…the cradle will rock…sure, I know the rhyme…but I never did understand quite why someone had thought it a good idea to wedge a crib in a tree in the first place…that part seemed like a recipe for disaster even without the inclement weather…&…well…there’s plenty of that going around

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alaska-prepares-for-powerful-storm-said-to-be-strongest-in-a-decade

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/17/japan-typhoon-nanmadol-residents-evacuate

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/puerto-rico-hurricane-watch-tropical-storm-fiona-approaches

…&…well…there’s maybe some things as might make you feel some kind of a way about that

Criticism in the US of the oil industry’s obfuscation over the climate crisis is intensifying after internal documents showed companies attempted to distance themselves from agreed climate goals, admitted “gaslighting” the public over purported efforts to go green, and even wished critical activists be infested by bedbugs.

The communications were unveiled as part of a congressional hearing held in Washington DC, where an investigation into the role of fossil fuels in driving the climate crisis produced documents obtained from the oil giants ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP.
[…]
The revelations are part of the third hearing held by the House committee on oversight and reform on how the fossil-fuel industry sought to hamper the effort to address the climate crisis. Democrats, who lead the committee, called top executives from the oil companies to testify last year, in which they denied they had misled the public.
[…]
“If there is one thing consistent about the oil and gas majors’ position on climate, it’s their utter inability to tell the truth,” [Richard] Wiles [president of the Center for Climate Integrity] added.

Ro Khanna, co-chair of the committee, said the new documents are “explosive” and show a “culture of intense disrespect” to climate activists. The oil giants’ “climate pledges rely on unproven technology, accounting gimmicks and misleading language to hide the reality,” he added. “Big oil executives are laughing at the people trying to protect our planet while they knowingly work to destroy it.”

Several of the emails and memos within the released trove of documents appear to show executives, staffers and lobbyists internally contradicting public pronouncements by their companies to act on lowering planet-heating emissions.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/17/oil-companies-exxonmobil-chevron-shell-bp-climate-crisis

…not least in light of a thing or two

In several Republican-led states, the officials who oversee pension funds for millions of state workers are being told, or may soon be told, to ignore the financial risks associated with a warming world. There’s something distinctly anti-free market about policymakers limiting investment professionals’ choices — and it’s putting the retirement savings of millions at risk.
[…]
These are short-sighted political moves from a party that typically champions the free market, and that is why 12 other state treasurers and New York City’s comptroller recently joined me to urge that these policies be reversed. The people who will likely suffer are the public servants whose retirement money won’t be managed for a world being disrupted by a rapidly changing climate.
[…]
For people in my position to actively avoid information about such profound risks is a breach of their duty as a fiduciary. For policymakers to mandate willful ignorance about an entire category of risk and block private companies from doing business with their states because they might not share the same ideology is un-American.
[…]
A recent investigation in The Times found that Republicans are “weaponizing public office against climate action.” They claim that the asset managers who take climate change into consideration when deciding where to invest are boycotting the fossil fuel industry. That’s hardly the case — many of the firms being targeted are still major backers of oil and gas. BlackRock, one of the firms singled out by Texas, is the second-largest investor in both Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/17/opinion/environment/climate-change-pension-texas-florida.html

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/15/republicans-climate-rules-legal-challenge-allow-emissions

…or three…or four…or…you see how that goes

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/grocery-prices-highest-since-1979-in-august-2022

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/16/extreme-hunger-soaring-in-worlds-climate-hotspots-says-oxfam

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/12/colorado-drought-water-alfalfa-farmers-conservation

…not to mention…you know…the other thing

In Washington, Europe and even Moscow, the question now is what Putin might be planning to regain an initiative that seems to be slipping away from him with every new battlefield update.
[…]
Stephen Twitty, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general and former deputy commander of U.S. European Command, said that Ukraine is some way from victory and that he expects the war to go on longer — “another year or two.”
[…]
“They wanted all of Ukraine; didn’t get it. They wanted the capital of Kyiv; didn’t get it. And so they shifted to the objectives of taking the east and south and establishing that land bridge,” Twitty said, referring to the idea of a land bridge from the occupied territory of Crimea.

“If they do not meet those goals, they failed in this campaign, and right now they own a trend of failing. And so I don’t think Putin is going to give up that easy.”
[…]
Some experts speculated that the Kremlin could aim to push farther west along the Black Sea to Odesa to buoy morale and cut off Ukraine’s ports — a key economic pillar and source of grain shipments for the world — or regroup in the Donbas for a counterattack of its own in the east.
[…]
Whatever Putin’s next steps are, he has given no indication of scaling back his expansive ambitions in spite of recent events.
[…]
Politician Boris Nadezhdin’s comments on Russian television that the Kremlin had no chance to win and that it should emphasize peace talks made waves online this week.

“We’re now at the point when we have to understand it’s absolutely impossible to defeat Ukraine,” Nadezhdin said Sunday on state-controlled NTV, where he further slammed the Kremlin for its “colonial war methods” and use of contract soldiers and mercenaries without mobilization.

Nadezhdin told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he does not fear arrest and did not believe he violated the Russian legislation that outlawed disparaging the military or spreading “false information” about the conflict.

“There was not a single fake at all, not a single fake in what I said,” he told the news agency “There was a statement of absolutely obvious facts.”
[…]
The potential damage of the growing criticism for Putin is clear, with pressure both to step up the military campaign and to bring it to an end increasing. Putin even admitted Thursday after a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping that Xi has “questions and concerns” about the war.

Calls for his resignation, like the one 50 municipal deputies made in a petition this week, could indicate greater threats to Putin’s ability to hold on to power, Kimmage said, and they could mean some in Russian politics are beginning to hedge their bets and seeing cracks in his strongman veneer.

“That is going to be the most interesting dynamic to watch in Russian politics in the next couple of months,” he said. “They’re doing it at some political risk, but if the Russian army truly loses, I don’t think Putin can survive that defeat.”
What now for Putin? After Russian retreat, the Kremlin has few good options in Ukraine [NBC]

…when you’re going a little far for xi jinping…who, it bears considering, is in many respects the bigger, scarier bear at that picnic

The meeting came at a delicate time for both leaders, with Putin suffering major setbacks in a Ukrainian counteroffensive and Xi facing an economic slowdown at home as his “zero-Covid” policies keep tens of millions of people in lockdowns and alienate international investors.

Xi’s trip this week to Central Asia, which began with a state visit to Kazakhstan, marked the first time he had left China since the start of the pandemic more than 2 1/2 years ago.

“It’s certainly significant that this is the first foreign trip that Xi Jinping has taken for such a long time,” said Joseph Torigian, an assistant professor at American University who studies Russia-China relations, “and it’s happening at a very interesting moment.”
[…]
“It’s not surprising that the P.R.C. apparently has such concerns,” [State Department spokesperson Ned] Price said, using the abbreviation for China’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China. “It is somewhat curious that President Putin would be the one to admit it so openly.”
[…]
After his visit to Kazakhstan on Wednesday, Xi continued to neighboring Uzbekistan for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a security alliance led by China and Russia.

The eight-member grouping, which also includes India, Pakistan and four Central Asian nations, represents more than 40 percent of the global population and about a quarter of the world’s gross domestic product.
[…]
China has been a lifeline for Russia amid mounting international sanctions, particularly as a destination for its energy exports; in recent months, Russia has been China’s top oil supplier. Overall trade between the two countries was up about a third in the first eight months of the year, according to Reuters.

Putin’s recent losses have only increased Xi’s leverage in the relationship, Gabuev said, with the potential for long-term strategic gains.
[…]
Xi’s trip is also notable because it comes ahead of a twice-a-decade meeting of China’s ruling Communist Party at which he is widely expected to secure an unprecedented third term in office. The meeting is typically preceded by intense political jockeying; Xi stopped traveling internationally three months before the last party congress in 2017.

“The fact that he is going overseas now suggests that he is very confident about the situation at home,” Torigian said.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-china-vladimir-putin-xi-jinping

…& narendra modi thinks you might want to dial it back

“I know that today’s era is not an era of war, and I have spoken to you on the phone about this,” Modi said on the sidelines of a regional security bloc summit in Uzbekistan, adding that democracy, diplomacy and dialogue kept the world together.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-ukraine-war-vladimir-putin-narendra-modi-uzbekistan

…you’d think that might be enough to give any sane man pause…& in the end I guess we’re all of us hoping at least a little that he’s sane…because otherwise…well…there’s another thing that went under the heading of when the wind blows…&…if you were around in the 80’s maybe you heard of that when it came out…or the animated film version that came out a few years after…if you’re new to it…fair warning…it’s a tear-jerker…&…well…damn it all…it’s a sunday

Hallelujah is one of the most famous songs ever written, yet a new film reveals it took Leonard Cohen 180 attempts over a decade to perfect – only for it to be rejected by his record company.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/sep/17/hallelujah-leonard-cohen-film-rejected-song-became-classic

…there are any number of things more pleasant to contemplate

Clean energy just got a lot more cost-competitive, report says [WaPo]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/drinking-tea-lower-risk-diabetes-heart-disease-death

…you know…important quality of life stuff

https://www.nbcnews.com/select/shopping/20-best-dog-toys-2022

…or just well-aged

The pilot episode of “M*A*S*H,” which aired on Sept. 17, 1972, on CBS, lets you know immediately where and when you are. Sort of. “KOREA 1950,” the opening titles read. “A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.”

The Korean War could indeed seem a century away from 1972, separated by a gulf of cultural change and social upheaval. But as a subject, it was also entirely current, given that America was then fighting another bloody war, in Vietnam. The covert operation “M*A*S*H” pulled off was to deliver a timely satire camouflaged as a period comedy.
[…]
Yet rewatched from 50 years’ distance, “M*A*S*H” is in some ways the most contemporary of its contemporaries. Its blend of madcap comedy and pitch-dark drama — the laughs amplifying the serious stakes, and vice versa — is recognizable in today’s dramedies, from “Better Things” to “Barry,” that work in the DMZ between laughter and sadness.

For 11 seasons, “M*A*S*H” held down that territory, proving that funny is not the opposite of serious.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/arts/television/mash-50th-anniversary.html

The “M*A*S*H” series finale, titled “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen,” remains the most-watched non-Super Bowl program ever broadcast on American TV. The heart of the series was Alan Alda, who played the acerbic and devoted surgeon Hawkeye Pierce throughout the show’s more than 250 episodes and also wrote and directed dozens of them.

The actor revisited “M*A*S*H” in a video interview ahead of the show’s 50th anniversary, on Sept. 17. Alda, 86, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2015, discussed famous scenes, the series’s battles with CBS (“They didn’t even want us to show blood at the beginning”) and why he thinks the audience connected so deeply with “M*A*S*H.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/16/arts/television/alan-alda-mash-anniversary.html

…but…well…if you happen to still be reading & haven’t skipped off down one of those more palatable tangents…there’s always that thing that @bryanlsplinter mentioned the other day was bugging him…&…well…I’ve been thinking about that…& variously reading or listening to people with more informed opinions than my own discuss various aspects of it…& I figured I’d maybe take a short dive down that rabbit hole before I go find tunes & call it a day?

…so…here’s one thing I keep coming back to…we still wouldn’t know a lot of how bad this looks yet if it were up to the DoJ…take the part where they released some things in the affidavit that they’d originally redacted…they didn’t mention the grand jury stuff so as not to…well…infringe the man’s rights under the whole “innocent until proven guilty” principle since they’re (at least formally) at a point where they have acres of probable cause but haven’t pulled the trigger on claiming they believe they have evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they can make a case & get a guilty verdict…so they weren’t going to risk an accusation down the line that they’d dragged his name through the mud the way comey did hilary’s…& that’s frustrating in some senses…but ought to be reassuring in some others…& I for one could use a little reassurance…because the thing is…as it somehow continues to be in defiance of any concept of “the lowest you can get”…bad as it all seems…it’s worse

At the time, I thought [it] was an overreading of the passage. After all, th[e] paragraph [wa]s a description of the contents of fifteen boxes, of which just 184 documents have classification markings. Given the context, I believed it was possible this described other documents in the boxes, hand-written documents that also might also contain classified information. Trump’s notes from calls with foreign leaders, for example, might include classified information or be otherwise particularly sensitive.

But one of the newly unsealed passages from the affidavit released yesterday describes Trump’s handwritten notes on the documents on June 3, as well. (As noted, this passage also revealed that at least one of the documents bore a FISA marking, as the first did.)

[…]”Multiple documents also contained what appears to be FPOTUS’s handwritten notes”

In this case, there cannot be any doubt: the notes are on documents bearing classification marks. That’s because the only things Evan Corcoran handed over on June 3 were documents bearing classified markings.

In fact, of all the sets of documents turned over or seized, that set includes the highest concentration of Top Secret documents. Almost half those documents turned over were marked Top Secret.
[…]
The confirmation that Trump took notes on documents bearing classification markings is important background to Trump’s attempt to claim that documents marked classified might be his own personal documents
[…]
That is, in an attempt to forestall an Espionage Act prosecution (the only time Trump has named the statute), he seems to be entertaining a claim that he first declassified these documents and then, by dint of writing on them, made them his own personal property.

Such an argument raises the stakes on the timing of his notes. If he only wrote on these documents after he left the White House, they would have been declassified government (often, Agency) documents on January 20, 2021, not personal documents. But if he wrote on these as President, then his notations would have been made, “in the course of conducting activities which relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President,” clearly making them Presidential Records under the Act. Either way, the documents belong in government custody.
[…]

If Plaintiff truly means to suggest that, while President, he chose to categorize records with markings such as “SECRET” and “TOP SECRET” as his personal records for purposes of the PRA, then he cannot assert that the very same records are protected by executive privilege—i.e., that they are “Presidential communications” made in furtherance of the “performance of his official duties.” […] In any event, whether Plaintiff declared documents with classification markings to be his “personal” records for purposes of the PRA has no bearing on the government’s compelling need to review them, both for national security purposes and as part of its investigation into the potentially unlawful retention of national defense information.

Plaintiff’s characterization of the discretion the PRA provides the President to categorize records as “Presidential” or “personal,” […] is thus irrelevant here. In any event, the district court decision on which Plaintiff relies did not concern classified records and does not support his assertion that a court must accept a former President’s claim that records that indisputably qualify as Presidential records under the PRA are instead personal records. Instead, the court in Judicial Watch concluded that it could not compel the National Archives and Records Administration to revisit a President’s decision about such a categorization.[…] More fundamentally, the district court’s analysis in Judicial Watch has no bearing on the application of criminal law regarding unauthorized retention of national defense information, unauthorized removal of government documents, or obstruction of justice.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/09/14/yes-trump-was-taking-notes-on-classified-documents/

…so…maybe stepping on their own rake a little…but here’s the thing…or a thing, any road…trying to prohibit the DoJ from making use of shit seized from what someone funnier than I (…think it was allison gill of the mueller she wrote podcast) called the NARA-lago thing…that’s something that would deny them the right to take that evidence before a grand jury & use it as the basis for further warrants…for…say…a search of his other properties…like bedminster…it’s also something the judge-puppet-lady should know she isn’t actually in a position to grant…let alone the whole “the DoJ can’t talk to the special master without telling us everything but we should be allowed to confer with them privately & not even tell you about it judge do-as-yer-told” part…so a bunch of different bits of the DoJ’s latest round of responses amount to the DoJ saying in very nearly so many words “we both know you can’t do that in any judicially coherent way because it still wouldn’t be up to you even if any of this stuff were in any proper sense up to you…or at least, we know that…can’t assume at this point that you understand even that much of what the job you’re nominally supposed to be doing actually ought to consist of…so we’ll explain like you’re a moron”…& that might be another thing that’s sort of wildly irritating now but might be less so in hindsight…because treating this bullshit the way they have hopefully avoids there being any potential relief to be sought based on the DoJ having colored outside the lines…crazy as the ones this lady has been helping them draw might be…which should mean any appeal of an eventual guilty verdict ought to find very little traction…while the DoJ’s appeal of the current rounds of bullshit…that ought to get traction even with some of the 11th circuit who might have wanted to help a sociopathic narcissist out

In the government’s motion for a stay submitted to the 11th Circuit last night, it suggested the investigation into Trump’s stolen documents may have expanded to focus on whether the former President shared the content of highly classified documents with others.
[…]

For example, the court’s injunction bars the government from “using the content of the documents to conduct witness interviews.” A9. The injunction also appears to bar the FBI and DOJ from further reviewing the records to discern any patterns in the types of records that were retained, which could lead to identification of other records still missing. See A42 (describing recovery of “empty folders with ‘classified’ banners”). And the injunction would prohibit the government from using any aspect of the seized records’ contents to support the use of compulsory process to locate any additional records.

Disregarding a sworn declaration from a senior FBI official, the court dismissed such concerns as “hypothetical scenarios” and faulted the government for not identifying an “emergency” or “imminent disclosure of classified information.” A11. But the record makes clear that the materials were stored in an unsecure manner over a prolonged period, and the court’s injunction itself prevents the government from even beginning to take necessary steps to determine whether improper disclosures might have occurred or may still occur.

[…]
The government came very close to saying that Judge Cannon has prohibited the government from preventing leaks in process.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/09/17/in-motion-for-a-stay-doj-raises-prospect-that-trump-leaked-classified-documents/

…though

As a number of outlets have noted, this subpoena bonanza took place just before the 60-day period when DOJ will have to avoid any big public steps in its investigations. But they’ve just arranged to obtain plenty to keep them busy — and quite possibly, enough to emerge on the other side with the ability to start putting all these parts together: a scheme to attack our democracy and get rich while doing it.

Update: In a second CNN story on the subpoena bonanza, they describe that those who blew off the January 6 Committee are being instructed to turn over what the committee asked for.

The subpoenas also ask for the recipients to identify all methods of communication they’ve used since fall 2020 and to turn over to DOJ anything the House select committee investigating January 6, 2021, has demanded – whether they cooperated with the House panel or not.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/09/13/the-january-6-grand-juries-reload/

…& while the devil may be in the detail…there’s some things keeping him company that might be on the side of the angels

There’s a detail in DOJ’s request for a stay of Judge Aileen Cannon’s injunction on using stolen Trump documents to investigate Trump that hasn’t gotten enough attention.

A footnote modifying a discussion about the damage assessment the Intelligence Community is currently doing referenced a letter then-NSA Director Mike Rogers wrote in support of Nghia Pho’s sentencing in 2018. [This letter remains sealed in the docket but Josh Gerstein liberated it at the time.]

[…]with the footnote, I’m no longer the only one to make such an analogy. DOJ did so too, in an unsuccessful effort to get Judge Cannon to understand the magnitude of the breach she was coddling.
[…]
As I said, Trump’s own DOJ ratcheted up prosecutions in the wake of the Pho and Martin compromises. And now Trump — along with a judge he appointed — are trying to make sure he evades the same justice that his own DOJ demanded of others.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/09/16/trust-in-bid-for-stay-doj-likened-trump-to-catastrophic-intelligence-compromise/

…go check out that post…it has a good chunk of the letter quoted towards the end & makes an entirely sound point that if you were to find/replace the name pho with jabba the putz (insert preferred euphemism here) it would appear to apply pretty comprehensively…& that’s…well, I find it unsettling…so I can only hope that sulk hogan is…well…fucking bricking it, quite frankly

“It looks like a multipronged fraud and obstruction investigation,” said Jim Walden, a former federal prosecutor. “It strikes me that they’re going after a very, very large group of people, and my guess is they are going to make all of the charging decisions toward the end.”
The Justice Dept.’s Jan. 6 investigation is looking at … everything [WaPo]

…anyway…I guess those tunes might be a little overdue at this point…but to go back to the question that was bugging bryan (& I)…seems like the answer might be that garland et al are very much getting around to that part…& somewhat in common with objects in the rear-view…may in fact be closer than they appear?