February 5, 2023

Sunday, February 5, 2023. Annette’s News Roundup.

To read an article included in this Roundup, click on its blue title. It is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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Joe is always busy.

Hear the President speak.

Yesterday the President spoke about the Chinese spy balloon and his order to shoot it down.

The President will speak on Tuesday, February 7 at 9 pm ET, describing the State of the Union. Sneak preview👇….

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Democratic Presidential Primaries 2024.

2024 Democratic primary calendar passes in critical party vote.

People cheer during the Democratic National Committee 2023 Winter meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on February 3, 2023.

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Members of the Democratic National Committee overwhelmingly voted to reshuffle the party's presidential primary calendar, booting the Iowa caucuses from the early slate of states and boosting primaries in South Carolina, Nevada, Georgia and Michigan.

The vote Saturday, which punctuated a three-day gathering in Philadelphia, ratifies a proposal the Rules and Bylaws Committee(RBC) made in December and officially cements what many Democrats have long called for: the elevation of states that are more reflective of the Democratic party's diversity.

"Folks, the Democratic party looks like America and so does this proposal," DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said ahead of the vote.

Under the adopted proposal, which President Biden himself advocated for in a letter to the RBC in December, the 2024 presidential calendar will have South Carolina in the plum first position on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire and Nevada jointly sharing the no. 2 slot on Feb. 6, then Georgia on Feb. 13 and Michigan on Feb. 27.

New Hampshire Democrats argue they're in a 'no-win position'

Members of the Iowa and New Hampshire Democratic delegations energetically voiced opposition to the new calendar Saturday before the official vote.

"I vigorously support our president and I support the principles that guided the calendar," said Rita Hart, chair of the Iowa Democratic party. "But I cannot support a proposal that further erodes Democratic party support in my state and the entire middle part of the country."

Joanne Dowdell, a member of the RBC from New Hampshire, said it "broke my heart to vote against [Biden's] proposed calendar." (Source. NPR).
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The question we all want the answer to. 👇

Did the FBI’s Charles McGonigal Help Throw the 2016 Election to Trump?

• Starting in 1980, an alleged “spotter agent” for the KGB began cultivating Trump as a new asset for Soviet intelligence.

• The Russian mafia laundered millions of dollars through Donald Trump’s real estate by purchasing condos in all-cash transactions through anonymous corporations that did not disclose real ownership.

• Trump Tower was a home away from home for Vyacheslav Ivankov, one of the most brutal leaders of the Russian mafia, and at least 13 people with known or alleged links to the mafia held the deeds to, lived in, or ran alleged criminal operations out of Trump Tower in New York or other Trump properties.

• Trump was some $4 billion in debt when the Russians came to bail him out via the Bayrock Group, a real estate firm that was largely staffed, owned, and financed by Soviet émigrés who had ties to Russian intelligence and/or organized crime.

Much of my material came from FBI documents. A lot came from open-source databases. It made no sense. There was an astounding amount of data on the public record. The FBI had launched enormous investigations of the Russian mafia in the 1980s. They had staked out a New York electronics store that was a haven for KGB officers. They knew that’s where the Trump Organization bought hundreds of TV sets. They had their eyes on Ivankov and other Russian mobsters who were denizens of Trump’s casinos and bought and sold his condos through shell companies. They had to know that Trump laundered money for and provided a base of operations for the Russian mafia, which was, after all, a de facto state actor tied to Russian intelligence. They had to know that the Russians repeatedly bailed Trump out when he was bankrupt. They had to know that Russia owned him. (Click the link to the article here or above to continue to read all of this important article from the New Republic).

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Joyce Vance. What’s Up in Manhattan.

On Monday, we learned that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is moving ahead with a grand jury investigation into Donald Trump’s involvement in hush money payments to stripper Stormy Daniels, with whom he allegedly had an affair, ahead of the 2016 election. New reporting suggests Bragg’s office is putting witnesses in front of the grand jury to determine whether indictments are warranted.

Bragg is reportedly using a special grand jury, which sits for six months. That’s far longer than the usual 30 days the regular grand juries he uses to indict routine cases are in session for. This suggests he needs time to complete his investigation before he makes charging decisions. If he was ready now, he could go straight to his regular grand jury and indict.

For those weary of lengthy investigations into Trump that seem to go nowhere, this one is worth paying attention to. The fact that Bragg’s office has resurrected this matter instead of letting it continue to lie in mothballs implies that they’re serious about it. The New York Times called it “a dramatic escalation in an inquiry that once appeared to have reached a dead end.”

Some folks have asked how there can be any need for further investigation when Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer, was prosecuted federally and spent time in prison on charges related in part to the same Stormy Daniels matter. Cohen was charged in an information that infamously referred to “Individual-1,” an all-but-named co-defendant, who was determined to be Donald Trump.

Here’s the issue: Cohen has said publicly that he is a witness in the Manhattan DA’s case, but using his testimony comes with complications. Cohen pleaded guilty to charges including making false statements. If Trump were indicted and the case went to trial, Cohen would be subjected to vigorous cross-examination, especially about his veracity. The government bears the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So if Cohen is the sole witness to Trump’s knowledge and role in the scheme, and one or more jurors develop doubt about his truthfulness or his memory, the government’s case is over. That’s too much risk in a case, especially when you’re considering an indictment of a former president. The DA will want to have as much evidence as possible to corroborate Cohen. That’s likely a big part of what’s happening in front of the grand jury, where witnesses testimony can be locked in under oath. They wouldn’t be there, just to waste time, if they didn’t think they could get it.

We still don’t know the specific charges the Manhattan DA is contemplating. But in addition to developing the facts, the DA will have to select statutory violations of New York state law that fit them. Those decisions are important, and they determine, among other things, the length of potential sentences that could be imposed if there were to be a conviction.

One of the lingering mysteries in this situation is why the feds never followed up Cohen’s case with a prosecution of Trump. Even if Trump couldn’t be prosecuted while he was in office because of DOJ policy, he could have been charged after he left the White House. And at that point, any roadblocks to prosecution thrown up by Trump’s Attorney General, Bill Barr, would no longer have been an issue.

There is no apparent answer to that question yet, but since the hush money payments occurred in 2016, as a practical matter, the five-year federal statute of limitations has most likely run. A statute of limitations is a law that sets the maximum time the government has to charge a defendant in a criminal case after the date the offense took place. With the payments to Daniels taking place more than six years ago, DOJ would be barred from proceeding now (although without getting too far into the weeds, if there’s a conspiracy, the government has five years from the last act in the conspiracy, including cover-ups, to prosecute. So there’s a minute chance charges could still be in play here, but unlikely).

However, in New York, the government has more time. At the outset of the pandemic, then-Governor Cuomo tolled statutes of limitations by executive order, which has the effect of giving the DA additional time to bring charges against Trump in this matter. Trump would undoubtedly challenge the validity of the Governor’s actions in court—the kind of messy delay tactic Trump is always fond of in litigation. But here, the DA has strong arguments that the statute of limitations has been validly extended under New York law. There is helpful precedent from 9/11, when statutes of limitations were tolled and a defendant in a criminal case was unsuccessful in an effort to challenge the extension of time. Although that case isn’t entirely dispositive, it’s an indication that the Manhattan DA can use this, or perhaps another provision that tolls statutes of limitation when defendants move their residence to another state, to proceed against Trump now. Statutes of limitation are always in prosecutors’ thoughts, and somewhere in Manhattan, there’s a prosecutor who is minding the calendar.

It’s still astonishing that so many Americans were taken in by a man whose possible crimes are so numerous that when we learn the Manhattan DA has a new grand jury investigation, we have to stop and figure out which of them is involved. In April, Trump faces a civil trial over allegations he defamed former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll when he denied raping her. This fall, Trump faces a trial over financial fraud charges brought by New York’s Attorney General. Trump is under criminal investigation in Georgia, and a special counsel is considering federal charges related to both his refusal to return classified material to the federal government and his role in the Big Lie/January 6. He is facing 2024 primary challenges from Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, and that list is certain to grow. Trump is increasingly going to be fighting for his company’s survival and his political future with his back against the wall. The last time he was in a similarly precarious position was on January 6, when, having exhausted all possible lawsuits and even an attempted effort to subvert DOJ, Trump was out of options for holding onto power after losing the election. We all know how that went.

I hear a lot of people who say, often apologetically, that they just can’t take it anymore. That they have to unplug from the news for the sake of their sanity. I understand that. Truly, I do. But bad things happen when good people look away. We are still in too fragile of a position to be able to afford that luxury. It is often said that every generation has to secure democracy for itself. Our fight is not over yet.

We’re in this together,

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The historian Steven Beschloss on Florida’s cowardly (and despicable) Governor Ron DeSantis. Worth a read.

DeSantis, Cowardice and the Fear of Others by Steven Beschloss.
The authoritarian strongman types want us to believe in their power. They may even want us to think that their power is divinely influenced, a sign that they’re not like the rest of us, but better.

Look no further than the surreal video released just weeks before the Florida gubernatorial election, complete with Voice of God-style narration and mad text about how Ron DeSantis is the fulfillment of God’s plan for a protector and a fighter. It was enough to rile the vile Donald Trump into testing out a nickname for his rival—Ron Sanctimonious, as in morally superior. (Count me among those who doubt that Trump came up with this five-dollar word himself.)

It’s reasonable to assess the planned ban by DeSantis and the Florida Board of Education of the Advanced Placement African American Studies course for high school students—insisting it “significantly lacks educational value”—as an expression of white supremacism and an attempt to appeal to the racist base, turn back the clock and burnish the governor’s reputation as a strongman driven by cruelty and violence. This is far from the first time.

It was apparent when pushing his “anti-woke” agenda, his nasty project of flying refugees to Martha’s Vineyard in sub-freezing weather without proper clothing and his bullying behavior toward high school students protecting themselves by wearing masks.

But as unsurprising as is the ban on this course dismissed as “indoctrination”—and now stripped by the College Board of many Black writers and writing connected to “critical race theory”— and as much as this likely presidential candidate is showing off that he won’t tolerate Floridians engaging in the critical study of slavery, institutional racism and their consequences, it strikes me that what DeSantis is showcasing is his cowardice and his fear of others.

Would a courageous man fear sharing the tragic history of his country? Would such a man feel the need to silence the viewpoints of those grappling with this complicated history? Would a genuinely strong man take pleasure in denying intellectually mature young people the opportunity to know their history, explore its meaning, debate with each other and even take pride in the progress that has been made from that dismal past?

Or is it a weak man, a cowardly man, who fears others that disagree with him, who is determined to stifle honest dialogue, and who doubts the capacity of young people to engage painful ideas and realities and reach reasonable conclusions about what it all means? Is it not a weak and cowardly man who feels the need to protect those of his own race from the hard truths of the past?(Substack)
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Another Beschloss column, December 30, 2022. - Kindness is a show of strength.

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What the GOP thinks the American people want. #RedmeatJordan. Ugh.

Jordan fires off first subpoenas against Biden admin.

Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan unloaded the House GOP’s first subpoenas a month into the new majority, demanding records about certain Biden administration decisions regarding threats against school officials during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jordan (R- Ohio) on Friday sent subpoenas to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Department of Education Secretary Miguel Cardona — requesting a laundry list of documents by March 1, according to a review of the three subpoenas by POLITICO.

Previewing the fierce political battle to come, Democrats and the White House immediately hit back at Jordan — saying he was marshaling his powerful gavel in pursuit of right-wing conspiracy theories that had largely been debunked. (Source. Politico).

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Speaker Pelosi has already endorsed California Congressman Adam Schiff. 2 other California Congresspeople, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee are also running for Diane Feinstein’s Senate Seat. So how do we keep those soon to be empty House seats?

The outgoing above… 👆. You may not know the names below 👇 yet, but you will.

Three California congressional seats could soon be vacant. Here’s who is interested.

Congressional District 30.

Currently represented by Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), 62, who announced he is running for Senate.
They’re running:

• Assemblymember Laura Friedman (D-Glendale).

• Mike Feuer, former Los Angeles city attorney, Democrat.

• Maebe A Girl, drag queen and representative on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council in Los Angeles, Democrat.

• Nick Melvoin, Los Angeles Unified School District board member, Democrat.

• State Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-Burbank).

Congressional District 47.

Currently represented by Katie Porter (D-Irvine, right in pic), 49, who announced she is running for Senate.

They’re running:

• Scott Baugh, former Republican state Assembly member.

• State Sen. Dave Min (D-Irvine).

• Former Rep. Harley Rouda

Congressional District 12.

Currently represented by Barbara Lee (D-Oakland, left in pic), 76, who told colleagues she plans to run for Senate but has not officially entered the race.

We’ll see:

Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda).

Former Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf, Democrat.

Lateefah Simon, civil rights advocate and Bay Area Rapid Transit board member, Democrat.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland). (Source. LA Times)

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The Current Situation for Girls in Afghanistan.

Fighting for Girls' Education No Matter What

I’m terrified. When the Taliban recently issued the bans barring women and girls from education, it was a horrible moment for me and my family.

The night after the ban was issued, we all gathered late in the night at my house: my husband, myself, and my family members. My loved ones advised me that I should close all of the centers. They said they were too afraid that the Taliban would come and arrest us and throw us in prison.

The next morning, however, in our WhatsApp group chat between the centers, I kept getting texts and voice messages from my students. They were crying and begged me not to close the centers. They said if I wanted to protest, they would come with me and we could do it together. That day I decided to keep the centers open, no matter what might happen.

I kissed my children goodbye the next morning knowing I might not come home. That I might be imprisoned or killed. (Source. Interview with Neda by Faisal Saeed Al Mutar.

Neda, 34, is a graduate of Kabul University and currently runs a network of underground schools for women and girls in Afghanistan. Despite the Taliban banning women and girls from receiving an education, she continues to keep the doors to her centers open to those still willing to take the risk. Every day when she leaves for work in the morning, Neda knows she might not return home safely. That she might be imprisoned or killed. She believes the risk is worth ensuring that the next generation of Afghan women will be literate and empowered so that they may fight for their right to an education. In the last 14 months, over 1,400 girls have graduated from her centers. Her name has been changed for the purposes of this interview.). ( Photo above is A lecture being given in one of Neda’s centers). (The International Correspondent, Substack)

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It’s Black History Month. It started with Tyre Nichols’ funeral. It continues. The bad. The good.

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Did you hear about the racist attack on this girl in New Haven?

Yale honors Black girl reported to police over lanternfly project.

Nine-year-old Bobbi Wilson may be in the fourth grade, but last month the Yale School of Public Health held a ceremony honoring the budding scientist's recent work.

The university entered Bobbi's collection of 27 spotted lanternflies — an extremely invasive species that is harmful to trees and other plants — into the Peabody Museum of Natural History database. Bobbi was also presented with the title of "donor scientist" during the Jan. 20 ceremony.

"We wanted to show her bravery and how inspiring she is, and we just want to make sure she continues to feel honored and loved by the Yale community," Ijeoma Opara, an assistant professor at the school, said in a statement.

The accolades come just three months after Bobbi, who is Black, made headlines when former Caldwell city council member Gordon Lawshe, who is white, called local police on the girl.

She was collecting spotted lanternfly specimens. Her neighbor became frightened and called the cops

On Oct. 22, Lawshe was home, and things in the mostly white neighborhood seemed copacetic. But looking at the tree-lined street, Lawshe saw something scary. Recognizing it was not an emergency per se, he called the police department dispatcher instead.

"There's a little Black woman walking, spraying stuff on the sidewalks and trees on Elizabeth and Florence," Lawshe told the dispatcher, according to a call obtained by CNN.

"I don't know what the hell she's doing. Scares me, though," Lawshe added.

Outside, Bobbi, a petite child who wears pink-framed glasses, was doing her bit to comply with the state's Stomp it Out! campaign, which urges New Jersey residents to help eradicate the spotted lanternfly infestation. She'd learned about it at school and made her own version of an insect repellent she'd seen on TikTok. Making her way from tree to tree, Bobbi would spray the bugs, pluck them from the tree and drop them into a plastic bottle.

Bobbi was still at it when an officer arrived, curious about what she was doing. Body camera footage shows officer Kevin O'Neill approach the child before her mother, Monique Joseph, intervenes.

"Am I in trouble?" the small girl asks.

"No," Joseph and O'Neill respond simultaneously.

Joseph adds, "How many trees did you save?" (NPR)
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Oak Bluffs in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts was not the only black summer enclave by a beach. Visit SANS in Sag Harbor, Long Island in New York State.

SANS Debate: Preserve Sag Harbor’s Historic Black Community?

Influential poet Langston Hughes, who was dubbed the leader of the Harlem Renaissance. Former Manhattan Borough President Edward Dudley, who was the first African-American ambassador to the United States. Former secretary of the NAACP William Pickens. These were among the most well-known Black leaders who either summered or lived in one of three Sag Harbor communities where minorities flocked for respite during the era of segregation.

In an effort to preserve this rare community, the Sag Harbor Village Board recently passed a law enacting the Historic Black Beach Communities Overlay District. It includes Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah Beach Subdivisions Historic District — neighborhoods, known locally as SANS for short, which in 2019 were added to the New York State Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places.

SANS is of national importance,” Renee V.H. Simons, president of SANS Sag Harbor, a nonprofit that advocates for the area’s preservation, said before the village board unanimously voted to establish the district in December.

SANS formed at around the same time that Levittown — widely considered America’s first suburb — was built in the 1940s for soldiers returning from World War II, but with a covenant on deeds that restricted homeowners from selling their property to minorities.

In response to Jim Crow-era legalized segregation, Black residents formed SANS, where they could enjoy a slice of summer in the Hamptons without facing prejudice — and it’s one of but a handful of such communities that still exist nationwide.

“SANS is probably one of the biggest phenomena and historically important occurrences in this village,” Simons said of the community that comprises about 300 homes, or around a third of the village residences. “We talk about whaling, we talk about the captains. We should be talking about what happened in SANS. … There are only five of these around the country. There used to be 100.”

Among historic places in SANS? The porch of Pickens’ Ninevah home, where Hughes and other prominent writers recited poetry. The location is a stop on the Literary Sag Harbor Walking Tour. (Dan’s Paper).

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An important exhibit with an opportunity to reflect on slavery is coming to New York.

Rijksmuseum's Acclaimed 'Slavery' Exhibition Will Travel To U.N. Headquarters in New York.

A major exhibition that explores the history of slavery during the Dutch colonial period will travel to the United Nations (U.N.) headquarters in New York this month for a four-week display.

Originally conceived and staged at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam in 2021, “Slavery” spanned 250 years of the Dutch colonial history, from the 17th to the 19th century, considering personal and real-life stories from those who lived during the period.

The showcase at the U.N. headquarters’s visitors lobby will run from February 27 to March 30 as an adapted version of the original show in the Netherlands, presented with a new title “Slavery. Ten True Stories of Dutch Colonial Slavery.”

The show at the Rijksmuseum was among the first of its kind to dive into this part of history, and the effort was applauded by critics when it opened in 2021.

“It is without any doubt one of great achievements of the exhibition that its makers dared to present such new critical perspectives,” University of Amsterdam’s Laura van Hasselt and Paul Knevel wrote in their review in journal The Public Historian. “The narrative has changed from a proud ‘this is us in our Golden Age’ to an uncomfortable ‘this is who we don’t want to be anymore.'” The original show is still available for viewing online.

(Photo. Anonymous, Enslaved men digging trenches, c. 1850, watercolour, Amsterdam Rijksmuseum, purchased with the support of the Johan Huizinga Fonds/Rijksmuseum Fonds. Courtesy Rijksmuseum.) (Artnet News).

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