreme Court nominees, and in 2017 for voting on Supreme Court nominees.

Future of Freedom Foundation, Opinion: Biden Will Continue the JFK Cover-Up, Jacob G. Hornberger, right, (foundation founder, author, book publisher and attorney), Sept. 24, 2021. On October 26, the deadline for the public disclosure of the CIA’s still-secret records relating to the Kennedy assassination comes due. At that point, the issue will be: Will President Biden order the National Archives to release the CIA’s long-secret records or will he continue the U.S. national-security establishment’s almost 60-year-old cover up of its regime-change operation in Dallas on November 26, 1963?

Make no mistake about it: Biden, like his predecessor President Donald Trump, will continue the cover-up. That’s because the CIA will demand it.

Mind you, this is just my prediction. I don’t know as a fact that the CIA has even asked Biden to continue shielding its long-secret records from the American people. When I asked the National Archives to identify any agencies that have expressed an interest in another extension of time for secrecy, they refused to provide an answer to my question.

But consider this: Whatever reason that the CIA had for requesting Trump to continue the secrecy, that reason would continue through today. If they were scared to have the American people see those records 60 years ago, and then again 30 years ago during the ARRB years, and then 5 years ago, I will guarantee you that they are just as scared today.

Let’s get one thing clear: Whatever definition one wants to put on that nebulous and meaningless two-word term “national security,” there is no possibility that the release of 60-year-old records is going to threaten “national security.” In other words, if the CIA’s records are disclosed, the United States won’t fall into the ocean. The Reds won’t succeed in taking over America’s public schools. The Russians won’t come and get us. Cuba won’t invade and conquer the United States. Vietnam won’t start the dominoes falling.

The only thing that would happen is that more pieces to the assassination puzzle will be filled in, most likely relating to Lee Harvey Oswald’s purported trip to Mexico City, a part of the assassination scheme that clearly went awry.

Both the CIA and the Pentagon know what happened after the ARRB strictly enforced the JFK Records Act in the 1990s. Having been released from vows of secrecy that the military had imposed on them, people started talking, big time.

No, they didn’t start talking about the assassination. When people engage in murder, they don’t often talk freely about it. When the CIA and the Mafia engage in murder, they are very good about keeping secrets. We still don’t know, for example, who killed Jimmy Hoffa and Johnny Roselli, who was the liaison in the CIA-Mafia partnership to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Where people started talking was with respect to the autopsy that the U.S. military conducted on President Kennedy’s body on the very evening of the assassination. Released from vows of secrecy that the military had forced them to sign, several enlisted personnel disclosed a mountain of evidence establishing a fraudulent autopsy.

Why is that important? One big reason: There is no innocent explanation for a fraudulent autopsy. None. No one has ever come up with one. No one ever will. The fraudulent autopsy is inextricably bound up with the assassination itself.

For example, as I pointed out in my recent article “The Kennedy Autopsy Selected for Amazon’s Prime Reading Program,” several enlisted personnel came forward in the 1990s and established that the national-security establishment sneaked President Kennedy’s body into the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 p.m., almost 1 1/2 hours before the official entry time of 8 p.m. Their statements were corroborated by a memorandum from Gawler’s Funeral Home, which conducted Kennedy’s funeral. They were further corroborated by statements made by Col. Pierre Finck, one of the three pathologists.

Whatever they were doing in that hour-and-half had to be rotten to the core. Otherwise, why the secrecy, the skullduggery, the deception, and the lies? If it hadn’t been for the ARRB, we would most likely never have known they had done that.

Unfortunately, the JFK Records Act permitted these people to keep many of their assassination-related records secret for another 25 years, long after the law forced the ARRB to go out of existence. The CIA took advantage of that loophole. Then when the deadline arrived under the Trump administration, Trump unfortunately granted their request for additional time for secrecy.

Given that Trump surrendered to the CIA in its demand for further secrecy, one thing is certain: Biden will do so as well. That’s my prediction. While Trump continually deferred to the national-security establishment, in my opinion Biden is effectively owned, lock, stock, and barrel, by the national-security establishment. That means he, like Trump, will do as they say.

Oh, they’ll release some of the records in the hope of skating by without much notice from the mainstream press. But I predict that the most incriminating evidence will continue to be shielded from public view — on grounds of “national security” of course.

#MeToo Assault Horrors, Women's Health

Washington Post, House poised to pass legislation creating statutory right to abortion amid battle over Texas law, Felicia Sonmez and Ann E. Marimow, Sept. 24, 2021. The House is poised to pass legislation that would create a statutory right for health-care professionals to provide abortions, amid an intensifying legal battle over a Texas law that is the most restrictive in the nation.

H.R. 3755, the Women’s Health Protection Act, is expected to pass the Democratic-controlled House but faces tough odds in the evenly divided Senate.

It states that health-care providers have a statutory right to provide, and patients have a right to receive, abortion services without any number of a raft of limitations that states and opponents of the procedure have sought to impose.

The measure would essentially codify Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right to abortion before viability, usually around 22 to 24 weeks.

The new Texas law, which took effect on Sept. 1 after the Supreme Court refused to immediately block its enforcement, bans abortions as early as six weeks into pregnancy and makes no exceptions for rape, sexual abuse or incest.

The law allows private citizens to file civil lawsuits against anyone who helps a woman in Texas terminate her pregnancy. It was deliberately designed to avoid judicial scrutiny by barring state officials, who would typically be the target of lawsuits, from enforcing the ban.

Abortion rights proponents fear the most serious threats to the landmark law in nearly a half century, with Mississippi asking the conservative Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade to allow the state’s restrictions on abortion access. The Mississippi law would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Democrats see a political issue that has the potential to galvanize female voters ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) defended the House legislation at a Thursday news conference, telling reporters that supporters of Roe have long sought to codify the decision but haven’t been able to in recent years because they lacked unified Democratic control of Congress and the White House.

“And now we do,” Pelosi said. “Every woman everywhere has a constitutional right to basic reproductive health. Yet for years, that has been questioned by some.” She pointed to the Texas law in particular, describing it as an “un-American” measure that achieves its goal through the deployment of “vigilantes and bounty hunters.”

Public polling shows a majority of Americans support the right to abortion in most instances. A Monmouth University poll this week showed that 62 percent of Americans say abortion should be either always legal or legal with some limitations. Those figures had changed little from a survey the university conducted two years ago.

Republicans have sought to cast the House measure as extreme and out of step with public opinion, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday denouncing it as a “really a radical bill [that] goes beyond Roe v. Wade.”

Washington Post, In Larry Nassar’s shadow, a larger sex abuse case at the University of Michigan, Lenny Bernstein, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). U.S. senators listened intently last week as four world-class gymnasts told Congress of the harrowing impact of sexual abuse by former Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar.

Sixty miles from Nassar’s one-time office, a similar but much larger case of sex abuse is playing out with little of the same attention. More than 950 people have come forward to accuse the late University of Michigan doctor Robert E. Anderson (shown above) of abusing them while he was on staff between 1966 and 2003, according to lawyers who represent the survivors.

That total surpasses the scale of the molestation at Michigan State, as well as similar incidents at the University of Southern California and Ohio State University. Attorneys for the University of Michigan survivors contend the allegations against Anderson constitute the largest example of sexual exploitation by one person in U.S. history.

A number of Anderson’s alleged victims, most prominently former football players, have publicly told stories of the physician fondling them and repeatedly performing unnecessary rectal and genital exams during their years at the school. As a result, his conduct over decades as the football team doctor has drawn the most attention since the story broke in February 2020, a dozen years after his death.

But the small group of attorneys bringing the case said they also have claims spanning decades from athletes on the wrestling, basketball, track and field, hockey, swimming and tennis teams. Pilots and air traffic controllers have accused Anderson of abuse during physicals he conducted in his private practice for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Anderson, who died in 2008 without facing charges, also allegedly molested nonathlete students as a physician for the university’s health service; men who sought Vietnam War draft deferments by claiming to be gay; the estranged son of iconic football coach Bo Schembechler, who said he was violated when his father sent him to Anderson for a sports physical at the age of 10; and a former chairman of the university’s Board of Regents, who was a student at Michigan in the 1960s, according to investigative reports and public statements from survivors.

The vast majority of survivors are men, but Anderson also is accused of abusing women, including a player on the first Michigan women’s varsity tennis team in 1973, who has spoken publicly.

In public accounts and two investigative reports, the survivors said they complained to coaches, trainers and administrators, and nothing was ever done. The Washington Post contacted each of the named victims in this story or their lawyers and all affirmed their accounts.

“The university knew, the enabler, the institution — not one time, not 10 times, but knew for decades,” said Mick Grewal, who said he represents about 250 people who have reported abuse by Anderson. “ . . . How can you know this and not report this to law enforcement?”

The university has apologized for the pain survivors suffered and is in mediated talks with their attorneys about how to compensate them. It also has instituted a number of reforms aimed at preventing future abuse.

One factor that unites Anderson with Nassar and other doctors accused of abusing people on college campuses, lawyers and an expert said, is the easy access they had to a large number of young and powerless people.

“Medicine is unique among professions in that every physician has the right to say, ‘Please undress, we’re going to be alone in a room together and I’m going to touch you’,” said James DuBois, director of the Bioethics Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis, who has conducted one of the few recent reviews of physicians who commit sexual abuse. “Every physician has the means to abuse that other professionals do not.”

Such abusers prey on people they believe are least likely to report, lawyers said, including athletes required to have physical exams to keep their spots on a team.

“You’re at a very powerful institution, away from home, required to see a prominent doctor, first of your family to go to college, you’re probably under scholarship, and this doctor was able to have his way with you,” said Parker Stinar, an attorney who said he and his colleagues represent more than 200 claimants.

• Washington Post, Opinion: Two miscarriages of justice reveal a sickening disparity, Ruth Marcus

U.S. Crime, Courts, Law

Washington Post, Federal arrest warrant issued for Brian Laundrie, fiance of Gabby Petito, on fraud-related charge, Kim Bellware, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). A federal arrest warrant has been issued for 23-year-old Brian Laundrie in connection with the case of his fiancee, Gabby Petito, who went missing during the couple’s cross-country trip and was later found dead.

A federal grand jury in Wyoming indicted Laundrie on Wednesday after determining he used “one or more unauthorized devices” including a debit card and PIN numbers for two bank accounts, to fraudulently obtain more than $1,000, according to the court filing released Thursday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Denver branch.

Federal investigators are still searching for Laundrie, who returned home to Florida without 22-year-old Petito on Sept. 1 and vanished several days after her family reported her missing. Laundrie was named a “person of interest” in Petito’s disappearance before her body was found in an undeveloped camping area of the Grand Teton National Forest in Wyoming on Sunday, but at the time had not been charged with any crime directly tied to her disappearance or death.

 New York Times, U.S. Reaches Agreement to Release Huawei Executive Meng Wanzhou, Katie Benner and Dan Bilefsky, Sept. 24, 2021. Ms. Wanzhou will return to China in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing in a sanctions violation case, a person familiar with the deal said.

The Justice Department has reached an agreement that will allow Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou, to return to China in exchange for admitting some wrongdoing in a sanctions violation case, a person familiar with the deal said on Friday.

Ms. Meng, who has been detained in Canada since 2018, has agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement that is expected to be entered in federal court in Brooklyn on Friday afternoon.

Ms. Meng will ad­mit to some wrong­do­ing, and federal prosecutors will defer and then ultimately drop the charges against her, the person said. ­As part of the agreement, she will not enter a guilty plea.

The Canadian authorities arrested Ms. Meng, 49, the technology giant’s chief financial officer, in December 2018 at Vancouver International Airport, at the request of the United States. Ms. Meng, the daughter of Huawei’s founder and chief executive, Ren Zhengfei, instantly became one of the world’s most famous detainees.

The Justice Department indicted Ms. Meng and Huawei, the telecom company founded by her father, Ren Zhengfei, in January 2018. It accused the firm and its chief financial officer of a decade-long effort to steal trade secrets, obstruct a criminal investigation and evade economic sanctions on Iran.

The charges underscored efforts by the Trump administration to directly link Huawei with the Chinese government, after long suspecting that the company worked to advance Beijing’s economic and political ambitions and undermine American interests.

Her arrest had thrust Canada into the middle of a battle between two global superpowers.

The deal to release Ms. Meng could signal a more conciliatory approach in Washington’s stance toward Beijing under the Biden administration.

If it leads to the release of two Canadians imprisoned in China, it could also provide a lift to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, who was re-elected this week with a minority government after calling an unpopular snap election. Mr. Trudeau’s inability to secure their freedom has cast a shadow over his premiership.

China detained the two imprisoned Canadians, the former diplomat Michael Kovrig and the businessman Michael Spavor, soon after Ms. Meng’s arrest, in what has been widely viewed in Canada as hostage diplomacy. In August, a court in northeastern China, where Mr. Spavor has lived, sentenced him to 11 years in prison after declaring him guilty of spying.

Washington Post, Perspective: Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford have a lot to talk about. A new podcast lets us listen in, Margaret Sullivan, right, Sept. 24, 2021. Theirs is a club of two. A club that neither of them ever would have asked to join.

Thirty years ago next month, Anita Hill (shown above in a poster for a 2013 documentary) testified before the all-White, all-male Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas of sexually harassing her when he was her boss in two federal workplaces.

Twenty-seven years later, Christine Blasey Ford, below left, testified before the committee that another Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, had sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.

In both cases, the testimony riveted the nation. Hill’s was televised and seen by a huge audience. Ford’s, taking place in a thoroughly transformed media environment, was the focus of nonstop cable TV and social media coverage and partisan commentary that was as immediate as it was intense. Both Thomas and Kavanaugh denied the women’s statements, and Thomas called the committee proceedings “a high-tech lynching for uppity Blacks.”

During a recent conversation recorded for a new podcast, Hill, now 65 and a Brandeis law professor, told Ford, 54 and a psychology scholar at Stanford and Palo Alto University, that she felt a sense of overwhelming kinship as she watched the 2018 testimony — a feeling that she knew was shared by a large community of like-minded women.

“A spiritual solidarity,” Hill called it.

Their conversation is a high point in “Because of Anita,” a new four-part podcast series that debuts in October. I listened to a segment of it Thursday and found it moving, instructive and — as podcasts sometimes can be — surprisingly intimate. The two had met and spoken before but not, until now, for the public to hear.

The conversation took place on Zoom in late August with Hill and Ford in their home offices in Massachusetts and California. The podcast hosts — activist and scholar Salamishah Tillet and journalist Cindi Leive, longtime editor of Glamour magazine — were in San Diego and Brooklyn.

Hill and Ford discussed the intensity of their experiences, and how it lingered far beyond their moments in the harsh spotlight — moments remembered by many Americans as a still image of each woman with her right hand raised.

They also agreed on their motivation: that it was not, at heart, to persuade those who would vote for or against the nominees but rather, a desire to be clear and honest about their experiences — to simply say what they knew and not to be attached to the outcome.

The most obvious outcomes, of course, were similar. Thomas and Kavanaugh both were confirmed by narrowly divided Senate votes: 52 to 48, and 50 to 48, respectively.

But both Hill and Ford sound as if they have made their peace with that — and say they would do it again, though they acknowledge how much the searing experiences have changed their lives.

Raw Story, Judge orders Trump Org to turn over docs as New York AG accuses company of ‘hiding behind excuses,’ John Wright, Sept. 24, 2021. Judge orders Trump Org to turn over docs as New York AG accuses company of ‘hiding behind excuses’.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, right, who is investigating the Trump Organization for allegedly manipulating the value of its assets, says the former president's company has been "hiding behind procedural delays and excuses" and failing to comply with her office's subpoenas for more than a year.

Now, in response to complaints from James' office, a New York state judge has ruled that if the Trump Organization doesn't comply with the subpoenas by next week, the company will have to hire an outside expert to search its documents.

"The Trump Organization has until Sept. 30 to file a report on its efforts to preserve, collect and produce all documents responsive to subpoenas issued by James as part of a civil probe into whether the company manipulated the value of its assets for loans and tax breaks, state court Justice Arthur Engoron said in a Sept. 2 order unsealed on Friday," according to a report from Bloomberg.

In a statement responding to the judge's order, James' office said: "For more than a year now, the Trump Organization has failed to adequately respond to our subpoenas, hiding behind procedural delays and excuses. Once again, the court has ordered that the Trump Organization must turn over the information and documents we are seeking, otherwise face an independent third-party that will ensure that takes place. Our work will continue undeterred because no one is above the law."

The civil case is separate from a criminal investigation into alleged tax-fraud by the Trump Organization that's being conducted by James in conjunction with the Manhattan district attorney.

"The New York attorney general opened the investigation in March 2019 after the president's former attorney, Michael Cohen, testified to Congress that President Trump had altered the value of his assets in financial statements in order to get loans, better insurance rates and tax breaks," the Hill reports. "In the civil case, court records show that James' office is investigating the valuation of several Trump properties including the Seven Springs resort in Westchester County, N.Y.; an office building on Wall Street in New York City; the Trump International Hotel in Chicago; and the Trump National Golf Club in Los Angeles."

Virus Victims, Responses

Washington Post, Doctor who has lost over 100 patients to covid says some deny virus from their deathbeds: ‘I don’t believe you,’ Andrea Salcedo, Sept. 24, 2021. Matthew Trunsky’s post detailing his interactions with eight covid patients highlights the resistance and mistreatment some health-care workers face while caring for patients who have put off or declined getting the vaccine.

Matthew Trunsky is used to people being angry at him.

As a pulmonologist and director of the palliative care unit at a Beaumont Health hospital in southeastern Michigan, Trunsky sees some of the facility’s sickest patients and is often the bearer of bad news.

He gets it. No one is prepared to hear a loved one is dying.

But when a well-regarded intensive care unit nurse told him during a recent shift that the wife of an unvaccinated covid patient had berated her when she informed the woman of her husband’s deteriorating condition, Trunsky, who has lost more than 100 patients to the coronavirus, reached his breaking point.

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When he got home that evening, he made himself a sandwich and opened Facebook.

Still sporting his black scrubs, he began to vent. He wrote about a critically ill patient who disputed his covid-19 diagnosis. Another threatened to call his lawyer if he wasn’t given ivermectin, an anti-parasite drug that is not approved for treating covid. A third, Trunsky wrote, told the doctor they would rather die than take one of the vaccines.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 24, 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: 231,466,628, Deaths: 4,744,002
U.S. Cases:     43,532,306, Deaths:    702,978
India Cases:     33,594,803, Deaths:    446,399
Brazil Cases:   21,308,178, Deaths:     593,018

Washington Post, At least 212.9 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 24, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 183 million people, 54.8 percent of the eligible population, 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.

U.S. Politics, Governance

New York Times, Opinion: Are Centrists in the Thrall of Right-Wing Propaganda? Paul Krugman, right, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). Everyone who paid attention during the Obama years knew that Republicans would also try to undermine Democratic presidencies. Some of the G.O.P.’s actions — notably, the efforts of governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott to prevent an effective response to a deadly pandemic — have shocked even the cynics. Still, a Republican attempt to make President Biden fail, no matter how much it hurt the rest of the country, was predictable.

More surprising, at least to me, has been the self-destructive behavior of Democratic centrists — a term I prefer to “moderates,” because it’s hard to see what’s moderate about demanding that Biden abandon highly popular policies like taxing corporations and reducing drug prices. At this point it seems all too possible that a handful of recalcitrant Democrats will blow up the whole Biden agenda — and yes, it’s the centrists who are throwing a tantrum, while the party’s progressives are acting like adults.

So what’s motivating the sabotage squad? Part of the answer, I’d argue, is that they have internalized decades of right-wing economic propaganda, that their gut reaction to any proposal to improve Americans’ lives is that it must be unworkable and unaffordable.

Of course, this isn’t the whole story. We certainly shouldn’t underrate the influence of money: Both wealthy donors and Big Pharma have been nakedly throwing their weight around. Nor should we discount the importance of simple innumeracy: $3.5 trillion sounds like a lot of money, and you shouldn’t assume politicians understand (or think constituents understand) that this is proposed spending over the course of a decade, not a single year. It would amount to little more than 1 percent of gross domestic product over that period and would still leave overall government spending far below its level in other wealthy democracies. It also ignores the fact that the true cost, after net savings and new revenue, would be much less than $3.5 trillion.

And some politicians seem to suffer from the misguided notion that only spending on “hard” infrastructure, like roads and bridges, counts as investing in the nation’s future. That is, they haven’t caught up with the growing body of evidence for high economic returns to spending on people — especially spending that lifts children out of poverty.

Still, I often find myself surprised to hear politicians and pundits who don’t consider themselves part of movement conservatism peddling economic narratives that are nothing more than right-wing propaganda but have been repeated so many times that many people who should know better accept them as established fact.

Washington Post, Sen. Grassley, the oldest GOP senator at 88, announces he will seek another term, Eugene Scott, Sept. 24, 2021. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), the oldest Republican senator at age 88 and a major player in securing confirmation of dozens of conservative federal judges, announced Friday that he will seek another six-year term.

“It’s 4 a.m. in Iowa so I’m running,” Grassley said in a predawn tweet that included an image of him jogging. “I do that 6 days a week. Before I start the day I want you to know what Barbara and I have decided. I’m running for re-election — a lot more to do, for Iowa. We ask and will work for your support. Will you join us?”

The decision by Grassley, who has served in the U.S. Congress since Jimmy Carter’s presidency, boosts Republican prospects for holding the seat next year, when control of the chamber will be at stake. Recent polling has shown Grassley with a sizable lead over Democratic challenger Abby Finkenauer.

How the 2022 Senate map is shaping up

Perhaps Grassley’s most consequential impact on the country has been his recent tenure as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a position that gave him significant influence in pushing through the nominations of dozens of judges during the Trump presidency as well as three Supreme Court justices, including the divisive nomination of Brett M. Kavanaugh.

Washington Post, Rep. Karen Bass plans to announce run for mayor of Los Angeles, Sean Sullivan and Tyler Pager, Sept. 24, 2021. Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) is planning to announce that she will run for mayor of Los Angeles in 2022, according to two people with knowledge of the situation, joining a high-stakes race to run the second-most populous city in the country.

The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private deliberations, said an official announcement is expected soon. It will possibly happen next week, barring unexpected changes, they said.

“Los Angeles is facing a humanitarian crisis in homelessness and a public health crisis in the disproportionate impact this pandemic has had on Angelenos,” Bass spokesman Zach Seidl said in a statement, when asked for comment. “She does not want to see these two issues tear the city apart. Los Angeles has to come together. That’s why

Bass, right, is a close ally of President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). She was a finalist to be Biden’s running mate last year and was a lead negotiator on Capitol Hill in bipartisan talks to overhaul policing laws. Those talks ended this week.

Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: The U.S. is the only major nation that numbers its legislative districts rather than naming them, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 24, 2021. In order to facilitate the undemocratic election process known as gerrymandering -- the decennial process of redrawing congressional, state, county, and municipal electoral units into unrepresentative and deceptive geographical contortions that favor one party over the other -- the United States finds itself virtually alone in the world in designating districts with numbers rather than place names.

District gerrymandering is unique to the United States. The method ensures that many districts are not wedded very long to their constituents, which permits political parties and their candidates to choose their voters rather than the voters choosing their representatives.

WMR has discovered that only three other countries in the world number their electoral units. They are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Malta and Nepal.

Palmer Report, Opinion: The real reason Donald Trump is going after Mary Trump, Bill Palmer, Sept. 24, 2021. This week Donald Trump filed a massive, and fatally flawed, lawsuit against his niece Mary Trump and the New York Times over the publication of details about his tax returns.

In addition to being a suit that will go nowhere, the timing also makes very little sense on the surface. These details were published years ago, and by now New York prosecutors have independently obtained his tax returns anyway.

So what’s the deal? Former New York Assistant Attorney General Tristan Snell floated this plausible scenario on Twitter: “What if Donald Trump’s lawsuit against Mary Trump and the New York Times is nothing but a publicity stunt — to look like he’s going on offense, so he can raise money to pay for his criminal defense lawyers?”

New York Times, Live Political Updates: Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Citing ‘Inhumane’ Deportations, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). The diplomat excoriated the decision to send migrants back to a country reeling from natural disasters and political crises. Here’s the latest in politics.

The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.

A senior American diplomat who oversees Haiti policy has resigned, two U.S. officials said, submitting a letter to the State Department that excoriated the Biden administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision” to send Haitian migrants back to a country that has been wracked this summer by a deadly earthquake and political turmoil.

The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was killed in his bedroom during a nighttime raid on his residence. Mr. Foote, a former ambassador to Zambia and acting assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, did not respond to messages for comment on Thursday morning.

In his stinging resignation letter, dated Wednesday, Mr. Foote criticized the Biden administration for deporting some of the thousands of the Haitian migrants who had traveled to the Texas border from Mexico and Central America in recent days.

“I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life,” Mr. Foote wrote in the letter, which was first reported by PBS NewsHour. Its authenticity was confirmed by a senior State Department official and a congressional official.

Mr. Foote also blasted a “cycle of international political interventions in Haiti” that “has consistently produced catastrophic results,” and he warned that the number of migrants to American borders “will only grow as we add to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”

• Democrats work to iron out budget differences as White House talks continue.
• The House is planning a largely symbolic vote on a bill to uphold abortion rights.
• Arizona’s criticized election review is concluding. But the copycats are just getting started.
• The White House is set to announce new limits on HFCs, a powerful driver of climate change.
• News analysis: Biden vowed to end ‘forever wars,’ but America’s wars go on.
• John Kerry, the first presidential climate envoy, is globe-trotting with an urgent pitch to save the planet.

New York Times, Regulators Racing Toward First Major Rules on Cryptocurrency, Eric Lipton, Ephrat Livni and Jeanna Smialek, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). Concerned about the potential for a digital-era bank run, the Treasury Department is working on an oversight framework for the fast-growing sector.After largely standing aside for years as cryptocurrency grew from a digital curiosity into a volatile but widely embraced innovation, federal regulators are racing to address the potential risks for consumers and financial markets.

Their concerns have only grown as both new and established firms have rushed to find ways to profit from bringing the massive wealth held in cryptocurrency into the traditional financial system through quasi-banking services like interest-bearing accounts and lending.

Now the Treasury Department and other agencies are moving urgently on an initial target for tighter regulation: a fast-growing product called a stablecoin.

Issued by a variety of firms that are currently only lightly regulated through a patchwork of state rules, stablecoins serve as something of a bridge between cryptocurrency markets and the traditional economy.

The value of a stablecoin is ostensibly pegged one-to-one to the United States dollar, gold or some other stable asset. The idea is to make it easier for people holding cryptocurrency — which is notorious for its frequent price swings — to carry out transactions like purchasing goods and services, or to earn interest on their crypto holdings.

The use of stablecoins is surging rapidly, and regulators have grown increasingly concerned that they are not in fact stable, and could lead to a digital-era bank run. Just this year, dollar-tied stablecoins such as Tether token, USD Coin and Pax Dollar have jumped from $30 billion in circulation in January to about $125 billion as of mid-September.

Palmer Report, Opinion: The January 6th Committee subpoenas have gone out – and yes, they’re going to succeed, Bill Palmer, Sept. 24, 2021. Whenever the January 6th Committee has said that it was “considering” subpoenaing this or that Trump aide, Palmer Report has pointed out that this meant the committee was absolutely 100% going to subpoena that person; this kind of language is merely meant to allow the committee to appear judicious in its decision making process in the eyes of the voters in the middle.

Sure enough, subpoenas went out yesterday to the likes of Steve Bannon, Dan Scavino, and Mark Meadows (and yes, to answer your next question, the committee will absolutely end up subpoenaing Donald Trump). But this very good news was immediately met with shouts of “they’ll never show up to testify” from defeatists on social media who very much appear to want to lose, so they can feel the most rage. Here’s the thing.

The bottom line is that the committee only needs to successfully lean on a fraction of these individuals to publicly testify, and it’ll be a win.

The only determining factor in the success of such hearings is how many minds were changed in the audience at home (neither base ever changes its mind; it’s only the voters in the middle who matter in these situations). And if any of the witnesses either plead the Fifth or get caught lying, that’s a huge bonus. But no matter how this plays out, most liberal pundits will spin it as a loss for the Democrats, because that’s the narrative that scares and outrages liberal activists into staying tuned in day after day.

World News

New York Times, Days Before Vote, Merkel Is Where She Didn’t Want to Be: On the Stump, Melissa Eddy, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). The race for German chancellor is tightening, but Angela Merkel (shown above in a file photo) says Armin Laschet is the man to fill her shoes.

Only days before Germans cast their ballots for a new Parliament and with it a new government and leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel was on the campaign trail this week — further proof that her conservatives are in a perilous position.

Ms. Merkel, of course, is no longer a candidate. She is stepping down and had hoped to stay away from the race. But instead she spent Tuesday in her own district stumping for the struggling candidate for her Christian Democratic Union, Armin Laschet. She even quipped about her smaller-than-average shoe size, hoping to convince voters that those shoes are best filled by Mr. Laschet.

For weeks, polls have shown a lead for the Social Democratic Party, traditional rivals of the conservative Christian Democrats yet also their governing partners. But in the final week before Sunday’s vote, the conservatives have narrowed the gap to roughly three percentage points.

Washington Post, Germany’s far-right stokes new grievances for voters: Masks rules and vaccine mandates, Loveday Morris, Sept. 24, 2021. Flanked by campaign posters promising a return to "normality," Alice Weidel, a lead election candidate for Germany's far-right, railed against coronavirus lockdowns and what she said was "discrimination" against the unvaccinated.

Then she moved on to vaccinations for kids.

"Hands off our children," she said to cheers in Görlitz, Germany's most eastern city. The crowd had gathered for one of the last campaign events of the Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, ahead of national elections Sunday. The vote will set Germany on a new course after 16 years with Angela Merkel as leader.

The anti-lockdown, anti-vaccination mandate message is a new rallying cry for the AfD, which became the country's third-largest political force when it won 13 percent of the vote in the country's last parliamentary elections in 2017.

It did so then by stoking a wave of anti-immigration sentiment in the wake of the migrant crisis that saw Chancellor Angela Merkel open the nation's doors to more than a million refugees, many of whom fled Syria's deadly civil war.

The AfD hasn’t abandoned its bread-and-butter issues of immigration and integration, which also feature heavily in election speeches. But after initially voicing support for coronavirus measures as the pandemic ravaged Europe, it has now put at the center of its campaign fighting what it describes as the overbearing rules.

 New York Times, Live Business Updates: China Declares All Cryptocurrency Transactions Illegal, Staff Reports, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). China intensified its crackdown on cryptocurrency, including issuing a nationwide ban on cryptocurrency mining. Here’s the latest on the economy.

New York Times, A Dangerous Scramble to Evacuate Afghan Nonprofit Workers, Miriam Jordan, Sept. 24, 2021. Women who led programs to empower girls are fleeing Afghanistan. But unlike people who worked for the U.S. military, they have no clear path to America.

New York Times, Thousands of Haitians Allowed to Stay in U.S. as Texas Camp Clears Out, Edgar Sandoval, Simon Romero and Miriam Jordan, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). The authorities have deported many Haitians, but have also permitted thousands to stay for months or years as they await immigration hearings.

New York Times, Europe Tightens Purse Strings to Try to Pressure Poland and Hungary, Monika Pronczuk, Sept. 24, 2021. Frustrations over rule of law violations in the two countries have prompted the European Union to block payments in an effort to bolster legal action.

Washington Post, A Taliban founder says cutting off hands as punishment will be ‘necessary for security,’ Ellen Francis, Sept. 24, 2021. A founder of the Taliban, who became notorious for imposing its harsh rule the last time the militants governed Afghanistan, says they plan to bring back executions and amputations.

“Cutting off hands is very necessary for security,” Nooruddin Turabi told the Associated Press. The country’s rulers are deciding whether they will dole out these punishments in public in the way they once did — sometimes at a Kabul sports stadium with crowds watching — he added.

“No one will tell us what our laws should be,” said the former justice minister who heads prisons.

Now in his 60s, Turabi ran the Taliban’s ministry of vice and virtue during its last term from 1996, until the United States launched its longest war in 2001.

At the time, that department’s morality police enforced its severe version of Islamic criminal law — banning cassette tapes and patrolling the streets to restrict women from going out.

When the Taliban marched back into power last month, just as U.S. forces left after 20 years of conflict, the Islamist movement formed an all-male cabinet and revived the ministry.

The Taliban is bringing back its feared ministry of ‘vice’ and ‘virtue’

Its comeback only added to questions about the Taliban’s assurances that it has changed. Like world powers, many Afghans are watching and waiting warily as the militants promise more tolerance, all the while showing signs that intimidation will remain central to their control.

Washington Post, As the Taliban bars some girls from school, their mothers’ dreams are also shattered, Sudarsan Raghavan, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). As the Taliban imposes education restrictions, it’s not only suffocating this generation of Afghan girls but also triggering deja vu for the previous generation. Many of their mothers were children or teenagers during the Taliban regime between 1996 and 2001 and subjected to harsh Islamic codes that deprived women of virtually every basic right.

New York Times, Thousands of Boko Haram Members Surrendered. They Moved In Next Door, Ruth Maclean and Ismail Alfa, Sept. 24, 2021 (print ed.). After defecting since the death of their leader, members of an extremist group in Nigeria have been relocated to a city they once terrorized.

For over a decade, the extremist group Boko Haram has terrorized northeastern Nigeria — killing tens of thousands of people, kidnapping schoolgirls and sending suicide bombers into busy marketplaces.

Now, thousands of Boko Haram fighters have surrendered, along with their family members, and are being housed by the government in a compound in the city of Maiduguri, the group’s birthplace and its frequent target.

The compound is next to a middle-class housing development and a primary school, terrifying residents, teachers and parents.

“We are very afraid,” said Maimouna Mohammed, a teacher at the primary school, glancing at the camp’s wall 50 yards from her classroom. “We don’t know their minds.”

Nigerian military and justice officials say that in the past month, as many as 7,000 fighters and family members, along with their captives, have left Boko Haram, the largest wave of defections by far since the jihadist group emerged in 2002.

The turning point for its fortunes appears to have been the death of Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s longtime leader, who blew himself up in May after being cornered by a rival faction.

However weakened Boko Haram may be, though, it does not necessarily mean an end to terror for the people of northeastern Nigeria, hundreds of thousands of whom have died, and millions of whom have fled.

Fighters from Boko Haram’s rival splinter group — the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP — are moving into the vacuum, observers in the region say, ferrying truckloads of military equipment from their strongholds in the Lake Chad area southward to Mr. Shekau’s former dens in the Sambisa forest. ISWAP broke off from Boko Haram in 2016, and claimed an affiliation with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Journalists are not allowed into the compound hosting the Boko Haram defectors, a facility known as Hajj Camp, formerly used by Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca. But we were able to interview six people who surrendered in the past month, who each managed to leave the camp for a few hours. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Sept. 23

Top Headlines

• New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates
• Washington Post, House Jan. 6 panel issues subpoenas for Meadows, Scavino, others
• Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue
• Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic
• New York Times, F.D.A. Authorizes Pfizer Booster Shots for Older and At-Risk Americans
• Washington Post, EPA finalizes first new climate rule under Biden, targeting refrigerants
• Washington Post, Hospitals overwhelmed by covid are turning to ‘crisis standards of care.’ What does that mean?
• Washington Post, Pope jokes he is ‘still alive’ despite some bishops wishing him dead
• Washington Post, Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown
• Palmer Report, Opinion: President Biden’s big cleanup operation has made more progress than you think, Ron Leshnower

#MeToo Rape Horrors

•  Washington Post, In Larry Nassar’s shadow, a larger sex abuse case at the University of Michigan
• Washington Post, Opinion: Two miscarriages of justice reveal a sickening disparity, Ruth Marcus
• New York Times, R. Kelly’s Trial Is Captivating a Black Audience Online. Here’s Why, Troy Closson
• Daily Beast, Tough-on-Crime Republican DA Charged With Ambushing, Raping Woman

Virus Victims, Responses

• New York Times, Live Updates: C.D.C. Is Set to Decide Who Qualifies for Booster Shots After F.D.A. Approval
• New York Times, For Parents ​of Disabled Children, School Mask Wars Are Particularly Wrenching
• New York Times, Pressure Grows on U.S. Companies to Share Covid Vaccine Technology
• New York Times, People with serious conditions are waiting weeks for non-Covid surgeries as hospitals are inundated once again
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 699,748
• Washington Post, 212.6 million U.S. vaccinated

U.S. Terrorists, Election Fraudsters, Apologists, Money Sources

• New York Times, Arizona’s Criticized Election Review Nears End, but Copycats Are Coming
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Covid and Trumpism lead to coups and rumors of coups, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, Tucker Carlson is taking aim at his own book publisher
• HuffPost, ‘Outrageous’: Judge Lays Into Trump-Loving Deputy Who Wore ‘Sheriff’ Patch On Jan. 6

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police, Immigration

• Washington Post, Republicans, Democrats unable to reach deal on bill to overhaul policing tactics
• Washington Post, Editorial: It’s hard to hold police accountable. For federal agents, it’s all but impossible
• Washington Post, Federal appeals court vacates gun rights ruling on sales to people under 21
• New York Times, One Dead and a Dozen Injured in Shooting at Tennessee Grocery, Police Say
• Washington Post, Charges of racism swirl as Haitian Americans and allies unite to protest Biden’s border crisis
• Washington Post, Man ‘snapped’ before killing 4 people found in Wisconsin cornfield, prosecutors allege
• New York Times, Gabby Petito’s Death Ruled a Homicide, F.B.I. Confirms
• Washington Post, As the Petito case grips the nation, families of color say their missing loved ones matter, too
• Palmer Report, The real reason Eric Trump is panicking, TR Kenneth

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• New York Times, Live Political Updates: Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Citing ‘Inhumane’ Deportations
• New York Times, Regulators Racing Toward First Major Rules on Cryptocurrency
• Washington Post, Analysis: Republicans usually lose shutdown fights. So why go there again? Aaron Blake
• Washington Post, Former treasury secretaries tried defusing debt-ceiling bomb in talks with Yellen, McConnell
• Washington Post, Fed projects new interest rate hikes in 2022, signals upcoming easing of supports if economy continues to heal

World News

• New York Times, Days Before Vote, Merkel Is Where She Didn’t Want to Be: On the Stump
• New York Times, Thousands of Boko Haram Members Surrendered. They Moved In Next Door
• New York Times, Afghan Uyghurs Fear Deportation as Taliban Cozy Up to China
• Washington Post, Biden, Macron to meet next month amid dispute over Australian submarine deal

U.S. Media

• New York Times, R. Kelly’s Trial Is Captivating a Black Audience Online. Here’s Why, Troy Closson
• New York Times, Melvin Van Peebles, Champion of New Black Cinema, Dies at 89
• New York Times, Wikipedia’s Next Leader on Misinformation: ‘Neutrality Requires Understanding’

Top Stories

New York Times, In Push to Tax the Rich, White House Spotlights Billionaires’ Tax Rates, Jim Tankersley, Sept. 23, 2021. A White House analysis using an unconventional methodology says the wealthiest Americans pay far less in taxes than others.

President Biden is leaning into his push to increase taxes on the rich as he seeks to unify Democrats in the House and Senate behind a $3.5 trillion bill that would expand federal efforts to fight climate change, reduce the cost of child care, expand educational access, reduce poverty and more.

“I’m sick and tired of the super-wealthy and giant corporations not paying their fair share in taxes,” Mr. Biden wrote on Twitter on Wednesday, amplifying an argument that Democratic strategists believe will help sell his economic agenda to the public and potentially lift the party’s candidates in midterm elections. “It’s time for it to change.”

To buttress that argument, White House economists published on Thursday a new analysis that seeks to show a gap between the tax rate that everyday Americans face and what the richest owe on their vast holdings.

The analysis suggests that the wealthiest 400 households in America — those with net worth ranging between $2.1 billion and $160 billion — pay an effective federal income tax rate of just over 8 percent per year on average. The White House is basing that tax rate on calculations using data on high earners’ income, wealth and taxes paid from the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances.

The analysis, from researchers at the Office of Management and Budget and the Council of Economic Advisers, is an attempt to bolster Mr. Biden’s claims that billionaires are not paying what they actually should owe in federal taxes, and that the tax code rewards wealth, not work.

Washington Post, House Jan. 6 panel issues subpoenas for Meadows, Scavino, others, Tom Hamburger, Jacqueline Alemany and Carol D. Leonnig, The committee said it is seeking records surrounding the planning of the Jan. 6 rally that was held ahead of the attack on the Capitol and any interactions the individuals had with President Donald Trump.

The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has issued subpoenas to two top Trump White House officials, former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, right, and former deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino, as well as to Kash Patel, who was serving as chief of staff to the acting defense secretary that day. An additional subpoena targets longtime Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon.

The subpoenas were announced Thursday evening by the committee, which has moved its inquiry in to a new more aggressive stage after requesting White House records last month and sending preservation requests for records to telecom and social media companies.

Even before the subpoenas were made public Thursday, Trump and his team condemned the select committee’s inquiry, vowing to fight its demands for documents and interviews with claims of executive privilege. A debate about a former president’s ability to restrict access to information and individuals has already begun in Washington — and is likely to become dramatically more intense now that these first subpoenas have been issued.

Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown

The executive privilege questions will be especially focused on Meadows and Scavino due to their roles in the White House and access to Trump at the time of the attack. Questions to Patel would likely deal with the committee’s concerns over Trump’s communications with the Pentagon and efforts to stay in office after Jan. 20. Bannon was a leading advocate of making Jan. 6 a key moment in Trump’s efforts to stay in office.

Along with asking the Meadows, Scavino, Patel and Bannon to hand over certain records, the committee is instructing the four men to appear for depositions in mid-October.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: The billionaire wanted by China who funded insurrection propaganda and a near Sino-U.S. nuclear war, Wayne Madsen, left, Sept. 23, 2021. Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire wanted by the government of China for bribery, kidnapping, money laundering, fraud and rape, sits comfortably in New York City in his penthouse in the Sherry-Netherland Hotel overlooking Central Park, sipping $1 million-a-kilogram rare tea, all the while under the umbrella of U.S. political asylum protection status.

Meanwhile, through his GTV Media Group conglomerate, Guo is simultaneously funding propaganda supporting the January 6th insurrection in Washington and the overthrow of the government giving him political asylum. Specifically, Guo funds, through his Guo Media company, Steve Bannon's "War Room" podcast and "Real America's Voice" Internet television broadcast. The two are shown above in a file photo.

In a recent Real America's Voice segment, Bannon claimed that on the night of January 5, 2021, he, Rudolph Giuliani, and senior members of the Trump administration plotted from the Willard Hotel in Washington the January 6th attempted coup d'état to "kill the Biden presidency in the crib." Moreover, Guo's media influence operations in calling for the overthrow of the government of China -- words heeded by then-President Donald Trump -- almost ended up in a nuclear war between the U.S. and China.

Why are two Green Card holders from China permitted to wage a war of insurrection and sedition against the United States from New York City? More importantly, why is Bannon permitted to reprise the wartime treasonous roles of Tokyo Rose, Axis Sally, Lord Haw-Haw, Seoul City Sue, and Sister Mary in sowing sedition, insurrection, and treason?

Washington Post, Congress is hurtling toward debt showdown despite public’s waning interest in the issue, Mike DeBonis, Capitol Hill is headed for a reprise of the 2013 debt-ceiling crisis even though the fiscal and political landscapes have shifted.

The outlines of the clash that brought America to the brink of default in the fall of 2013 were straightforward. Claiming the mantle of fiscal rectitude, Republicans stood firm against an increase in the federal borrowing limit. Democrats lambasted the GOP for playing politics with the nation’s credit, risking a calamitous default.

On the surface, not much appears to have changed in the eight years since the last congressional debt crisis roiled Capitol Hill. But as leaders of the two parties settle into familiar roles this week, they are doing so against a markedly different political landscape.

While both parties continued to advance policies that add substantially to the debt, roughly $10 trillion, the public’s interest in the issue has dramatically waned.

A 2013 Gallup poll in 2013 found that one-fifth of Americans saw the federal budget as the nation’s top problem. In August, only 2 percent of Americans thought the same.

Washington Post, White House tells U.S. agencies to get ready for first government shutdown of pandemic, Sept. 23, 2021. Officials stress this is part of standard practice but it comes amid multiple fiscal fights in Washington.

The White House budget office notified federal agencies on Thursday to begin preparations for the first shutdown of the U.S. government since the coronavirus pandemic began, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill struggle to reach a funding agreement.

Administration officials stress the request is in line with traditional procedures seven days ahead of a shutdown and not a commentary on the likelihood — or lack thereof — a congressional deal. Both Democrats and Republicans have made clear they intend to fund the government before its funding expires on Sept. 30, but time is running out and lawmakers are aiming to resolve an enormous set of tasks to in a matter of weeks.

Biden huddles with warring Democrats as party’s agenda hangs in the balance

House Democrats earlier this week approved a measure to fund the government, suspend the debt ceiling and approve emergency aid such as disaster relief. But that plan is expected to die in the Senate amid GOP refusal to support Democratic attempts to lift the debt ceiling.

 New York Times, F.D.A. Authorizes Pfizer Booster Shots for Older and At-Risk Americans, Noah Weiland and Sharon LaFraniere, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The authorization applies to Pfizer vaccine recipients who are over 65 or at high risk, including those who are often exposed to the virus in their jobs. The move sets up what is likely to be a staggered campaign to deliver the shots to the most vulnerable Americans.

After weeks of internal strife at the Food and Drug Administration, the agency on Wednesday authorized people over 65 who had received Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine to get a booster shot at least six months after their second injection.

The F.D.A. also authorized booster shots for adult Pfizer-BioNTech recipients who are at high risk of becoming severely ill with Covid-19 or are at risk of serious complications from the disease due to frequent exposure to the coronavirus at their jobs.

The authorization sets up what is likely to be a staggered campaign to deliver the shots, starting with the most vulnerable Americans. It opens the way for possibly tens of millions of vaccinated people to receive boosters at pharmacies, health clinics, doctors’ offices and elsewhere.

Roughly 22 million Americans are at least six months past their second dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. About half of them are 65 and older. Millions of Americans who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are still waiting to learn whether they, too, can get boosters.

The F.D.A.’s decision will be followed as soon as Thursday by a recommendation from the C.D.C., which issues guidance on vaccine policy for clinicians and public health officials throughout the United States. An advisory committee of the C.D.C. is now in the midst of a two-day meeting on the issue. But even if the C.D.C. takes a different stance, health care providers are now authorized to offer third shots to Pfizer-BioNTech recipients who meet the F.D.A.’s eligibility criteria.

Washington Post, EPA finalizes first new climate rule under Biden, targeting refrigerants, Dino Grandoni, Sept. 23, 2021. The new Environmental Protection Agency rule aims to cut the use and production of hydrofluorocarbons — widely used in air conditioners, refrigerators and other appliances — by 85 percent over the next 15 years.

Washington Post, Hospitals overwhelmed by covid are turning to ‘crisis standards of care.’ What does that mean? Hannah Knowles, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.).  Some places have adopted statewide crisis standards of care, in which health systems can prioritize patients for scarce resources — based largely on their likelihood of survival — and even deny treatment.

Long-feared rationing of medical care has become a reality in some parts of the United States as the delta variant drives a new wave of coronavirus cases, pushing hospitals to the brink.

Alaska and Idaho have activated statewide “crisis standards of care,” in which health systems can prioritize patients for scarce resources — based largely on their likelihood of survival — and even deny treatment. The decisions affect covid and non-covid patients. Some health care providers in Montana have turned to crisis standards as well, while Hawaii’s governor this month released health workers from liability if they have to ration care.

Washington Post, Pope jokes he is ‘still alive’ despite some bishops wishing him dead, Ellen Francis, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The pope's post-surgery joke marked a frank acknowledgment of the forces within the church who are at odds with him. ‘It is the work of the devil,’ the pontiff said of opposition from conservatives within the church.

Pope Francis (shown above in a file photo) has a message for his haters: “Still alive. Even though some people wanted me dead.”

Hundreds of Italians cheered for him under a Rome hospital balcony this summer. But not everybody was happy that he made it out of colon surgery, the pontiff has quipped. Some of his foes held secret meetings about his health.

“I know that there were even meetings between prelates who thought the pope was in a more serious condition than what was being said,” he added in a meeting this month with Jesuits in Slovakia, after someone asked him how he was doing.

“They were preparing the conclave,” he said, referring to a meeting where a new pope is elected. “Patience! Thank God, I am well.”

At 84 years old, the head of the Roman Catholic Church is back at work after spending 10 days at a hospital in July when doctors removed part of his intestine.

In his eight-year tenure, Francis’s more liberal overtones than the popes before him — from his invitation of LGBT advocates to the Vatican to his calls to welcome refugees — have stirred tensions with conservatives, and drew pushback.

The post-op papal joke about bishops wishing him ill marked a frank acknowledgment of the forces within the church who are at odds with him.

In his comments published on Tuesday by Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, Francis accused his vocal critics of doing “the work of the devil.”

Washington Post, Biden White House leans toward releasing information about Trump and Jan. 6 attack, setting off legal and political showdown, Tom Hamburger and Jacqueline Alemany, Sept. 23, 2021. The White House is leaning toward releasing information to Congress about what Donald Trump and his aides were doing during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol despite the former president’s objections — a decision that could have significant political and legal ramifications.

Trump has said he will cite “executive privilege” to block information requests from the House select committee investigating the events of that day, banking on a legal theory that has successfully allowed presidents and their aides to avoid or delay congressional scrutiny for decades, including during the Trump administration.

But President Biden’s White House plans to err on the side of disclosure given the gravity of the events of Jan. 6, according to two people familiar with discussions who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private discussions.

In response to questions about White House deliberations over what information to release, Biden spokesman Michael J. Gwin said the president views the attack on the Capitol as “a dark stain on our country’s history” and is “deeply committed to ensuring that something like that can never happen again, and he supports a thorough investigation.”

Can Trump use executive privilege to stall the Jan. 6 investigation?

Members of the investigative committee argue that Trump no longer enjoys the protection of executive privilege, encouraging the White House to push aside institutional concerns about sharing information with Congress and aid the panel in an investigation focused on what Democrats and a handful of Republicans have called an assault on democracy.

“It’s not really relevant because there’s no president involved — there’s no such thing as a former president’s executive privilege,” said Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), a committee member who teaches constitutional law. “That’s extremely dilute and not really relevant.”

Palmer Report, Opinion: President Biden’s big cleanup operation has made more progress than you think, Ron Leshnower, Sept 23, 2021. From the moment Joe Biden was elected, it was clear his presidency would be unique in at least one way: Biden would have to clean up the profound mess left behind by his monstrous predecessor. Donald Trump isn’t just a Republican with horrible politics; he’s a reckless slob intent on destroying everything around him, whether for personal gain, for kicks, or both.

Peril, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa’s insightful book that was released on Tuesday, reveals the unusual scene Biden found himself in after his inauguration in January. “Trump’s existence permeated the White House,” they wrote, detailing how Trump littered the White House with many “toys,” such as a giant virtual golf course machine, which offered him amusement when he wasn’t getting impeached. When Trump moved out in January, the fussy, privileged toddler left the toys behind, prompting Biden to refer to the former guy as a “fucking asshole.”

Of course, Trump’s contempt for his surroundings extends far beyond the boundaries of his converted romper rooms. The Earth, already suffering under a climate crisis, received zero love from the Trump administration over four long years. On the contrary, not only did Trump fail to help the environment, but he aggressively pursued harmful deregulation—even at the end of his term when he was supposed to be focused on a peaceful transition of power.

Fortunately, the Biden administration has been making progress in reversing Trump’s onslaught of environmental deregulation. According to the Washington Post’s tracker, Biden has so far successfully reversed 42 regulatory rollbacks while having targeted 73 more. This all began on day one, when Biden announced the United States would rejoin the Paris Climate Accord and rescinded a Keystone XL pipeline permit Trump proudly granted in 2017.

The tracker also shows that Biden isn’t limiting himself to reversing Trump’s destructive actions. Biden has also been pushing forward with an environmental agenda that should appeal to anyone who wishes to live on a clean, healthy planet. Within a matter of months, the Biden administration has taken 24 new actions and proposed 24 more. As Al Gore put it bluntly ten years ago: “Here is the truth: The Earth is round; Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11; Elvis is dead; Obama was born in the United States; and the climate crisis is real.”

#MeToo Mass Rape Horrors

Washington Post, In Larry Nassar’s shadow, a larger sex abuse case at the University of Michigan, Lenny Bernstein, Sept. 23, 2021. U.S. senators listened intently last week as four world-class gymnasts told Congress of the harrowing impact of sexual abuse by former Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar.

Sixty miles from Nassar’s one-time office, a similar but much larger case of sex abuse is playing out with little of the same attention. More than 950 people have come forward to accuse the late University of Michigan doctor Robert E. Anderson (shown above) of abusing them while he was on staff between 1966 and 2003, according to lawyers who represent the survivors.

That total surpasses the scale of the molestation at Michigan State, as well as similar incidents at the University of Southern California and Ohio State University. Attorneys for the University of Michigan survivors contend the allegations against Anderson constitute the largest example of sexual exploitation by one person in U.S. history.

A number of Anderson’s alleged victims, most prominently former football players, have publicly told stories of the physician fondling them and repeatedly performing unnecessary rectal and genital exams during their years at the school. As a result, his conduct over decades as the football team doctor has drawn the most attention since the story broke in February 2020, a dozen years after his death.

But the small group of attorneys bringing the case said they also have claims spanning decades from athletes on the wrestling, basketball, track and field, hockey, swimming and tennis teams. Pilots and air traffic controllers have accused Anderson of abuse during physicals he conducted in his private practice for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Anderson, who died in 2008 without facing charges, also allegedly molested nonathlete students as a physician for the university’s health service; men who sought Vietnam War draft deferments by claiming to be gay; the estranged son of iconic football coach Bo Schembechler, who said he was violated when his father sent him to Anderson for a sports physical at the age of 10; and a former chairman of the university’s Board of Regents, who was a student at Michigan in the 1960s, according to investigative reports and public statements from survivors.

The vast majority of survivors are men, but Anderson also is accused of abusing women, including a player on the first Michigan women’s varsity tennis team in 1973, who has spoken publicly.

In public accounts and two investigative reports, the survivors said they complained to coaches, trainers and administrators, and nothing was ever done. The Washington Post contacted each of the named victims in this story or their lawyers and all affirmed their accounts.

“The university knew, the enabler, the institution — not one time, not 10 times, but knew for decades,” said Mick Grewal, who said he represents about 250 people who have reported abuse by Anderson. “ . . . How can you know this and not report this to law enforcement?”

The university has apologized for the pain survivors suffered and is in mediated talks with their attorneys about how to compensate them. It also has instituted a number of reforms aimed at preventing future abuse.

One factor that unites Anderson with Nassar and other doctors accused of abusing people on college campuses, lawyers and an expert said, is the easy access they had to a large number of young and powerless people.

“Medicine is unique among professions in that every physician has the right to say, ‘Please undress, we’re going to be alone in a room together and I’m going to touch you’,” said James DuBois, director of the Bioethics Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis, who has conducted one of the few recent reviews of physicians who commit sexual abuse. “Every physician has the means to abuse that other professionals do not.”

Such abusers prey on people they believe are least likely to report, lawyers said, including athletes required to have physical exams to keep their spots on a team.

“You’re at a very powerful institution, away from home, required to see a prominent doctor, first of your family to go to college, you’re probably under scholarship, and this doctor was able to have his way with you,” said Parker Stinar, an attorney who said he and his colleagues represent more than 200 claimants.

U.S Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney testifies during a Senate Judiciary hearing on Capitol Hill on Sept. 15, 2021 (Saul Loeb/POOL via Reuters).

ABC News, McKayla Maroney's gut-wrenching statement to Congress about FBI's handling of Nassar abuse, Staff edits, Sept. 15, 2021 (7:51 min. video).  "They had legal, legitimate evidence of child abuse and did nothing," she said.

Washington Post, Opinion: Two miscarriages of justice reveal a sickening disparity, Ruth Marcus, right, Sept. 20, 2021, Sept. 23 print ed. Two individuals allegedly made false statements to federal investigators. One now faces trial on a felony charge. The other does not. I defy you to read about their cases and conclude that justice is served in either instance, or that it is being applied even-handedly.

Let’s start with the person who has been let off the hook, because the decision is so infuriating and underscores so dramatically the unfairness of the other prosecution. W. Jay Abbott was the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office in 2015, when it received reliable reports that USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar had sexually abused multiple gymnasts.

One of Nassar’s victims, McKayla Maroney, testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week about describing how Nassar had repeatedly molested her to one of Abbott’s agents, only to have the agent reply, “Is that all?”

What happened next? For months, nothing, as far as the FBI was concerned. Abbott’s office was supposed to refer the allegations to the FBI’s Lansing, Mich., office, the city where Nassar worked. But that never happened — and Nassar went on to abuse at least 70 more young athletes until he was arrested by Michigan state police 16 months later.

During that time period, Abbott met and corresponded repeatedly with the head of USA Gymnastics, Steve Penny, about a tantalizing job prospect, heading up security for the entire U.S. Olympic Committee.

When the Justice Department’s inspector general interviewed Abbott, since retired, about the bureau’s handling of the Nassar case, he “made multiple false statements” about both the conduct of the investigation and his job talks, in violation of the federal false statements law, the inspector general concluded in a searing report released in July.

Abbott claimed he had spoken with FBI counterparts in Detroit and Los Angeles about the Nassar allegations; both agents denied such conversations, and there was no documentation they occurred.

The inspector general “found no evidence” to support Abbott’s claims — and further concluded that “Abbott’s false statements were knowing and intentional.”

But Abbott also insisted to the inspector general that he had never applied for or taken other steps to secure the Olympics job. This was, according to the inspector general, untrue, deliberately so, and stretched across two sworn interviews, including after Abbott was confronted with evidence to the contrary.

“Abbott, by his own admission, was concerned that applying for a job with the U.S. Olympic Committee posed a conflict of interest with the FBI’s handling of the Nassar investigation, which was a high profile, sensitive matter,” the report noted. “Under this circumstance and given the risk involved, we found it highly unlikely that Abbott forgot about his ultimate decision to apply for the job.”

The inspector general asked the Justice Department’s criminal division to prosecute Abbott for false statements. It declined in September 2020. The lesson? You can lie to federal investigators with impunity.

The second case, with an opposite outcome, involves Michael Sussmann, right, a Washington lawyer who represented the Hillary Clinton campaign, the Democratic National Committee and a tech company executive during the 2016 election. Sussmann, a former Justice Department official with expertise in cybersecurity, sought a meeting with FBI general counsel James Baker to pass on information about digital connections between a computer linked to the Trump Organization and a Russian bank with ties to the Kremlin.

Justice Department special counsel John Durham, left, appointed by former attorney general William P. Barr to probe whether there was FBI or intelligence community wrongdoing relating to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 election, obtained the indictment announced last week, the second criminal charge arising from his two-year probe.

It alleges Sussmann told Baker at the meeting, on Sept. 19, 2016, that he wasn’t doing work on those allegations “for any client.” That led Baker “to understand that Sussmann was acting as a good citizen merely passing along information, not as a paid advocate or political operative,” when in fact, according to the indictment, Sussmann was acting on behalf of the tech executive and the Clinton campaign.

Sussmann’s “lie was material” — meaning that it could have affected the investigation — because it “misled” FBI officials “concerning the political nature of his work and deprived the FBI of information that might have permitted it more fully to assess and uncover the origins of the relevant data and technical analysis,” the indictment alleges.

As former federal prosecutor Randall D. Eliason has noted, this single false statement, before a single witness, is about as weak as a case can get. Whatever he told them, FBI officials knew full well that Sussmann represented Democrats and the Clinton campaign.

Baker didn’t take notes of the meeting. The evidence of Sussmann’s alleged misstatement, such as it is, comes from handwritten notes of the conversation made by another FBI official later that day. Sussmann also billed the meeting to the Clinton campaign, according to the indictment, an assertion his lawyers contest.

Sussmann has said he told Baker he was there on behalf of the tech client. Baker, testifying before House committee in 2018, said “I don’t remember him specifically saying that he was acting on behalf of a particular client” — a far cry from recalling a specific assertion from Sussmann that he wasn’t representing a client.

But assume that Sussmann did lie. Is there a reason to make a federal case out of it? There’s no indication, in the 27 discursive pages of the indictment, that Sussmann was knowingly trying to peddle false information. There’s no indication that the FBI, had it known the identity of Sussmann’s clients, would have proceeded much differently: it looked into the allegations and decided there wasn’t anything to them. What harm did the alleged lie cause?

Further, the Sussmann prosecution contradicts the entire predicate of Durham’s investigation. The probe was launched, more than two years ago, on the theory that the FBI was somehow hijacked by “deep state” conspirators who concocted the “Russia hoax” to prevent Donald Trump’s election. But in Durham’s retelling in the Sussmann indictment, the FBI was not a bad actor but a hapless victim of outside forces.

And consider: If the lesson of the Abbott non-prosecution is that you can repeatedly lie to federal investigators and get away with it, the lesson of the Sussmann indictment is that you bring information to the attention of federal investigators at the peril of your career and your freedom.

Where, you might ask, is Attorney General Merrick Garland in all this? In an exquisitely difficult position. Even though Durham is a Barr-appointed special counsel, Garland retains the power to supervise his investigation. But stepping in to prevent Durham from seeking this flimsy indictment risked generating a political uproar, with unsettling echoes of Barr’s heavy-handedness. Now, it is too late.

While Abbott collects his government pension, Sussmann, who has resigned from his law firm, faces ruin. These twin miscarriages of justice, each wrong on its own, are sickening when taken together.

New York Times, R. Kelly’s Trial Is Captivating a Black Audience Online. Here’s Why, Troy Closson, Sept. 23, 2021. On the internet, both supporters and detractors of the singer have shown intense interest in the criminal trial in Brooklyn. (See excerpt in 'Media New' below.)

Virus Victims, Responses

New York Times, Live Updates: C.D.C. Is Set to Decide Who Qualifies for Booster Shots After F.D.A. Approval, Staff Reports, Sept. 23, 2021. Here’s the latest pandemic news.

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will today take up the thorny question of who is eligible for the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus booster shot.
• The decision will shape government guidance, affecting millions of Americans.

New York Times, For Parents ​of Disabled Children, School Mask Wars Are Particularly Wrenching, Erica L. Green, Sept. 23, 2021. In Tennessee, where the governor allows families to ignore school mask mandates, some parents are making excruciating calculations each morning.

New York Times, Pressure Grows on U.S. Companies to Share Covid Vaccine Technology, Stephanie Nolen and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). As President Biden hosts a Covid-19 summit today, American drug companies are being urged to share their formulas with nations that need more shots. Primarily in the spotlight is Moderna, the upstart biotech firm that accepted $2.5 billion in taxpayer money to develop its vaccine.

As President Biden convenes heads of state for a Covid-19 summit on Wednesday, pressure is growing on American drug companies — particularly Moderna, the upstart biotech firm that developed its coronavirus vaccine with billions of dollars in taxpayer money — to share their formulas with manufacturers in nations that desperately need more shots.

Last year’s successful race to develop vaccines in extraordinarily short order put companies like Moderna and Pfizer in a highly favorable spotlight. But now, with less than 10 percent of those in many poor nations fully vaccinated and a dearth of doses contributing to millions of deaths, health officials in the United States and abroad are pressing the companies to do more to address the global shortage.

The Biden administration has privately urged both Pfizer and Moderna to enter into joint ventures where they would license their technology to contract manufacturers with the aim of providing vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, according to a senior administration official.

Those talks led to an agreement with Pfizer, announced Wednesday morning, to sell the United States an additional 500 million doses of its vaccine at a not-for-profit price — rather than license its technology — to donate overseas.

The discussions with Moderna have not been fruitful, said the official, who expressed deep frustration with the company but requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

New York Times, People with serious conditions are waiting weeks for non-Covid surgeries as hospitals are inundated once again, Reed Abelson, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). She manages to walk for a short time in her kitchen or garden before she has to sit down. “It’s just frustrating at this point,” said Ms. O’Donnell, 80, who lives in Aloha, Ore. “I’m really depressed.”

She had been preparing for back surgery scheduled for Aug. 31, hoping the five-hour procedure would allow her to be more active. But a day before the operation, at OHSU Health Hillsboro Medical Center, she learned it had been canceled.

“Nope, you can’t come, our hospital is filling up,” she said she was told.

Faced with a surge of Covid-19 hospitalizations in Oregon, the hospital has not yet rescheduled her surgery. “I don’t know what is going to happen,” Ms. O’Donnell said, worrying that her ability to walk might be permanently impaired if she is forced to wait too long.

Echoes of the pandemic’s early months are resounding through the halls of hospitals, with an average of more than 90,000 patients in the United States being treated daily for Covid. Once again, many hospitals have been slammed in the last two months, this time by the Delta variant, and have been reporting that intensive care units are overflowing, that patients have to be turned away and even that some patients have died while awaiting a spot in an acute or I.C.U. ward.

In this latest wave, hospital administrators and doctors were desperate to avoid the earlier pandemic phases of blanket shutdowns of surgeries and other procedures that are not true emergencies. But in the hardest-hit areas, especially in regions of the country with low vaccination rates, they are now making difficult choices about which patients can still be treated. And patients are waiting several weeks, if not longer, to undergo non-Covid surgeries.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 23, 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: 230,985,466, Deaths: 4,734,913
U.S. Cases:     43,404,877, Deaths:    699,748
India Cases:     33,563,421, Deaths:    446,080
Brazil Cases:    21,283,567, Deaths:    592,357

Washington Post, At least 212.6 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 23, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 182.6 million people, 54.8 percent of the eligible population, 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. When the president set the goal May 4, more than 2 million vaccine doses were being given daily, 56 percent of adults had already received at least one shot, and the target seemed to be in easy reach. Vaccination rates fell to 1 million per day and in July fell further to around a half-million doses per day before turning up again.

U.S. Terrorists, Election Fraudsters, Apologists, Money Sources

New York Times, Arizona’s Criticized Election Review Nears End, but Copycats Are Coming, Michael Wines, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The inquiry into the 2020 vote, derided as a badly flawed partisan exercise, has already spawned imitators in other states.

Republicans in the Arizona Senate are expected on Friday to unveil the results of the deeply flawed review they ordered into Democratic election victories last November in the state’s largest county.

The study, conducted by Republican loyalists and conspiracy theorists, some of whom previously had called the election rigged, has long since lost any pretense of being an objective review of the 2020 election. It focuses on the votes that saw President Biden narrowly win the state and elected a Democrat, Mark Kelly, to the U.S. Senate, and its origins reflect the baseless Republican claims of a stolen election.

But regardless of the outcome, the effort in Arizona has already inspired copycat efforts in other states still poring over the results from an election nearly a year old. And it has become a way to keep alive false claims of fraud and undermine faith in the 2020 election and democracy itself.

In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, for example, Republican-dominated Legislatures have ordered Arizona-style reviews of the 2020 vote in their states, sometimes in consultation with the same conspiracy theorists behind the Arizona investigation.

• Daily Beast, Conspiracy Firm Behind Arizona Audit Defies Order to Release Behind-the-Scenes Texts 

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Covid and Trumpism lead to coups and rumors of coups, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 20 books and former Navy intelligence officer, Sept. 22-23, 2021. The twin toxic combination of Covid-19 and Trumpism has been the perfect ingredient to foster the type of political and economic instability that has fostered seven coups -- four military, two civilian, and one hybrid -- in countries around the world. These have all occurred since Donald Trump's abortive coup in the United States on January 6, 2021.

While coups have historically been something that plagued the developing world, the insurrection by pro-Trump gangs at the U.S. Capitol, aided and abetted by embedded agents of influence inside the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the National Security Council, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, and the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, almost precipitated a full-scale coup d'état in the United States. That action in Washington, DC sent political shock waves around the world.

• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: Russian fascism shows weak links; Biden missed an opportunity

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is shown encouraging insurrectionists outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 before they invaded the Capitol as senators were seeking to certify the U.S. 2020 presidential election vote (Photo by Francis Chung).

Washington Post, Tucker Carlson is taking aim at his own book publisher, Jeremy Barr, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The Fox News host has been calling out Simon & Schuster, which published his most recent book, to anyone who will listen.

Carlson called Simon & Schuster’s president a “cartoonish corporate censor” and used the introduction to attack the company for canceling a book deal with one of his regular guests: Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). In a promotional interview this month, where another author might have thanked his publisher, Carlson called it “a disgusting company run by disgusting people.”

HuffPost, ‘Outrageous’: Judge Lays Into Trump-Loving Deputy Who Wore ‘Sheriff’ Patch On Jan. 6, Ryan J. Reilly. Ronald Colton McAbee was a sheriff’s deputy when he attempted to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6, as shown above in photos introduced by the FBI. A judge is deciding whether he’ll be freed pretrial.

Palmer Report, The real reason Eric Trump is panicking, TR Kenneth, Sept. 23, 2021. In the MAGA swamp that gets swampier all the time, there’s another strange happening. Eric Trump’s lawyer quit and there are multiple possible reasons for this. Marc Mukasey, the lawyer whose father was Attorney General under W, is either protecting his legal standing at the Bar because he discovered his client is lying, he’s got a conflict of interest, or Eric’s daddy’s not paying his bill.

But you know whose daddy is paying Mukasey’s bill? Matt Gaetz’s daddy. This leads us to some very interesting conclusions. Is there a conflict of interest between Eric Trump and Matt Alleged-Child-Sex-Trafficker Gaetz? Is Gaetz perhaps flipping on Trump, or is Trump flipping on Gaetz? If it’s a non-payment issue, is Trump really that broke? Perhaps so, since Lara Trump has tweeted wrongly about animals left behind in Kabul being US service dogs. She has clearly not spent a penny to rescue them but asks you to do something. She is a lying piece of sh*t but what do you expect from a couple that made money on kid’s cancer charities?

The other very likely possibility that Mukasey quit is because Trump was lying to him. Lying is, after all, the Trumpian way. Mukasey may be actually sticking to the ethics here. We will see. The 90-days are winding down in Joel Greenberg’s case. Gaetz is on borrowed time now.

U.S. Crime, Courts, Police, Immigration

Washington Post, Republicans, Democrats unable to reach deal on bill to overhaul policing tactics, Felicia Sonmez and Mike DeBonis, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). A bipartisan group of lawmakers has failed to achieve a long-discussed overhaul of police practices meant to stem the killings of Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement officers, an aide to one of the members said Wednesday.

Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) along with Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) had been negotiating for months. They were unable to resolve the issue of whether to loosen or eliminate the doctrine of “qualified immunity” that shields police officers and departments from civil liability in cases of misconduct, a Booker aide said.

News of the collapse of the talks was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Booker aide, Democrats’ final offer completely omitted any change to qualified immunity or Section 242 of the Civil Rights Act, which could cause officers to face expanded accountability in court.

Throughout the talks, Democrats had made eliminating — or at least loosening — the doctrine a cornerstone of their overhaul efforts. Republicans by and large had resisted making any changes, fearful that exposing police officers to lawsuits could cause them to adopt less aggressive and less effective tactics.

Washington Post, Federal appeals court vacates gun rights ruling on sales to people under 21, Ann E. Marimow, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The court dissolved its ruling from July finding unconstitutional laws that prevent young adults under age 21 from buying handguns because the woman who brought the case turned 21 before the decision became official.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday vacated a gun rights ruling from July finding unconstitutional laws that prevent young adults under age 21 from buying handguns.

A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit dissolved its ruling because the Virginia woman who initially brought the lawsuit turned 21 before the decision became official.

“Despite efforts to add parties and reframe her claimed injuries, it is too late to revive this case. So it must be dismissed as moot,” wrote Judge Julius N. Richardson, author of the court’s initial opinion.

Read the ruling: Court dissolves gun rights ruling on age requirement for buying handguns

The challenge to the age restrictions was brought by prospective handgun buyer Natalia Marshall, who was unable to purchase a handgun from a federally licensed firearms dealer in Virginia because of her age. Once Marshall turned 21, she was no longer prohibited from buying a handgun, and there was no longer a legal controversy, the court said.

Washington Post, Editorial: It’s hard to hold police accountable. For federal agents, it’s all but impossible, Editorial Board, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The killing of Bijan Ghaisar, the young accountant unjustifiably shot to death by U.S. Park Police near Washington in 2017, is now the subject of a slow-moving criminal case brought by Virginia prosecutors, as well as a lawsuit against the federal government by the Ghaisar family. However, the two hotheaded officers who killed Ghaisar face no lawsuits themselves. Federal agents around the country are beyond the reach of consequences, and accountability, in civil court.

If the litany of unjustified shootings and other unacceptable law enforcement conduct has shown anything, it is that prosecutors, who work with and rely on police, are highly reluctant to charge uniformed officers with criminal offenses. That often leaves victims and their families little recourse to enforce their rights beyond litigation based on the Constitution’s Fourth Amendment guarantee that people be “secure in their persons” and safe from arbitrary arrests.

State and local police officers are often subject to such lawsuits when their actions are beyond the pale. But it’s a very different picture for the nation’s more than 100,000 federal law enforcement officers, or even police detailed to federal task forces. Owing to an exceptionally narrow reading of Supreme Court precedent, some appellate courts have ruled that federal law enforcement badges confer all-but-complete immunity from lawsuits — no matter how egregious an agent’s conduct. In effect, they have made the Bill of Rights an empty promise and, as one federal judge noted, allowed federal officers to operate “in something resembling a Constitution-free zone.”

Washington Post, Charges of racism swirl as Haitian Americans and allies unite to protest Biden’s border crisis, Tim Craig, Sean Sullivan and Silvia Foster-Frau, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The uproar over the treatment of thousands of Haitian immigrants who have encamped at the U.S.-Mexico border is a culmination of years of frustration over what is perceived as harsher treatment and extra hurdles faced by Black immigrants coming to the United States vs. lighter-skinned counterparts.

Washington Post, Man ‘snapped’ before killing 4 people found in Wisconsin cornfield, prosecutors allege, Timothy Bella, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). An Arizona man was charged Tuesday with the murder of four people from Minnesota who were found fatally shot in an abandoned SUV in a Wisconsin cornfield this month, according to a criminal complaint. Prosecutors allege he told his father he “snapped and shot a couple of people.”

Antoine Suggs, right, 38, faces four counts of second-degree intentional murder, without premeditation, in the Sept. 12 killings of Twin Cities-area residents Nitosha Lee Flug-Presley, 30; Matthew Isiah Pettus, 26; Loyace Foreman III, 35; and Jasmine Christine Sturm, 30. Suggs, of Scottsdale, Ariz., turned himself in to investigators in Gilbert, Ariz., last week. He was being held at the Maricopa County jail as of Wednesday morning and will eventually be extradited to Minnesota, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

Darren McWright, 56, who is Suggs’s father, has been charged by Wisconsin prosecutors with four counts of hiding a corpse. McWright, of St. Paul, was arrested Thursday in Minnesota. Prosecutors say McWright has denied knowing there were bodies in the car that he allegedly helped hide in a cornfield in western Wisconsin.

Daily Beast, Tough-on-Crime Republican DA Charged With Ambushing, Raping Woman, Justin Rohrlich, Sept. 23, 2021. Jeffrey Lynn Thomas, Somerset County, Pennsylvania’s top cop, is now facing a slew of charges for the alleged attack.

A Republican district attorney in Pennsylvania who styled himself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor—while refusing to pursue charges against anyone cited for disregarding state mask mandates—now stands accused of violently raping a female acquaintance in her own home, according to Pennsylvania State Police.

Somerset County DA Jeffrey Lynn Thomas, 36, allegedly attacked the unidentified woman on Sept. 18, having first contacted her on Snapchat to say he’d be coming over in a few minutes, according to police. A criminal complaint obtained by the Somerset County, Pennsylvania Tribune-Democrat states that the woman knew Thomas in a professional capacity and that she had for years rebuffed his persistent sexual advances.

Thomas, right, sent the Snapchat message at around 11 p.m. last Saturday, the complaint explains. She replied that he was not welcome there, and to please stay away. Soon after, Thomas walked into the woman’s home with an armload of beer cans and handed her one, according to cops.

The woman asked Thomas to leave, but he reportedly refused and became “agitated.” After she slapped him, Thomas hit her in the face and gave her a nosebleed, the complaint states.

After the woman told Thomas again to leave, he pulled down her top, undressed himself, and raped her, according to a press release issued by the State Police.

“During the assault, Thomas grabbed her by the neck making it hard to breath [sic],” the complaint alleges.

The woman’s child was home during the attack, police said. Thomas finally left, but only after the woman promised him she wouldn’t report him to the police, according to investigators. She reported the rape to Pennsylvania State Police on Monday.

Thomas’ alleged victim told investigators that she and Thomas had smoked marijuana together prior to the attack, but the complaint did not specify whether this meant the night in question or some other time in the past. Recreational marijuana remains illegal in Pennsylvania.

On Tuesday, detectives searched the woman’s home and found beer cans along with the clothing she had been wearing at the time of the alleged attack. Thomas was booked into the county jail shortly after 8 p.m. on Wednesday. In addition to rape, he was charged with indecent assault, strangulation, simple assault, and criminal trespass. He was “unable to post” bail of $5,000, according to court records, which Thomas’ lawyer said Thursday is no longer an issue.

Travel blogger Gabby Petito is shown with her fiance, Brian Laundrie, now missing and being sought by authorities, who describe him as a person of interest in her homicide.

New York Times, Gabby Petito’s Death Ruled a Homicide, F.B.I. Confirms, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The search continues for Brian Laundrie, Ms. Petito’s fiancé, who has been named a person of interest in the case.

Washington Post, As the Petito case grips the nation, families of color say their missing loved ones matter, too, Brittany Shammas and Kim Bellware, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). Highlighted by the Gabby Petito case, attention to racial disparities in missing persons coverage is gaining new momentum.

• Vanity Fair, Commentary: Gabby Petito, Online Detectives, and the Queasy Places Our True-Crime Obsessions Have Taken Us, Delia Cai

U.S. Politics, Governance

New York Times, Live Political Updates: Senior U.S. Diplomat to Haiti Resigns, Citing ‘Inhumane’ Deportations, Sept. 23, 2021. The diplomat excoriated the decision to send migrants back to a country reeling from natural disasters and political crises. Here’s the latest in politics.

The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated.

A senior American diplomat who oversees Haiti policy has resigned, two U.S. officials said, submitting a letter to the State Department that excoriated the Biden administration’s “inhumane, counterproductive decision” to send Haitian migrants back to a country that has been wracked this summer by a deadly earthquake and political turmoil.

The diplomat, Daniel Foote, was appointed special envoy to Haiti in July, just weeks after President Jovenel Moïse was killed in his bedroom during a nighttime raid on his residence. Mr. Foote, a former ambassador to Zambia and acting assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs, did not respond to messages for comment on Thursday morning.

In his stinging resignation letter, dated Wednesday, Mr. Foote criticized the Biden administration for deporting some of the thousands of the Haitian migrants who had traveled to the Texas border from Mexico and Central America in recent days.

“I will not be associated with the United States’ inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti, a country where American officials are confined to secure compounds because of the danger posed by armed gangs in control of daily life,” Mr. Foote wrote in the letter, which was first reported by PBS NewsHour. Its authenticity was confirmed by a senior State Department official and a congressional official.

Mr. Foote also blasted a “cycle of international political interventions in Haiti” that “has consistently produced catastrophic results,” and he warned that the number of migrants to American borders “will only grow as we add to Haiti’s unacceptable misery.”

• Democrats work to iron out budget differences as White House talks continue.
• The House is planning a largely symbolic vote on a bill to uphold abortion rights.
• Arizona’s criticized election review is concluding. But the copycats are just getting started.
• The White House is set to announce new limits on HFCs, a powerful driver of climate change.
• News analysis: Biden vowed to end ‘forever wars,’ but America’s wars go on.
• John Kerry, the first presidential climate envoy, is globe-trotting with an urgent pitch to save the planet.

New York Times, Regulators Racing Toward First Major Rules on Cryptocurrency, Eric Lipton, Ephrat Livni and Jeanna Smialek, Sept. 23, 2021. Concerned about the potential for a digital-era bank run, the Treasury Department is working on an oversight framework for the fast-growing sector.After largely standing aside for years as cryptocurrency grew from a digital curiosity into a volatile but widely embraced innovation, federal regulators are racing to address the potential risks for consumers and financial markets.

Their concerns have only grown as both new and established firms have rushed to find ways to profit from bringing the massive wealth held in cryptocurrency into the traditional financial system through quasi-banking services like interest-bearing accounts and lending.

Now the Treasury Department and other agencies are moving urgently on an initial target for tighter regulation: a fast-growing product called a stablecoin.

Issued by a variety of firms that are currently only lightly regulated through a patchwork of state rules, stablecoins serve as something of a bridge between cryptocurrency markets and the traditional economy.

The value of a stablecoin is ostensibly pegged one-to-one to the United States dollar, gold or some other stable asset. The idea is to make it easier for people holding cryptocurrency — which is notorious for its frequent price swings — to carry out transactions like purchasing goods and services, or to earn interest on their crypto holdings.

The use of stablecoins is surging rapidly, and regulators have grown increasingly concerned that they are not in fact stable, and could lead to a digital-era bank run. Just this year, dollar-tied stablecoins such as Tether token, USD Coin and Pax Dollar have jumped from $30 billion in circulation in January to about $125 billion as of mid-September.

Washington Post, Analysis: Republicans usually lose shutdown fights. So why go there again? Aaron Blake, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). A look at the history of shutdown and debt-ceiling fights.

Republicans are threatening to withhold the votes needed to raise the debt ceiling and keep the government funded ahead of a crucial deadline in two weeks, putting the country on course for yet another fiscal crisis and government shutdown.

And they do so despite seemingly having full knowledge that these kinds of things have rarely panned out for them before.

The last quarter-century has featured an increasing number of such standoffs, with Republicans generally seeking something from a Democratic president to rein in spending. In almost every case, though, Republicans wound up bearing most of the blame, and they rarely got much in the way of concessions to show for it.

Washington Post, Former treasury secretaries tried defusing debt-ceiling bomb in talks with Yellen, McConnell, Jeff Stein, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). Overtures by Henry Paulson and Steven Mnuchin were unsuccessful, as Republicans have insisted that Democrats must address the debt ceiling without GOP support.

Two former GOP treasury secretaries held private discussions this month with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hoping to resolve an impasse over the debt limit that now threatens the global economy, according to four people aware of the conversations.

The previously unreported talks involving the GOP economic grandees — Henry Paulson, who served as treasury secretary under President Bush; and Steven Mnuchin, right, treasury secretary under President Trump — did not resolve the matter and the U.S. is now racing toward a massive fiscal cliff with no clear resolution at hand.

Paulson and Mnuchin have in recent weeks spoken with both McConnell and Yellen as the Biden administration tries to ensure the U.S. does not default on its debt obligations and spark a global financial crisis.

The backchanneling by Mnuchin and Paulson — who had previously worked together at Goldman Sachs — reflects the widespread alarm among economists and U.S. business interests about the consequences of an unprecedented default on the federal debt. If the U.S. was unable to borrow money to pay all of its bills, a number of economists have predicted that it would lead to a calamity that could trigger a meltdown in financial markets and plunge the economy into recession. Republicans have refused to help Democrats approve a new debt ceiling suspension despite approving three such measures during the Trump administration while the national debt rose by roughly $8 trillion under Trump.

Yellen has recently warned that the debt ceiling must be raised or suspended by some time in October or the country’s fiscal situation will be severe.

Paulson met with McConnell in his office in the U.S. Capitol last week and discussed the debt limit standoff, two people familiar with the exchange said. Paulson primarily listened to McConnell’s views on the matter as the Senate GOP leader made clear he was not bluffing about Democrats having to raise the debt limit without Republican support. Paulson expressed in the meeting a high degree of concern about the dangers and likelihood of a federal default and its implications for the global economy, the people said. Paulson worked closely with McConnell and other lawmakers in 2008 to address the financial crisis.

 Washington Post, Fed projects new interest rate hikes in 2022, signals upcoming easing of supports if economy continues to heal, Anne Gearan, Rick Noack, John Hudson and Adam Taylor, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). Economists and Wall Street have been eager for details on when, and how, the Fed will start to dial back its support for the markets

World News

New York Times, Days Before Vote, Merkel Is Where She Didn’t Want to Be: On the Stump, Melissa Eddy, Sept. 23, 2021. The race for German chancellor is tightening, but Angela Merkel (shown above in a file photo) says Armin Laschet is the man to fill her shoes.

Only days before Germans cast their ballots for a new Parliament and with it a new government and leader, Chancellor Angela Merkel was on the campaign trail this week — further proof that her conservatives are in a perilous position.

Ms. Merkel, of course, is no longer a candidate. She is stepping down and had hoped to stay away from the race. But instead she spent Tuesday in her own district stumping for the struggling candidate for her Christian Democratic Union, Armin Laschet. She even quipped about her smaller-than-average shoe size, hoping to convince voters that those shoes are best filled by Mr. Laschet.

For weeks, polls have shown a lead for the Social Democratic Party, traditional rivals of the conservative Christian Democrats yet also their governing partners. But in the final week before Sunday’s vote, the conservatives have narrowed the gap to roughly three percentage points.

New York Times, Thousands of Boko Haram Members Surrendered. They Moved In Next Door, Ruth Maclean and Ismail Alfa, Sept. 23, 2021. After defecting since the death of their leader, members of an extremist group in Nigeria have been relocated to a city they once terrorized.

For over a decade, the extremist group Boko Haram has terrorized northeastern Nigeria — killing tens of thousands of people, kidnapping schoolgirls and sending suicide bombers into busy marketplaces.

Now, thousands of Boko Haram fighters have surrendered, along with their family members, and are being housed by the government in a compound in the city of Maiduguri, the group’s birthplace and its frequent target.

The compound is next to a middle-class housing development and a primary school, terrifying residents, teachers and parents.

“We are very afraid,” said Maimouna Mohammed, a teacher at the primary school, glancing at the camp’s wall 50 yards from her classroom. “We don’t know their minds.”

Nigerian military and justice officials say that in the past month, as many as 7,000 fighters and family members, along with their captives, have left Boko Haram, the largest wave of defections by far since the jihadist group emerged in 2002.

The turning point for its fortunes appears to have been the death of Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram’s longtime leader, who blew himself up in May after being cornered by a rival faction.

However weakened Boko Haram may be, though, it does not necessarily mean an end to terror for the people of northeastern Nigeria, hundreds of thousands of whom have died, and millions of whom have fled.

Fighters from Boko Haram’s rival splinter group — the Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP — are moving into the vacuum, observers in the region say, ferrying truckloads of military equipment from their strongholds in the Lake Chad area southward to Mr. Shekau’s former dens in the Sambisa forest. ISWAP broke off from Boko Haram in 2016, and claimed an affiliation with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Journalists are not allowed into the compound hosting the Boko Haram defectors, a facility known as Hajj Camp, formerly used by Muslims making the pilgrimage to Mecca. But we were able to interview six people who surrendered in the past month, who each managed to leave the camp for a few hours. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

New York Times, Afghan Uyghurs Fear Deportation as Taliban Cozy Up to China, Sui-Lee Wee and Muyi Xiao, Sept. 23, 2021. Members of the ethnic group, seen by China as potential extremists, are afraid they will be sent there as part of a deal for economic aid.

For years, Chinese officials have issued calls for leaders in Afghanistan to crack down on and deport Uyghur militants they claimed were sheltering in Afghanistan. The officials said the fighters belonged to the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, a separatist organization that Beijing has held responsible for a series of terrorist attacks in China since the late 1990s.

The United States removed the East Turkestan Islamic Movement from its list of terrorist groups during the Trump administration, angering Beijing. But the Taliban, in their new role as diplomats, have been eager to establish warm relations with China, meeting most recently on Thursday with Chinese officials. Many Uyghurs in Afghanistan fear they will be branded terrorists and sent to China as pawns in the Taliban’s effort to win favor and economic aid from the country.

It is unclear whether Uyghurs in Afghanistan face an immediate threat to their safety, but some say they dread the future that would await them if they were sent to Xinjiang. Since 2017, the Chinese government has locked up close to a million Uyghurs in camps and subjected those outside to constant surveillance. China says the camps are necessary to weed out extremism and to “re-educate” the Uyghurs.

Washington Post, Biden, Macron to meet next month amid dispute over Australian submarine deal, Anne Gearan, Rick Noack, John Hudson and Adam Taylor, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). France will send its envoy back to the United States as the two leaders sought to make peace after a secret arms deal led to an unprecedented diplomatic rupture.

French President Emmanuel Macron will send the country’s ambassador back to Washington next week, French and U.S. officials said, as the two countries sought to reset relations after a secret arms deal led to an ugly diplomatic rupture.

In a joint statement, itself a sign of easing tensions, Biden and Macron said they had spoken on the phone on Wednesday and agreed to meet in person at the end of October. Both are scheduled to attend the Group of 20 summit in Rome at that time.

Macron had recalled Ambassador Philippe Etienne to Paris in the days after the announcement that the United States had formed an alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom and that would allow Australia to purchase U.S. nuclear submarine technology. That deal effectively canceled an arrangement under which Australia had been set to purchase less capable French vessels, and prompted public outrage from French officials.

U.S. Media

New York Times, R. Kelly’s Trial Is Captivating a Black Audience Online. Here’s Why, Troy Closson, Sept. 23, 2021. On the internet, both supporters and detractors of the singer have shown intense interest in the criminal trial in Brooklyn.

The trial of the R&B superstar R. Kelly, right, has featured some 50 witnesses across more than a month of testimony — a blizzard of sordid and sometimes grotesque accusations and counterclaims.

For help making sense of it all, hundreds of thousands of viewers have turned to YouTube, where a host who posts videos as thePLAINESTjane offers near-daily recaps that sometimes stretch 90 minutes long and include the same images and documents seen in the courtroom.

“Come on in, have a seat on my bus,” the presenter said at the outset of one recent video, sitting next to a house plant, a collage featuring a courtroom sketch of Mr. Kelly superimposed over her shoulder. “I’m going to pick you up and give you the rundown.”

The channel is just one cog in an expansive online ecosystem that has grown around Mr. Kelly as the accusations against him gained intense public attention in recent years. Now, his criminal trial in Brooklyn is at the center of a swirling social media world centered in Black communities where fierce critics of Mr. Kelly squabble with steadfast supporters, digging into details from the courtroom.

Thousand-member Facebook groups dissect PDF transcriptions of each individual witness’s testimony; accounts on Instagram post updates on the court day against colorful backgrounds; TikTok users break down the legal underpinnings of the racketeering charge against Mr. Kelly.

The online interest in Mr. Kelly’s trial stands apart from earlier high-profile cases involving rich and famous men accused of sexual misconduct and underscores the unique racial and generational dynamics at the center of the case.

The singer’s smooth melodies and charismatic persona captivated many Black households from the mid-1990s to early 2000s. And the majority of Mr. Kelly’s accusers are Black women — many of whom were adolescents or young adults when they say Mr. Kelly abused them.

“R. Kelly had a particular talent to make songs that resonated with Black audiences,” said Mark Anthony Neal, a professor of Black popular culture at Duke University. “When you think about a song like ‘Step in the Name of Love,’ that’s something you were apt to hear at a 5-year-old’s birthday party and also a 50th wedding anniversary party.”

He added: “Many Black folks grew up in a context where R. Kelly was literally the soundtrack of their lives.”

In previous high-profile Me Too cases — the downfall of the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, which helped ignite a national reckoning, and the conviction of the comedian Bill Cosby that unfolded in its aftermath — most of the accusers were white women.

New York Times, Melvin Van Peebles, Champion of New Black Cinema, Dies at 89, Sept. 23, 2021 (print ed.). The filmmaker was praised as the godfather of modern Black cinema and a trailblazer in American independent movies. A fertile creative force, he wrote fiction and musicals but is best known for a breakthrough movie that heralded the genre known as blaxploitation.

Melvin Van Peebles, the filmmaker praised as the godfather of modern Black cinema and a trailblazer in American independent movies, died on Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.

A Renaissance man whose work spanned books, theater and music, Mr. Van Peebles is best known for his third feature film, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which drew mixed reviews when it was released in 1971, ignited intense debate and became a national hit. The hero, Sweetback, starred in a sex show at a brothel, and the movie sizzled with explosive violence, explicit sex and righteous antagonism toward the white power structure. It was dedicated to “all the Black brothers and sisters who have had enough of The Man.”

Mr. Van Peebles’s fiercely independent legacy can be seen in some of the most notable Black films of the past half-century, from Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It (1986) to Barry Jenkins’s Moonlight (2016). His death arrives at a moment when Black storytelling has belatedly become ascendant in Hollywood.

New York Times, Wikipedia’s Next Leader on Misinformation: ‘Neutrality Requires Understanding,’ Davey Alba, Sept. 23, 2021. The Times spoke to Maryana Iskander about her vision and how the organization works to prevent false and misleading information.

Two decades ago, Wikipedia arrived on the scene as a quirky online project that aimed to crowdsource and document all of human knowledge and history in real time. Skeptics worried that much of the site would include unreliable information, and frequently pointed out mistakes.

But now, the online encyclopedia is often cited as a place that, on balance, helps combat false and misleading information spreading elsewhere.

Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation, the group that oversees Wikipedia, announced that Maryana Iskander, a social entrepreneur in South Africa who has worked for years in nonprofits tackling youth unemployment and women’s rights, will become its chief executive in January.

We spoke with her about her vision for the group and how the organization works to prevent false and misleading information on its sites and around the web.

Sept. 22

Top Headlines

• Washington Post, House passes bill to avert shutdown, but legislation faces grim prospects in Senate
• Washington Post, U.S. default this fall would cost 6 million jobs, wipe out $15 trillion in wealth, study says
• Washington Post, U.S. careens toward shutdown, financial crisis amid stalemate in Congress
• New York Times, Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers’ Voting Machine Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows, Alan Feuer
• Washington Post, Opinion: New details about Trump’s Dominion scam help explain our authoritarian slide, Greg Sargent
• Daily Beast, Conspiracy Firm Behind Arizona Audit Defies Order to Release Behind-the-Scenes Texts,
• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Covid and Trumpism lead to coups and rumors of coups, Wayne Madsen
• Washington Post, More centrist Democrats question size of $3.5 trillion economic plan
• New York Times,  In U.N. Debut, Biden Confronts Doubts About U.S. Global Leadership

Virus Victims, Responses

• Washington Post, Second dose of J&J vaccine increases covid protection, company says
• New York Times, Pressure Grows on U.S. Companies to Share Covid Vaccine Technology
• New York Times, People with serious conditions are waiting weeks for non-Covid surgeries as hospitals are inundated once again
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 696,918
• Washington Post, 212.5 million U.S. vaccinated
• Washington Post, Brazil’s health minister tests positive for coronavirus at U.N. General Assembly

U.S. Terrorists, Election Fraudsters, Money Sources

• Washington Post, Huge hack reveals embarrassing details of who’s behind Proud Boys and other far-right websites
• Washington Post, Two GOP operatives indicted for allegedly routing money from Russian national to support Trump campaign
• Proof, Investigative Commentary: Why Donald Trump Is Again Interfering in Georgia's Electoral Process, Seth Abramson
• Washington Post, Opinion: Ominous new details about Trump’s coup attempt require Democrats to act, Greg Sargent
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Follow the money: new trouble for Matt Gaetz, Bill Palmer
• HuffPost, ‘Outrageous’: Judge Lays Into Trump-Loving Deputy Who Wore ‘Sheriff’ Patch On Jan. 6
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Mary Trump is getting the last laugh, Ron Leshnower

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• Washington Post, Former treasury secretaries tried defusing debt-ceiling bomb in talks with Yellen, McConnell
• Washington Post, Fed projects new interest rate hikes in 2022, signals upcoming easing of supports if economy continues to heal
• New York Times, What’s at Stake in the 2022 Races for Governor
• Washington Post, ‘I’ve never seen maggots this big’: New Orleans hasn’t picked up some people’s trash since Ida. They’re begging to get rid of the stench

Canadian, German Elections

• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Neo-fascist party in Canada makes a mark in election; its vote count shouldn't fool anyone, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, Live Updates: Justin Trudeau to Remain Prime Minister of Canada: Falls short of a majority
• New York Times, Germany’s Far Right Is Nowhere in the Election. But It’s ‘Here to Stay’

U.S. Courts, Law, Crime

• Washington Post, Texas doctor who violated state’s abortion ban is sued, launching test of constitutionality
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Total chaos in Texas, Bocha Blue
• Washington Post, Republicans, Democrats unable to reach deal on bill to overhaul policing tactics
• New York Times, Gabby Petito’s Death Ruled a Homicide, F.B.I. Confirms
• Washington Post, As the Petito case grips the nation, families of color say their missing loved ones matter, too
• Vanity Fair, Commentary: Gabby Petito, Online Detectives, and the Queasy Places Our True-Crime Obsessions Have Taken Us, Delia Cai
• New York Times, R. Kelly Says He Won’t Testify in Trial as Closing Arguments Begin
• Washington Post, Investigation: D.C. attorney general accuses Delta Phi Epsilon member of using group’s charitable funds for himself, Fredrick Kunkle
• New York Times, Those Fancy Cars He Flaunted on YouTube? A $30 Million Fraud Scheme Paid for Them, U.S. Says
• New York Times, Teenage Boy in New York Pleads Guilty in Killing of Tessa Majors

World News

• Washington Post, Biden, Macron to meet next month amid dispute over Australian submarine deal
• Washington Post, Biden vows to double aid for vulnerable nations dealing with climate change
• Washington Post, In first address to U.N., Biden calls for unity on climate change, pandemic
• Washington Post, World leaders face furious push to act quickly on climate change

U.S. Media, Academic News

• New York Times, No More Apologies: Inside Facebook’s Push to Defend Its Image
• Washington Post, Trump sues New York Times and niece Mary Trump over tax records story

Inside DC

• Washington Post, Investigation: D.C. attorney general accuses Delta Phi Epsilon member of using group’s charitable funds for himself, Fredrick Kunkle

Top Stories

Washington Post, House passes bill to avert shutdown, but legislation faces grim prospects in Senate, Tony Romm, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). The political standoff is threatening to leave Congress with little time to resolve a number of disputes that could shutter the government during a pandemic and destabilize global markets.

Washington Post, U.S. default this fall would cost 6 million jobs, wipe out $15 trillion in wealth, study says, Jeff Stein, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). The United States could plunge into an immediate recession if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling and the country defaults on its payment obligations this fall, according to one analysis released Tuesday.

Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, found that a prolonged impasse over the debt ceiling would cost the U.S. economy up to 6 million jobs, wipe out as much as $15 trillion in household wealth, and send the unemployment rate surging to roughly 9 percent from around 5 percent.

Lawmakers in both parties agree that the debt ceiling must be raised to avoid economic calamity, but their standoff over how to do so has intensified. Despite the national debt increasing by close to $8 trillion under President Donald Trump, Republicans have been adamant that they will refuse to help Democrats increase the debt ceiling, in opposition to President Biden’s spending plans.

The Treasury Department has said it will exhaust its “extraordinary measures” to pay the U.S. obligations sometime in October, giving lawmakers little time to act to head off calamity.

“This economic scenario is cataclysmic. … The downturn would be comparable to that suffered during the financial crisis” of 2008, said the report, written by Zandi and Bernard Yaros, assistant director and economist at Moody’s Analytics.

The debt limit is the maximum amount of debt that Treasury can issue to pay the country’s bills. It was suspended from 2019 through the beginning of last month under a deal reached during the Trump administration. If Congress fails to increase the debt limit, Treasury would be unable to pay debts as they come due. Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, right, said earlier this week that such a default would be unprecedented in U.S. history. Moody’s “best estimate” is that this date is Oct. 20, although Treasury has not given a more precise day.

At that point, Treasury officials would face excruciating choices, such as whether to fail to pay $20 billion owed to seniors on Social Security, or to fail to pay bondholders of U.S. debt — a decision that could undermine faith in U.S. credit and permanently drive federal borrowing costs higher.

Failure to raise the debt limit would have catastrophic impacts on global financial markets. Interest rates would spike as investors demand a higher rate of return for the risk of taking on U.S. debt given uncertainty about repayment. An increase in interest rates would ripple through the economy, raising costs not only for taxpayers but also for consumers and other borrowers. The value of the U.S. dollar would also decline long term as investors questioned the security of purchasing U.S. treasuries. The cost of auto and home loans would rise.

Washington Post, White House rules out concessions on debt ceiling while GOP refuses to help avert financial crisis

“Stock prices would be cut almost in one-third at the worst of the selloff, wiping out $15 trillion in household wealth,” the Moody’s report finds. The market would rebound once the impasse is resolved, but some amount of the losses would be permanent. “Treasury yields, mortgage rates, and other consumer and corporate borrowing rates spike, at least until the debt limit is resolved and Treasury payments resume.”

Trump-allied attorney Sidney Powell, right, with allied attorney Jenna Ellis in the background last fall, has pushed baseless claims of election tampering.

New York Times, Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers’ Voting Machine Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows, Alan Feuer, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). Days before lawyers allied with Donald Trump gave a news conference promoting election conspiracy theories, his campaign had determined that many of those claims were false, court filings reveal.

Two weeks after the 2020 election, a team of lawyers closely allied with Donald J. Trump held a widely watched news conference at the Republican Party’s headquarters in Washington. At the event, they laid out a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming that a voting machine company had worked with an election software firm, the financier George Soros and Venezuela to steal the presidential contest from Mr. Trump.

But there was a problem for the Trump team, according to court documents released on Monday evening.

By the time the news conference occurred on Nov. 19, Mr. Trump’s campaign had already prepared an internal memo on many of the outlandish claims about the company, Dominion Voting Systems, and the separate software company, Smartmatic. The memo had determined that those allegations were untrue.

The court papers, which were initially filed late last week as a motion in a defamation lawsuit brought against the campaign and others by a former Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, contain evidence that officials in the Trump campaign were aware early on that many of the claims against the companies were baseless.

The documents also suggest that the campaign sat on its findings about Dominion even as Sidney Powell and other lawyers attacked the company in the conservative media and ultimately filed four federal lawsuits accusing it of a vast conspiracy to rig the election against Mr. Trump.

According to emails contained in the documents, Zach Parkinson, then the campaign’s deputy director of communications, reached out to subordinates on Nov. 13 asking them to “substantiate or debunk” several matters concerning Dominion. The next day, the emails show, Mr. Parkinson received a copy of a memo cobbled together by his staff from what largely appear to be news articles and public fact-checking services.

Even though the memo was hastily assembled, it rebutted a series of allegations that Ms. Powell and others were making in public. It found:

• That Dominion did not use voting technology from the software company, Smartmatic, in the 2020 election.
• That Dominion had no direct ties to Venezuela or to Mr. Soros.
• And that there was no evidence that Dominion’s leadership had connections to left-wing “antifa” activists, as Ms. Powell and others had claimed.

As Mr. Coomer’s lawyers wrote in their motion in the defamation suit, “The memo produced by the Trump campaign shows that, at least internally, the Trump campaign found there was no evidence to support the conspiracy theories regarding Dominion” and Mr. Coomer.

Washington Post, Opinion: New details about Trump’s Dominion scam help explain our authoritarian slide, Greg Sargent, Sept. 22, 2021. In one sense, it’s not surprising to learn that Donald Trump’s campaign officials knew they were lying their backsides off when they hatched their now-notorious conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems. These were central to trying to overturn his 2020 loss. Of course, they knew these were inventions, right?

But the latest news about this lie — that a memo has surfaced showing Trump’s co-conspirators knew the truth about Dominion’s voting machines even as their lies intensified — is nonetheless highly significant.

That’s because it clearly illustrates how knowingly manufactured lies about our electoral system, and about the left writ large, were wielded as the foundational justification for efforts to subvert our democratic order. The manufacturing of these lies continues to function as a kind of prefabricated pretext for overturning future elections, making this a continuing danger.

Two weeks after the election, lawyers working to overturn it held a news conference where they spewed lurid lies about Dominion. These included a weird theory involving Smartmatic software and the idea that Dominion collaborated with George Soros and Venezuela to steal the election.

But as the New York Times reports, they knew it was all nonsense.

• Palmer Report, Opinion: Serious new legal trouble for everyone involved with Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, Bill Palmer

Daily Beast, Conspiracy Firm Behind Arizona Audit Defies Order to Release Behind-the-Scenes Texts, Kelly Weill, Sept. 22, 2021. Cyber Ninjas is fighting an order to release communications about the GOP-led Arizona election audit, despite a judge repeatedly ruling they must do so.

Days before the long-delayed conclusion of an Arizona vote “audit” of the 2020 election—one that conspiracy blogs trumpeted as the “MOST TRANSPARENT AUDIT EVER”—the conspiratorial group behind the effort is fighting a court order to turn over internal documents.

Cyber Ninjas, an obscure Florida tech company with no prior elections experience, has been leading a chaotic review of Maricopa County, Arizona’s 2020 presidential election since April. The months-long effort has been a fiasco both technically (auditors caused nearly $3 million in damage to voting machines and caught COVID en masse) and politically (Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan was revealed to be an election truther who collaborated with Trump attorney Sidney Powell on voter fraud theories). In August, a judge ruled that Cyber Ninjas must turn over audit-related documents by mid-September, following a pair of public records lawsuits from the Arizona Republic and the transparency group American Oversight.

But despite the judge upholding that ruling last week, Cyber Ninjas has not complied, stating that it might release some documents after its audit report this week—and in some cases, maybe never at all.

In a letter to the court on Friday, the group’s lawyer, Jack Wilenchik, suggested Cyber Ninjas would turn over some documents, if it felt like it.

“I also emphasize that, while CNI [Cyber Ninjas, Inc.] intends to produce documents out of goodwill and its commitment to transparency, by sending this communication CNI does not concede the existence or scope of any involuntary legal obligation to do so,” Wilenchik’s letter read.

Wilenchick objected to the court order on two grounds: that Cyber Ninjas should not be subject to public records laws, and that Cyber Ninjas is too busy to release court-ordered records (which a judge ordered Cyber Ninjas to preserve in August).
“Behind the scenes, Logan was an even more active participant in pro-Trump conspiracy theories.”

A judge has repeatedly dismissed the first argument, stating that Cyber Ninjas has been hired by Arizona’s Republican-led Senate and is a “custodian” of public records, making it subject to public records laws.

As for Cyber Ninjas’ alleged time crunch, the group is no stranger to delays. The group was initially supposed to release its “audit” findings in mid-May. That deadline was delayed until later in the month, then again to August, when it was delayed again because three of the Cyber Ninjas had caught COVID-19. The group now says it will release its findings on Sept. 24.

Cyber Ninjas might have good reason for withholding internal documents, which include texts and emails about the audit.

From its outset, the group has displayed hard partisan leanings, with members of the “audit” team promoting voter fraud conspiracy theories and claiming to check ballots for bamboo fibers, which they claimed would indicate that a ballot had been fraudulently shipped from China. Backers of the audit, like former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, have appeared to preview the audit’s findings even before the report’s release, with Byrne stating on Telegram last week that he thought the report would reveal that Donald Trump actually won Maricopa County. (Republican officials in Arizona and Maricopa County have verified President Joe Biden’s victory there.) Logan, meanwhile, has appeared in a voter fraud conspiracy movie, which was based on a book Byrne wrote and included interviews filmed at the audit site.

And those were Cyber Ninjas’ public statements. Behind the scenes, Logan was an even more active participant in pro-Trump conspiracy theories, promoting them on Twitter in late 2020. A new report by the Arizona Republic revealed that Logan collaborated on voter fraud theories in late 2020 with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell and former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Logan helped Powell write subpoenas in a bid to gain access to voting machines, the Republic reported.

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Covid and Trumpism lead to coups and rumors of coups, Wayne Madsen, left, author of 20 books and former Navy intelligence officer, Sept. 22, 2021. The twin toxic combination of Covid-19 and Trumpism has been the perfect ingredient to foster the type of political and economic instability that has fostered seven coups -- four military, two civilian, and one hybrid -- in countries around the world. These have all occurred since Donald Trump's abortive coup in the United States on January 6, 2021.

While coups have historically been something that plagued the developing world, the insurrection by pro-Trump gangs at the U.S. Capitol, aided and abetted by embedded agents of influence inside the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, the National Security Council, U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police, and the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, almost precipitated a full-scale coup d'état in the United States. That action in Washington, DC sent political shock waves around the world.

• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: Russian fascism shows weak links; Biden missed an opportunity

Washington Post, More centrist Democrats question size of $3.5 trillion economic plan, Tony Romm and Marianna Sotomayor, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.).  Razor-thin majorities in the House and Senate give Democrats little wiggle room as they try and assemble budget plan.

A slew of moderate Democrats in the House and Senate have toiled behind the scenes to try to rethink or scale back core elements of the party’s $3.5 trillion tax-and-spending plan, opening new internal rifts that complicate its path to swift passage.

In recent days, centrist Democratic lawmakers have questioned the price tag of the proposal, raised alarms that it could add to the deficit, and sought to whittle down some of its key components, including programs that would provide free prekindergarten and community college for all Americans perhaps regardless of income.

The political complications are hard enough to resolve on their own, pitting warring factions of Democrats against each other over President Biden’s broader economic agenda. But they have taken on greater significance at a time when the party finds itself newly consumed with a wide array of additional problems, including a scramble to prevent a government shutdown next week and a breach of the debt ceiling shortly after that. The battles could lessen some moderates’ appetites for trillions of dollars in new spending.

For now, the most forceful objections have come from lawmakers including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who met with President Biden to discuss her position last week. Three people familiar with Sinema’s thinking, who requested anonymity to describe their private conversations, said she is especially interested in targeting some of the aid more narrowly based on income and economic status than her Democratic peers might have preferred. That includes the new prekindergarten and community college spending.

New York Times, In U.N. Debut, Biden Confronts Doubts About U.S. Global Leadership, Michael D. Shear, David E. Sanger and Rick Gladstone, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). Covid-19 and climate change are dominating the start of the General Assembly gathering. The U.N. secretary general warned that an increasingly divided world was “on the edge of an abyss.” The annual U.N. meeting presents a major test for President Biden.

President Biden delivered his debut address to the annual gathering of world leaders at the United Nations on Tuesday amid strong new doubts about his ability to vault the United States back into a position of global leadership after his predecessor’s promotion of “America First” isolationism.

Speaking to a smaller than usual audience of his peers because of the still-raging Covid-19 pandemic, Mr. Biden called for a new era of global unity against the coronavirus, emerging technological threats and the expanding influence of autocratic nations such as China and Russia.

“No matter how challenging or how complex the problems we’re going to face, government by and for the people is still the best way to deliver for all of our people,” he said, insisting that the United States and its Western allies would remain vital partners.

Calling for the world to make the use of force “our tool of last resort, not our first,” he defended his decision to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan, a chaotic withdrawal of American troops that left allies blindsided.

“Today, many of our greatest concerns cannot be solved or even addressed by the force of arms,” he said. “Bombs and bullets cannot defend against Covid-19 or its future variants.”

But Mr. Biden’s efforts to move America past President Donald J. Trump’s more confrontational policies come amid growing frustration among allies with his administration’s diplomatic approach.

His familiar refrain that the world must choose between democracy and autocracy looks different now that the Taliban are once again in control of Kabul, reversing many of the democratic gains of the past 20 years. Covid is resurging in much of the world. And the French just recalled their ambassador in outrage — not just over losing a $60 billion-plus submarine contract, but because it was made clear they are not in the inner circle of allies.

Charles Michel, the European Council president, said in a briefing at the E.U. Mission to the United Nations on Monday that “the elementary principles for allies are transparency and trust.” Expressing shock and bafflement over Mr. Biden’s treatment of France, he said, “And what do we observe? We are observing a clear lack of transparency and loyalty.”

The allies recognize the differences between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump. But in conversations over the past two weeks, they say they have new concerns about the United States.

They worry about whether Mr. Biden really has their back, after the French foreign minister compared the submarine deal with Australia to a “knife in the back.” When they hear about Covid vaccine booster shots in the United States, they often wonder what that might do to global supplies. And when they look at how the U.S. handles the Australia deal, they wonder whether American national interest has eclipsed the role of global leader.

Mr. Biden and other leaders gathered in New York City against a backdrop of disastrous climate change, polarized superpower relations and a devastating pandemic that has worsened the global rich-poor divide.

The event is a major test of credibility for Mr. Biden, who was among the first to address the 193-member General Assembly. Among the last to speak will be President Xi Jinping of China, via prerecorded video, bookending a day with the competing views of the two most powerful countries in the world.

• New York Times, Democrats to Pair Spending Bill With Raising Debt Ceiling, Pressuring G.O.P.
• Washington Post, Analysis: Senate Republicans say they will vote to allow debt default, leaving Democrats scrambling for plan to avert economic crisis.

Virus Victims, Responses

Washington Post, Second dose of J&J vaccine increases covid protection, company says, Ben Guarino, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). According to Johnson & Johnson’s study, efficacy was 100 percent against severe or critical cases of covid-19 for two weeks after the booster shot. Regulators would have to authorize the boosters before the public could receive them.

A second shot of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine boosts protection against symptomatic and severe covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the drug company announced early Tuesday. Those booster shots also generated additional antibodies, molecules churned out by the immune system to help fight off infections.

Under the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency-use authorization, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is given as a single dose, unlike the two shots required for full immunization with the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines.

Results published this summer indicate that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine generates lasting amounts of antibodies able to target delta and other variants of concern. In June and July, when delta was ascendant, the effectiveness of the one-shot vaccine was 78 percent against observed covid-19, according to a report published Thursday that has not yet gone through peer review.

New York Times, Pressure Grows on U.S. Companies to Share Covid Vaccine Technology, Stephanie Nolen and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, Sept. 22, 2021. As President Biden hosts a Covid-19 summit today, American drug companies are being urged to share their formulas with nations that need more shots. Primarily in the spotlight is Moderna, the upstart biotech firm that accepted $2.5 billion in taxpayer money to develop its vaccine.

As President Biden convenes heads of state for a Covid-19 summit on Wednesday, pressure is growing on American drug companies — particularly Moderna, the upstart biotech firm that developed its coronavirus vaccine with billions of dollars in taxpayer money — to share their formulas with manufacturers in nations that desperately need more shots.

Last year’s successful race to develop vaccines in extraordinarily short order put companies like Moderna and Pfizer in a highly favorable spotlight. But now, with less than 10 percent of those in many poor nations fully vaccinated and a dearth of doses contributing to millions of deaths, health officials in the United States and abroad are pressing the companies to do more to address the global shortage.

The Biden administration has privately urged both Pfizer and Moderna to enter into joint ventures where they would license their technology to contract manufacturers with the aim of providing vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, according to a senior administration official.

Those talks led to an agreement with Pfizer, announced Wednesday morning, to sell the United States an additional 500 million doses of its vaccine at a not-for-profit price — rather than license its technology — to donate overseas.

The discussions with Moderna have not been fruitful, said the official, who expressed deep frustration with the company but requested anonymity to discuss sensitive information.

New York Times, People with serious conditions are waiting weeks for non-Covid surgeries as hospitals are inundated once again, Reed Abelson, Sept. 22, 2021. She manages to walk for a short time in her kitchen or garden before she has to sit down. “It’s just frustrating at this point,” said Ms. O’Donnell, 80, who lives in Aloha, Ore. “I’m really depressed.”

She had been preparing for back surgery scheduled for Aug. 31, hoping the five-hour procedure would allow her to be more active. But a day before the operation, at OHSU Health Hillsboro Medical Center, she learned it had been canceled.

“Nope, you can’t come, our hospital is filling up,” she said she was told.

Faced with a surge of Covid-19 hospitalizations in Oregon, the hospital has not yet rescheduled her surgery. “I don’t know what is going to happen,” Ms. O’Donnell said, worrying that her ability to walk might be permanently impaired if she is forced to wait too long.

Echoes of the pandemic’s early months are resounding through the halls of hospitals, with an average of more than 90,000 patients in the United States being treated daily for Covid. Once again, many hospitals have been slammed in the last two months, this time by the Delta variant, and have been reporting that intensive care units are overflowing, that patients have to be turned away and even that some patients have died while awaiting a spot in an acute or I.C.U. ward.

In this latest wave, hospital administrators and doctors were desperate to avoid the earlier pandemic phases of blanket shutdowns of surgeries and other procedures that are not true emergencies. But in the hardest-hit areas, especially in regions of the country with low vaccination rates, they are now making difficult choices about which patients can still be treated. And patients are waiting several weeks, if not longer, to undergo non-Covid surgeries.

Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals (updated Sept. 22, 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: 230,451,133, Deaths: 4,725,279
U.S. Cases:    43,246,791, Deaths:     696,918
India Cases:    33,531,498, Deaths:     445,801
Brazil Cases:   21,247,094, Deaths:    591,518

Washington Post, At least 212.5 million U.S. vaccinated, as of Sept. 22, 2021, measuring the number of people who have received at least one dose of the vaccine. This includes more than 182.4 million people, 54.7 percent of the eligible population, 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. When the president set the goal May 4, more than 2 million vaccine doses were being given daily, 56 percent of adults had already received at least one shot, and the target seemed to be in easy reach. Vaccination rates fell to 1 million per day and in July fell further to around a half-million doses per day before turning up again.

Washington Post, Brazil’s health minister tests positive for coronavirus at U.N. General Assembly, Rachel Pannett,Sept. 22, 2021. Brazil’s health minister has tested positive for the coronavirus while in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, where President Jair Bolsonaro spoke on Tuesday.

Marcelo Queiroga confirmed the diagnosis in a tweet and said he would remain in isolation in the United States, “following all health safety protocols.” Queiroga has received at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine, according to media reports.

Queiroga is reportedly the second member of Bolsonaro’s delegation to test positive in New York. Bloomberg News reported that a member of the delegation who hadn’t been in contact with the president tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving and was placed in isolation.

Bolsonaro isolated himself at home after returning to Brazil and canceled a trip, Reuters reported.

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

Washington Post, Former treasury secretaries tried defusing debt-ceiling bomb in talks with Yellen, McConnell, Jeff Stein, Sept. 22, 2021. Overtures by Henry Paulson and Steven Mnuchin were unsuccessful, as Republicans have insisted that Democrats must address the debt ceiling without GOP support.

Two former GOP treasury secretaries held private discussions this month with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, right, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) hoping to resolve an impasse over the debt limit that now threatens the global economy, according to four people aware of the conversations.

The previously unreported talks involving the GOP economic grandees — Henry Paulson, who served as treasury secretary under President Bush; and Steven Mnuchin, right, treasury secretary under President Trump — did not resolve the matter and the U.S. is now racing toward a massive fiscal cliff with no clear resolution at hand.

Paulson and Mnuchin have in recent weeks spoken with both McConnell and Yellen as the Biden administration tries to ensure the U.S. does not default on its debt obligations and spark a global financial crisis.

The backchanneling by Mnuchin and Paulson — who had previously worked together at Goldman Sachs — reflects the widespread alarm among economists and U.S. business interests about the consequences of an unprecedented default on the federal debt. If the U.S. was unable to borrow money to pay all of its bills, a number of economists have predicted that it would lead to a calamity that could trigger a meltdown in financial markets and plunge the economy into recession. Republicans have refused to help Democrats approve a new debt ceiling suspension despite approving three such measures during the Trump administration while the national debt rose by roughly $8 trillion under Trump.

Yellen has recently warned that the debt ceiling must be raised or suspended by some time in October or the country’s fiscal situation will be severe.

Paulson met with McConnell in his office in the U.S. Capitol last week and discussed the debt limit standoff, two people familiar with the exchange said. Paulson primarily listened to McConnell’s views on the matter as the Senate GOP leader made clear he was not bluffing about Democrats having to raise the debt limit without Republican support. Paulson expressed in the meeting a high degree of concern about the dangers and likelihood of a federal default and its implications for the global economy, the people said. Paulson worked closely with McConnell and other lawmakers in 2008 to address the financial crisis.

 Washington Post, Fed projects new interest rate hikes in 2022, signals upcoming easing of supports if economy continues to heal, Anne Gearan, Rick Noack, John Hudson and Adam Taylor, Sept. 22, 2021. Economists and Wall Street have been eager for details on when, and how, the Fed will start to dial back its support for the markets

New York Times, What’s at Stake in the 2022 Races for Governor, Clay Risen, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). The attention may be on House and Senate campaigns, but these races — some of which will be true tossups — may be just as important.

This weekend, word leaked that Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and presidential candidate, is on the cusp of announcing a run for governor of Texas next year, taking on the incumbent Republican, Greg Abbott.

Given Mr. O’Rourke’s celebrity, and perhaps the schadenfreude some might feel of watching Texas once again elude a high-profile Democrat’s grasp, the news instantly made the state one of the marquee races of 2022. It also served as a reminder that for all of the attention ladled on the upcoming House and Senate campaigns, the governors’ races may be just as important.

That’s because, as Jennifer Rubin noted last month in The Washington Post, state-level, statewide races offer a different, and maybe more accurate, reading of Trump-wing strength than congressional campaigns. That’s especially true now, after governors have waded into fights over masks, Covid vaccines and critical race theory, making the elections about not just the performance of individual governors, but also the strength of the MAGA cause as a whole.

The parties certainly get it: According to OpenSecrets.org, the Democratic Governors Association and the Republican Governors Association have already raised a combined $46.6 million, and spent $28.2 million, for the 2021 and 2022 governor races, significantly more than usual. The money is also a function of the sheer number of upcoming races: two this year and an astounding 36 next November.

Most of those races are in deeply red or deeply blue states, but analysts consider five to be true tossups — Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — and another five as possible nail-biters — Florida, Maine, Michigan, Nevada and New Hampshire.

Washington Post, ‘I’ve never seen maggots this big’: New Orleans hasn’t picked up some people’s trash since Ida. They’re begging to get rid of the stench, Katy Reckdahl and Timothy Bella, Sept. 22, 2021. When the city lost power, people tossed the contents of their refrigerators into garbage bags that have been left to rot. The hazards of the uncollected trash and debris have been exacerbated by rain and soaring temperatures.

Washington Post, Texas Gov. Abbott sends miles of cars along border to deter migrants, Adela Suliman, Sept. 22, 2021. The Republican said this “steel wall” of vehicles was meant to stop migrants from crossing the dam.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has sent a fleet of state-owned vehicles to line up for miles as a barricade along the border with Mexico, insisting the state was taking “unprecedented steps,” as thousands of migrants still seek to cross into the United States.

The “steel wall” of cars, as Abbott called it, is only the latest of the stark images coming from the crisis unfolding in Del Rio, Tex., where nearly 15,000 border crossers, many Haitians living in Chile and other South American nations, have arrived.

The Homeland Security Department is investigating reports that Border Patrol agents on horseback attempted to grab migrants and push them back toward Mexico, captured in scenes Sunday along the Rio Grande.

“What we did, we put hundreds of Texas Department of Public Safety cars and created a steel wall — a steel wall of DPS vehicles — that prevented anybody from crossing that dam that you’ve seen people walk across,” Abbott told Fox News in an interview Tuesday. “We effectively … regained control of the border.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Total chaos in Texas, Bocha Blue, Sept. 21, 2021. Right now there is chaos going on in Texas. This is primarily due to the fact that random people are suddenly getting it in their head to start the process of litigation because of the Texas handmaid law. Only maybe not for the reasons Republicans were hoping for.

Doctor Alan Braid of San Antonio Texas announced he’d performed an abortion. He announced this in a Washington Post op-ed. Braid has been candid in his motivation. He wants to force a review of SB 8. After all, he admits to violating the handmaid law. So, how could it NOT be reviewed? Of course the outcome of Braid’s announcement was predictable.

Faster then one could say breaking the law, two Attorneys, one disbarred and living on house-arrest, have sued Braid. Sigh. As I have said before, you just can’t make this stuff up.

“Texas Right to life” is the group that backed this wretched law, and they are not very happy right now. The reason they are not happy is because “neither of these lawsuits are valid attempts to save innocent human lives.”

This is a quote from John Seago, legislative Director for the organization. Indeed, one of the lawyers who is suing isn’t even asking for money. He just wants the law reviewed. Oh dear. What’s a Stepford Republican to do?

It will be interesting to see what comes of this litigation. In the meantime, these actions have left fuming Texas Republicans stewing in their own juices, and it couldn’t happen to a more miserable bunch of morons.

New York Times, Democrats Begin Effort to Curb Post-Trump Presidential Powers, Charlie Savage, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). House Democrats plan to introduce a package of proposed new limits on executive power that amount to a point-by-point rebuke of former President Trump. But to appeal to Republicans, a bill being introduced in the House to impose checks on executive authority may be broken into pieces in the Senate.

House Democrats are planning to introduce a package of proposed new limits on executive power on Tuesday, beginning a post-Trump push to strengthen checks on the presidency that they hope will compare to the overhauls that followed the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War.

Democrats have spent months negotiating with the Biden White House to refine a broad set of proposals that amount to a point-by-point rebuke of the ways that Donald J. Trump shattered norms over the course of his presidency. The Democrats have compiled numerous bills into a package they call the Protecting Our Democracy Act.

The legislation would make it harder for presidents to offer or bestow pardons in situations that raise suspicion of corruption, refuse to respond to oversight subpoenas, spend or secretly freeze funds contrary to congressional appropriations, and fire inspectors general or retaliate against whistle-blowers, among many other changes.

The legislation’s lead sponsor, Representative Adam B. Schiff, right, Democrat of California, said he hoped it would receive a floor vote “this fall.”

While the bill would constrain President Biden and his successors, its implicit rebuke of Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House may limit how many Republicans are willing to vote for it. Under Senate rules, at least 10 Republicans would need to support it for that chamber to hold a vote on such a bill.

But supporters noted that Republican senators previously supported significant components of the bill, like requiring the Justice Department to turn over logs of contacts with White House officials and constraining a president’s ability to declare a national emergency and spend money in ways Congress did not approve.

U.S. Terrorists, Election Fraudsters, Dark Money

Washington Post, Huge hack reveals embarrassing details of who’s behind Proud Boys and other far-right websites, Drew Harwell, Craig Timberg and Hannah Allam, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). Researchers say it will allow them to gain important new insights into how extremists operate online.

Epik long has been the favorite Internet company of the far-right, providing domain services to QAnon theorists, Proud Boys and other instigators of the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol — allowing them to broadcast hateful messages from behind a veil of anonymity.

But that veil abruptly vanished last week when a huge breach by the hacker group Anonymous dumped into public view more than 150 gigabytes of previously private data — including user names, passwords and other identifying information of Epik’s customers.

• Washington Post, Opinion: How serious is the threat to democracy, and how do we defeat it? Jennifer Rubin

Washington Post, Two GOP operatives indicted for allegedly routing money from Russian national to support Trump campaign, Felicia Sonmez and Isaac Stanley-Becker, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). A political strategist who was pardoned by the former president after being convicted in a 2012 campaign finance scheme is facing new charges related to an alleged 2016 plot to illegally funnel donations made by a Russian national to support then-candidate Donald Trump’s White House bid.

Jesse Benton, 43, who was previously a top aide to former congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and later ran a pro-Trump super PAC, was charged this month, according to a federal indictment in Washington unsealed Monday. Also charged is Roy Douglas “Doug” Wead, 75, a conservative author and former special assistant to President George H.W. Bush.

According to the indictment, in the months before the 2016 presidential election, Benton and Wead solicited a U.S. campaign donation from a Russian national in violation of federal law, then filed false campaign finance reports to make it seem that the donation was from Benton.

Federal disclosures from that period make clear the donation went to support Trump’s election, though the recipient is not named in the indictment. Authorities allege Benton arranged for the Russian national to attend a fundraiser “and get a photograph with” the candidate, “in exchange for a political contribution.”

Benton and Wead “concealed the scheme from the candidate, federal regulators, and the public,” according to the indictment.

The court filing does not name Trump, but details in the indictment match a $25,000 donation that Benton made in the fall of 2016 to a committee that jointly raised money for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee, campaign finance records show.

The unnamed Russian national, who is described as a business associate of Wead, wired a total of $100,000 from a bank account in Vienna, Austria, to a political consulting firm owned by Benton, authorities allege.

In return, Benton and Wead allegedly arranged for the Russian national to attend a September fundraiser in Philadelphia. The following month, Benton used his credit card to pay the $25,000 cost of the Russian national’s ticket to the event and told a consultant for the related campaign committees that he had “bought the tickets and gifted them” to Wead and the individual.

Benton then paid off the $25,000 on his card using the funds wired by the individual to his consulting company. He kept the remaining $75,000, the indictment alleges.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Follow the money: new trouble for Matt Gaetz, Bill Palmer, right, Sept. 22, 2021. Matt Gaetz keeps tweeting about how he’s been “exonerated” by federal criminal investigators, but no such thing has happened. Last month ABC News and other sources reported that the only reason Gaetz hasn’t been indicted yet is that his former associate Joel Greenberg provided too much evidence, and that it’s taking time to work through it all. Now Gaetz has new trouble.

In the final days of Donald Trump’s presidency, Matt Gaetz donated $100,000 to Trump’s legal defense, according to a new report from the Daily Beast. This on its own isn’t illegal, just highly suspicious. But you have to look at what else was going on during that timeframe.

There have been numerous reports that Matt Gaetz knew he was under federal criminal investigation for sex trafficking and other matters, and that he sought a pardon from Trump in the final days of Trump’s presidency. Gaetz and Trump have both denied this happened. But if it is true, it would mean that Gaetz made a six figure donation to Trump even as he was asking Trump for a pardon.

If this was some kind of attempt at a quid pro quo, then Matt Gaetz is looking at even more legal trouble. No wonder he’s resorting to panic moves such as falsely claiming he’s been exonerated. It seems increasingly unlikely that any of this will end well for him.

HuffPost, ‘Outrageous’: Judge Lays Into Trump-Loving Deputy Who Wore ‘Sheriff’ Patch On Jan. 6, Ryan J. Reilly, Sept. 22, 2021. Ronald Colton McAbee was a sheriff’s deputy when he attempted to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6, as shown above in photos introduced by the FBI. A judge is deciding whether he’ll be freed pretrial.

A federal judge criticized a Capitol attack defendant and sworn officer who was working for a Tennessee sheriff’s office when he faced off against law enforcement on Jan. 6 while wearing a “Sheriff” patch on his vest.

Ronald Colton McAbee, known to online sleuths investigating the Jan. 6 attack as #ThreePercentSheriff because of the insignia he wore representing the far-right cause, was arrested in mid-August. A federal magistrate judge in Tennessee ordered McAbee released with conditions, including to “refrain from using any social media or other websites related to insurrection activity.” But federal prosecutors filed an emergency appeal of the judge’s ruling, and the matter was reviewed during a hearing before U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan on Wednesday.
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Sullivan called McAbee’s decision to wear a “Sheriff” patch while he attempted to storm Congress on Jan. 6 “outrageous” and said videos apparently showing McAbee attacking officers were “very disturbing.” While McAbee’s defense attorney maintained that McAbee was offering assistance to one officer and only pushed another officer after the officer pushed him, Sullivan said it “appears clearly to this court” that the video showed McAbee pulling an officer into the violent mob.

Sullivan also questioned how a law enforcement officer who took part in the Jan. 6 attack could be trusted to obey restrictions imposed upon him by a judge.

“He’s raised his right hand, probably put his left hand on the Bible, more than once and swore to administer justice,” Sullivan said. “If he didn’t do that on Jan. 6, how can the court take any comfort in knowing that he will abide by the court’s directives to do certain things going forward?”

The government argued that McAbee couldn’t be trusted and had used his status as a law enforcement officer to attempt to breach the police line on Jan. 6.

“Frankly, this is a defendant who has taken oaths before. He swore oaths in multiple sheriffs’ offices that he would uphold the law,” argued Assistant U.S. Attorney Benet Kearney, one of the federal prosecutors on the case. “This is someone who uses his badge and authority when it works for him, and disregards it when it does not.”

Sullivan said that if he does allow McAbee out of jail pretrial, he will not release him into the custody of his wife. The judge said he did not trust her to report her husband for violations of his conditions of release. McAbee’s attorney, a federal public defender, had suggested that the judge could keep McAbee confined to his home as an alternative to being held in D.C. jail.

In court filings ahead of the hearing, the U.S. government argued that McAbee “dressed in a manner that indicates that he anticipated violence at the Capitol” by purchasing “metal-knuckled gloves,” wearing a tactical vest, and arming himself with a baton on the scene.

“The defendant’s ready participation in these violent assaults on police officers, while he himself was a sheriff’s deputy, and his attempted use [of] that status to obtain special treatment is powerful evidence of his lack of regard for legal authority,” the government argued.

The FBI said that McAbee was employed by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office from November 2020 until March 2021. He previously worked at the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office in Georgia.

Multiple law enforcement officials have been charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which has resulted in more than 600 arrests so far. The FBI has hundreds more arrests in the works.

Sullivan did not immediately rule on whether McAbee will remain detained until trial but said he could not just forget what he saw with his own eyes in the videos presented by the government.

McAbee, who was charged as part of a criminal conspiracy alongside Trump-loving bodybuilder Logan Barnhart and Trump supporter Jack Wade Whitton (who bragged he “fed” an officer “to the people” on Jan. 6), faces several counts, including inflicting bodily injury on officers; assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers; obstruction of law enforcement during civil disorder, along with a host of misdemeanors. Whitton and co-defendants Jeffrey Sabol and Peter Stager are detained until trial.

At McAbee’s detention hearing in Tennessee, federal authorities revealed the name of a friend of McAbee’s who is 266-AFO on the FBI’s Capitol Violence page, meaning he’s wanted for assault on federal officers. Online sleuths have referred to the man as #ScaryCherry3P because he’s wearing a red MAGA sweatshirt. The duo exchanged a number of text messages both before and after the Jan. 6 attack.

One of the images introduced as evidence shows McAbee and the other man, who also attended the Jan. 6 attack (and whose face is blocked in the FBI photo), posing with a copy of a Jan. 7 newspaper.

Palmer Report, Opinion: Mary Trump is getting the last laugh, Ron Leshnower, Sept 22, 2021. One arrow in Donald Trump’s pathetic quiver has been filing lawsuits. No matter the merits of a complaint, suing an enemy labels that person a “defendant,” officially putting the person in a defensive position. With each court filing, Trump enjoys being on offense and, in his mind, he feels like he’s winning.

Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist who knows what it’s like to be sued by her uncle, just called B.S. on the whole thing. Mary analyzes Donald’s legal filings as if she is reading tea leaves, except her observations are steeped in reality. Mary’s insights reflect her unique personal and professional perspective of how Donald’s hateful, twisted world is disintegrating before our eyes.

Trump’s latest filing is a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Dutchess County, New York, against the New York Times and three of its reporters, plus Mary Trump. As first reported by The Daily Beast, the man-child accuses Mary of “smuggl[ing] records out of her attorney’s office and turn[ing] them over to the Times” as part of an “insidious plot” to expose his tax returns. The lawsuit relies on a confidentiality agreement that doesn’t even involve the Times and that a judge ruled was too vague to be enforced against Mary last year.

Upon learning of the new lawsuit, in which Donald seeks “no less than One Hundred Million Dollars,” Mary told The Daily Beast that her uncle is a “fucking loser.” Mary then offered a less colorful observation that nailed what’s going on: “It’s desperation. The walls are closing in and he is throwing anything against the wall that will stick.”

Indeed, late last week, before this new lawsuit, The Sydney Morning Herald interviewed Mary about her experience when Donald sued to prevent publication of her book, Too Much and Never Enough. When asked if she ever feared for her life, Mary said “never” because “Donald is the weakest person I’ve ever known.” She added that getting sued was “the kind of retaliation I’d expect.”

Things are certainly not looking good for Trump. The New York Times just reported that the Trump campaign wrote a memo admitting there was no voting machine fraud before Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani began promoting wild conspiracy theories. Police, journalists, and counterprotesters far outnumbered the insurrectionists at the Justice for J6 rally. A $100 million loan on Trump Tower in New York, sponsored by Trump himself, is now on a watch list. It is now clear prosecutors are targeting Trump, and the lawyer for indicted Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg believes more indictments are coming.

These are just a few examples of how Trump’s world is crumbling. Filing lawsuits might make Trump feel like he’s winning, but it’s just desperate attempts to keep up appearances. To paraphrase Mary Trump, we’ve reached the point where Donald Trump is throwing whatever he can at the proverbial wall, hoping it will magically stick. As Trump inches closer to total ruin, he has no strategy.

Canadian, Russian Elections

Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Neo-fascist party in Canada makes a mark in election; its vote count shouldn't fool anyone, Wayne Madsen, left (author of 20 books, including one forthcoming on the rise of fascism in Western nations, and former Navy intelligence officer), Sept. 21-22, 2021. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gambled his Liberal Party government's political future by calling a snap election and, defying many polls, came out ahead of his main rival, the increasingly Trump-like Conservative Party.

While most eyes were on Trudeau and Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole, election observers eyeing the rise of neo-fascist, neo-Nazi, and other far-right parties around the world were looking at how a relatively new Canadian party, the far-right People's Party of Canada (PPC), would fare in its first national contest. Formed in 2018 by former Conservative MP Maxime Bernier, the PPC ran 312 candidates in the recent election.

The PPC expounds the same sort of Gish galloping gobbledygook that every far-right party uses to confuse voters. They claim to be "libertarian," "populist," "nationalist," and, most laughable, neither "right" or "left" in the classical sense.  The far-right claims ownership of terms like freedom, patriot, and libertarian to mask its fascist underpinnings.

• New York Times, Justin Trudeau to Remain Prime Minister of Canada, Ian Austen, Sept. 21, 2021 (print ed.). Canadian broadcasters projected that Mr. Trudeau would remain in power after Monday’s election. Trudeau falls short of a majority in Canada’s federal election.

New York Times, Germany’s Far Right Is Nowhere in the Election. But It’s ‘Here to Stay,’ Katrin Bennhold, Sept. 22, 2021. Although the far-right Alternative for Germany party is likely to remain a pariah force, it looks assured of a role in shaping the country’s future.

Four years ago the Alternative for Germany, or AfD, arrived in the German Parliament like a wrecking ball, the first far-right party to win a place at the heart of Germany’s democracy since World War II. It was a political earthquake in a country that had once seen Hitler’s Nazi party rise from the fringes to win power in free elections.

As another election looms on Sunday, the worst fears of many Germans have not come true: Support for the party has dipped. But neither have the hopes that the AfD would disappear from the political scene as suddenly as it appeared. If Germany’s fate in this election will not be settled by the far right, political analysts say, Germany’s future will partly be shaped by it.

More World News

Washington Post, Biden, Macron to meet next month amid dispute over Australian submarine deal, Anne Gearan, Rick Noack, John Hudson and Adam Taylor, Sept. 22, 2021. France will send its envoy back to the United States as the two leaders sought to make peace after a secret arms deal led to an unprecedented diplomatic rupture.

French President Emmanuel Macron will send the country’s ambassador back to Washington next week, French and U.S. officials said, as the two countries sought to reset relations after a secret arms deal led to an ugly diplomatic rupture.

In a joint statement, itself a sign of easing tensions, Biden and Macron said they had spoken on the phone on Wednesday and agreed to meet in person at the end of October. Both are scheduled to attend the Group of 20 summit in Rome at that time.

Macron had recalled Ambassador Philippe Etienne to Paris in the days after the announcement that the United States had formed an alliance with Australia and the United Kingdom and that would allow Australia to purchase U.S. nuclear submarine technology. That deal effectively canceled an arrangement under which Australia had been set to purchase less capable French vessels, and prompted public outrage from French officials.

Washington Post, Future of nuclear talks with Iran uncertain as Tehran expands enrichment activities, Karen DeYoung and Kareem Fahim, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). Three months after the last meeting to negotiate a revival of the nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, it remains unclear if and when the talks in Vienna will restart, or who might represent Iran’s new government.

In the interim, Iran has continued to expand the quantity and quality of its uranium enrichment, leading some experts to conclude it is now even closer to possessing enough fissile material to build a bomb than the two or three months the Biden administration has publicly estimated. At the same time, Iran has repeatedly sparred with the International Atomic Energy Agency over monitoring of its nuclear activities originally agreed in the 2015 deal.

For its part, the administration has continued to warn that negotiating time is running out, without saying how much time is left or what it will do if it expires. Some answers may emerge this week, when the Tehran government says Iran’s new foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, plans to hold bilateral meetings with his counterparts from Britain, Germany and France at the annual United Nations General Assembly.

Washington Post, Biden vows to double aid for vulnerable nations dealing with climate change, Brady Dennis, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). Proposed $11.4 billion in annual U.S. financing would help “support the countries and people that will be hit the hardest," the president said, but critics say it’s still not enough

Washington Post, In first address to U.N., Biden calls for unity on climate change, pandemic, Anne Gearan, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). President Biden defended the messy end to the of war in Afghanistan and made a case that the world can come together to confront global threats like climate change and the coronavirus in a Tuesday speech at the United Nations geared at easing allies’ increasing qualms with American leadership.

In his first address to the body as president, Biden also affirmed U.S. support for it and an alphabet soup of international partnerships and pledged support for poorer countries often disproportionately affected by climate change.

“We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan, and as we close this era of endless war we are opening an era of endless diplomacy,” Biden.

His measured address was notable mostly for its contrast to the boastful tone and sour reception that marked addresses by President Donald Trump.

President Biden announced plans Tuesday to double the funding the United States provides each year to help developing nations cope with the ravages of climate change and build greener economies.

Speaking at the United Nations, Biden framed the move as part of a broader return to multilateralism, saying the world must work together to combat daunting challenges such as the coronavirus pandemic, trade disputes and a rapidly warming planet.

U.S. Law, Crime, Courts

Washington Post, Republicans, Democrats unable to reach deal on bill to overhaul policing tactics, Felicia Sonmez and Mike DeBonis, Sept. 22, 2021. A bipartisan group of lawmakers has failed to achieve a long-discussed overhaul of police practices meant to stem the killings of Black citizens at the hands of law enforcement officers, an aide to one of the members said Wednesday.

Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) along with Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) had been negotiating for months. They were unable to resolve the issue of whether to loosen or eliminate the doctrine of “qualified immunity” that shields police officers and departments from civil liability in cases of misconduct, a Booker aide said.

News of the collapse of the talks was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

According to the Booker aide, Democrats’ final offer completely omitted any change to qualified immunity or Section 242 of the Civil Rights Act, which could cause officers to face expanded accountability in court.

Throughout the talks, Democrats had made eliminating — or at least loosening — the doctrine a cornerstone of their overhaul efforts. Republicans by and large had resisted making any changes, fearful that exposing police officers to lawsuits could cause them to adopt less aggressive and less effective tactics.

Travel blogger Gabby Petito is shown with her fiance, Brian Laundrie, now missing and being sought by authorities, who describe him as a person of interest in her homicide.

New York Times, Gabby Petito’s Death Ruled a Homicide, F.B.I. Confirms, Sept. 22, 2021. The search continues for Brian Laundrie, Ms. Petito’s fiancé, who has been named a person of interest in the case.

Washington Post, As the Petito case grips the nation, families of color say their missing loved ones matter, too, Brittany Shammas and Kim Bellware, Sept. 22, 2021. Highlighted by the Gabby Petito case, attention to racial disparities in missing persons coverage is gaining new momentum.

Vanity Fair, Commentary: Gabby Petito, Online Detectives, and the Queasy Places Our True-Crime Obsessions Have Taken Us, Delia Cai, Sept. 22, 2021.
Nothing about how the internet has consumed and shaped news about a missing woman is exactly surprising or new, but taken as a whole, it may represent a grim future.

Last week I found myself googling the drive from Grand Teton National Park to North Port, Florida, and clocking firsthand the overt fishiness that much of the internet had already assigned to the behavior of Gabby Petito’s boyfriend, Brian Laundrie, who’d arrived home at the end of that trip on September 1 without his girlfriend, Petito.

By the time Petito’s family reported her missing on September 11, the facts of the case courted speculation: Petito and Laundrie, a #VanLife influencer couple, had been heavily documenting their cross-country road trip.

In the past week, I’ve been thinking about what made Petito’s disappearance so prime for a national obsession. Why did the internet glom onto this woman’s story in particular, arguably well beyond the usual fixation so many readers and viewers and news organizations pay to missing white women? (Note that in Wyoming, 710 Indigenous people, mostly girls, have gone missing in the past decade.) Certainly, there is a morbid degree of fascination assigned to such a horrific end for a photogenic couple known for posting about their seemingly picture-perfect travels.

But there was also something about the way visibility played into the story: No doubt Petito’s and Laundrie’s roles as semipublic figures—via a self-selected mantle that invites a particular kind of following and scrutiny—were hugely responsible for vaulting their story into the national interest, to be covered by Fox News and Elle Australia alike. For Petito to disappear amid a road trip that was being shared in real time for her followers was a form of tragic irony too twisted to comprehend; for a while, people wondered if it was just some kind of sick stunt toward building narrative interest.

New York Times, R. Kelly Says He Won’t Testify in Trial as Closing Arguments Begin, Troy Closson, Sept. 22, 2021. A Brooklyn jury will decide whether the R&B superstar was at the center of a criminal conspiracy to abuse women and girls. Follow updates here.

R. Kelly, right, manipulated not only the women and girls in his orbit, but his own employees as well for more than two decades, prosecutors told jurors at the start of their closing arguments in Mr. Kelly’s criminal trial in New York.

“For many years, what happened in the defendant’s world stayed in the defendant’s world,” Elizabeth Geddes, an assistant U.S. attorney, told the jurors in her final arguments to jurors at Federal District Court in Brooklyn. “But no longer.”

The portrayal came at the end of a five-week trial that featured nearly a dozen accusations of physical and sexual abuse of women and underage girls and boys.

Ms. Geddes homed in early in her summation on the vast circle of employees, entourage members and managers who surrounded the singer across his career. She used a large blackboard with the photos of his accusers on one side and Mr. Kelly on the other, with a network of associates surrounding him, showing jurors that they played critical roles in enabling his abuse and allowing it to persist.

“Over the past two decades, the names of the individuals have changed. But their roles have remained the same,” Ms. Geddes said. “And from the beginning, the defendant has been the leader.”

She also described a system of control that entrapped his accusers and blocked them from speaking out.

Ms. Geddes said that system included letters written by Mr. Kelly’s accusers that she said were filled with lies absolving him of crimes. The letters were locked away because he intended to use them in the future, Ms. Geddes said.

When women “crossed him” and opted to go public with their allegations, Ms. Geddes said, Mr. Kelly “used his henchmen to lodge threats and exact revenge.”

Referencing a slide show playing in the courtroom for jurors, she directed their attention to the transcript of an audio clip they had heard during the trial. In the snippet, Mr. Kelly warned any accusers who he believed had stolen from him, saying “people get murdered” for that behavior, using an expletive.

“That was a threat,” Ms. Geddes said.

The racketeering charge itself and the unusual nature of the case against Mr. Kelly, once one of pop music’s biggest stars, has been a key target for Mr. Kelly’s defense team.

But Ms. Geddes painstakingly broke down the racketeering charge the singer faces for jurors. “The law recognizes when someone commits a crime as part of a group, he’s more powerful — more dangerous,” she explained, later adding that “without his inner circle, the defendant could not have carried out the crimes he carried out for as long as he did.”

Washington Post, Investigation: D.C. attorney general accuses Delta Phi Epsilon member of using group’s charitable funds for himself, Fredrick Kunkle, Sept. 14, 2021 (Sept. 22, print ed.). Civil complaint says longtime fraternity brother gained control of organization and its related foundation.

When Terrence J. Boyle pledged Delta Phi Epsilon’s Alpha Chapter in 1963, he joined a Georgetown University fraternity dedicated to cultivating careers in diplomatic and foreign service.

Over succeeding decades, Boyle is alleged to have gained control of the fraternity, along with a related private foundation, and used their charitable assets for himself, according to a civil complaint filed in Superior Court by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine (D).

The 23-page court document accuses Boyle of using funds from the Delta Phi Epsilon Foundation for Foreign Service Education to help purchase a home for himself on 34th Street NW in Georgetown that is now worth more than $1 million. The complaint also accuses Boyle, a former attorney for the Federal Trade Commission, of improperly arranging to sell Delta Phi Epsilon’s chapter house last year for about $2.6 million — well below its appraisal of more than $4 million — by diverting the fraternity’s charitable asset into the foundation, which he runs.

The complaint also alleges that Boyle withheld financial details from fellow fraternity members or provided them with inaccurate information about the chapter house’s sale. Afterward, he allegedly requested and received unspecified proceeds from an escrow fund in violation of an agreement with D.C. investigators.

Boyle, a graduate of Georgetown’s Walsh School of Foreign Service and its law school, has denied the allegations in court papers and in a brief interview.

“All of that stuff is nonsense,” Boyle, 80, said when visited by a reporter at his 34th Street home, which is less than a block from the former chapter house. Boyle was accompanied by Matthew G. Ellison, 25, a 2018 Georgetown graduate and fraternity member who is also the foundation’s president. Ellison declined to comment.

River Farm fight offers public view of internal strife inside a nonprofit

The attorney general’s civil complaint, filed June 3 in D.C. Superior Court, says the subsidized purchase of Boyle’s private home in 1990 and the sale of Delta Phi Epsilon’s chapter house in June 2020 were improper schemes that occurred without necessary oversight from fellow fraternity members, whose donations Boyle helped solicit over the years.

The Delta Phi Epsilon foundation’s charitable assets, including bequests of as much as $52,000, were designated for student scholarships. Yet the foundation has never awarded a scholarship and ceased to function after Boyle took control in 1984, the complaint alleges.

“As far as I know, the only charitable work the foundation has ever done is provide housing for Terry Boyle,” said Georgetown graduate and fraternity member James Abely, 55. “He took over the fraternity and ran it into the ground.”

New York Times, Those Fancy Cars He Flaunted on YouTube? A $30 Million Fraud Scheme Paid for Them, U.S. Says, Michael Levenson, Sept. 22, 2021. A flamboyant YouTuber known as Omi in a Hellcat was charged with illegally selling copyrighted TV shows and movies through an online service, prosecutors said.

On YouTube, he was known as Omi in a Hellcat, a flamboyant business mogul in diamond-studded jewelry who commanded a fleet of luxury cars including Lamborghinis and ran his own clothing line and restaurant.

But even as he lounged in his sprawling suburban home and showed off his rotating collection of high-end sports cars, he acknowledged that the federal government was closing in.

On Wednesday, federal prosecutors said that they had charged Omi, whose real name is Bill Omar Carrasquillo, and two of his associates, in a scheme that involved illegally selling copyrighted video content to thousands of subscribers on Mr. Carrasquillo’s own online service, which was called, at various times, Reboot, Gears TV, Reloaded and Gears Reloaded.

The scheme netted Mr. Carrasquillo and his associates more than $30 million from about March 2016 until at least November 2019, according to prosecutors. Mr. Carrasquillo, 35, of Swedesboro, N.J., used the money to buy houses and dozens of cars, including the ones that he regularly flaunted on his YouTube channel, prosecutors said.

Digital piracy schemes have proliferated in recent years, and a 2019 report released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that they cost the American economy at least $29.2 billion a year.

Donte Mills, Mr. Carrasquillo’s lawyer, said his client denied the charges.

“Mr. Carrasquillo tapped into a brand-new, unregulated industry and was very successful,” Mr. Mills said in a statement. “Most people are called pioneers when they do that; Omar is called a criminal."

New York Times, Teenage Boy in New York Pleads Guilty in Killing of Tessa Majors, Jonah E. Bromwich, Updated Sept. 22, 2021. Ms. Majors, a Barnard College student, was stabbed to death in 2019 in a killing that rattled New York City. One of her killers pleaded guilty on Tuesday.

Washington Post, Imam charged with sexually assaulting girl who sought his help, police say, Justin Jouvenal, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). An imam from an Annandale mosque has been charged with allegedly sexually assaulting an underage girl who sought his help in 2015, Fairfax County police said Tuesday.

Said Shirzadi, 36, of Maryland, is facing one count of indecent liberties by a custodian after the victim disclosed the alleged unlawful contact in May and detectives launched an investigation, police said.

U.S. Media, Academic News

New York Times, No More Apologies: Inside Facebook’s Push to Defend Its Image, Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel, Sept. 22, 2021 (print ed.). Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, has signed off on an effort to show users pro-Facebook stories and to distance himself from scandals.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, signed off last month on a new initiative code-named Project Amplify.

The effort, which was hatched at an internal meeting in January, had a specific purpose: to use Facebook’s News Feed, the site’s most important digital real estate, to show people positive stories about the social network.

The idea was that pushing pro-Facebook news items — some of them written by the company — would improve its image in the eyes of its users, three people with knowledge of the effort said. But the move was sensitive because Facebook had not previously positioned the News Feed as a place where it burnished its own reputation. Several executives at the meeting were shocked by the proposal, one attendee said.

Project Amplify punctuated a series of decisions that Facebook has made this year to aggressively reshape its image. Since that January meeting, the company has begun a multipronged effort to change its narrative by distancing Mr. Zuckerberg from scandals, reducing outsiders’ access to internal data, burying a potentially negative report about its content and increasing its own advertising to showcase its brand.

The moves amount to a broad shift in strategy. For years, Facebook confronted crisis after crisis over privacy, misinformation and hate speech on its platform by publicly apologizing. Mr. Zuckerberg personally took responsibility for Russian interference on the site during the 2016 presidential election and has loudly stood up for free speech online. Facebook also promised transparency into the way that it operated.

But the drumbeat of criticism on issues as varied as racist speech and vaccine misinformation has not relented. Disgruntled Facebook employees have added to the furor by speaking out against their employer and leaking internal documents. Last week, The Wall Street Journal published articles based on such documents that showed Facebook knew about many of the harms it was causing.

So Facebook executives, concluding that their methods had done little to quell criticism or win supporters, decided early this year to go on the offensive, said six current and former employees, who declined to be identified for fear of reprisal.

Sept. 21

Top Headlines

• Washington Post, House passes bill to avert shutdown, but legislation faces grim prospects in Senate
• Washington Post, U.S. default this fall would cost 6 million jobs, wipe out $15 trillion in wealth, study says
• Washington Post, U.S. careens toward shutdown, financial crisis amid stalemate in Congress
• Washington Post, More centrist Democrats question size of $3.5 trillion economic plan
• New York Times, Live Updates: In U.N. Debut, Biden Confronts Doubts About U.S. Global Leadership
• New York Times, Democrats to Pair Spending Bill With Raising Debt Ceiling, Pressuring G.O.P.
• Washington Post, Opinion: Biden’s Entire Presidential Agenda Rests on Expansive Spending Bill

U.S. Terrorists, Election Fraudsters, Money Sources

• New York Times, Trump Campaign Knew Lawyers’ Voting Machine Claims Were Baseless, Memo Shows, Alan Feuer
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Serious new legal trouble for everyone involved with Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign, Bill Palmer
• Washington Post, Huge hack reveals embarrassing details of who’s behind Proud Boys and other far-right websites
• Steady, Commentary: Hypocrisy, Dan Rather
• Washington Post, Opinion: How serious is the threat to democracy, and how do we defeat it? Jennifer Rubin
• Washington Post, Two GOP operatives indicted for allegedly routing money from Russian national to support Trump campaign
• Washington Post, Treasury Department will sanction crypto exchanges that help channel payments to hackers

Canadian, Russian Elections

• Wayne Madsen Report, Investigative Commentary: Neo-fascist party in Canada makes a mark in election; its vote count shouldn't fool anyone, Wayne Madsen
• New York Times, Live Updates: Justin Trudeau to Remain Prime Minister of Canada: Falls short of a majority
• Washington Post, Putin’s United Russia party gains big majority in parliamentary elections
• Wayne Madsen Report, Opinion: Russian fascism shows weak links; Biden missed an opportunity, Wayne Madsen

Virus Victims, Responses

• Washington Post, Second dose of J&J vaccine increases covid protection, company says
• Washington Post, Live Updates: U.S. reported deaths surpass toll of 1918 flu pandemic
• Washington Post, Family urges others to get vaccinated after bride-to-be dies of covid: ‘Misinformation killed her’
• Washington Post, Low dose of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is safe, effective in children ages 5-11, companies’ study finds, a key step toward approval
• Washington Post, GOP maneuvers to block vaccine mandates, undercutting a key policy
• Washington Post, As covid patients fill hospitals, health workers fight fear and exhaustion: ‘Here we go again’
• Washington Post, Lawyer’s rise shows how vaccine misinformation can fuel fundraising and far-right celebrity
• Washington Post, Rationing care becomes a reality as covid-19 patients crowd hospitals in some areas
• Worldometer, World & U.S. Coronavirus Case Totals, U.S. Deaths: 694,637
• Washington Post, 212 million U.S. vaccinated
  
• Palmer Report, Opinion: Republican official dies of COVID, Jesse Green

Trump Watch

• Proof, Investigative Commentary: Why Donald Trump Is Again Interfering in Georgia's Electoral Process, Seth Abramson
• Washington Post, Opinion: Ominous new details about Trump’s coup attempt require Democrats to act, Greg Sargent
• Palmer Report, Opinion: You’re darn right Donald Trump is going to prison, Bill Palmer
• Washington Post, Lindsey Graham and Mike Lee vetted Trump’s fraud claims, new book says. They were unpersuaded 

Migration Issues

• New York Times, Haiti Protests Mass U.S. Deportation of Migrants to Country in Crisis
• Washington Post, Deportees land in Port-au-Prince: ‘Nobody told us we were going back to Haiti’
• Washington Post, Biden to raise refugee admissions cap to 125,000
• Washington Post, White House, House Homeland Security chair denounce ‘horrific’ mistreatment of Haitian migrants by Border Patrol officers
• Washington Post, Afghan family ravaged by U.S. drone strike mistake wants headstones for the dead — and possible new life in America, Sudarsan Raghavan

U.S. Governance, Politics, Elections

• Washington Post, Democrats’ once-sweeping policy agenda continues to shrink
• New York Times, Opinion: It’s All or Nothing for These Democrats, Even if That Means Biden Fails, Jamelle Bouie
• Washington Post, Opinion: Biden’s agenda is in trouble. It’s absolutely clear who is to blame, Greg Sargent
• Washington Post, Democrats unveil funding plan as major showdown with GOP looms
• New York Times, Democrats Begin Effort to Curb Post-Trump Presidential Powers
• Washington Post, Opinion: Kyrsten Sinema needs to show us what she believes in, Paul Waldman
• New York Times,