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September 12, 2023
Timber ceilings and a fireplace clad in mahogany tiles feature in this London house, which its owners have renovated to honour the dwelling's mid-century roots and nod to the colour palette of Stanley Kubrick films. Located in north London's Stanmore, Zero House belongs to recording artists Ben Garrett and Rae Morris, whose former home in Primrose Hill is the Dezeen Award-winning Canyon House designed by Studio Hagen Hall.
Unlike their previous dwelling, Garrett and Morris updated Zero House themselves but adopted the same mid-century palette when creating its interiors. "The house was built between 1959 and 1961 by a Hungarian architect," said Garrett, who explained that the original design was informed by Californian Case Study Houses such as Charles and Ray Eames's 1949 home and design studio.
"It's a great example of a number of imaginative mid-century domestic houses dotted around metro-land," he told Dezeen. "Our main aim was to freshen it up relatively in keeping with the time but not to feel like we were living in a total time capsule." The pair maintained the matchbox timber ceilings that run throughout the two-storey home, which were stained with a dark reddish tone alongside stained wooden doors.
Slim mahogany tiles clad the floor-to-ceiling fireplace in the living room, which features the same micro-cement flooring found at Canyon House and opens out onto a lush garden. Garrett and Morris also maintained the home's many exposed brick walls and inserted geometric timber shelving that displays eclectic ornaments including amorphous vases and a colourful set of nesting dolls.
snip
Mid-century Zero House in London imbued with "Kubrick feel"
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/09/05/zero-house-mid-century-renovation-london/Timber ceilings and a fireplace clad in mahogany tiles feature in this London house, which its owners have renovated to honour the dwelling's mid-century roots and nod to the colour palette of Stanley Kubrick films. Located in north London's Stanmore, Zero House belongs to recording artists Ben Garrett and Rae Morris, whose former home in Primrose Hill is the Dezeen Award-winning Canyon House designed by Studio Hagen Hall.
Unlike their previous dwelling, Garrett and Morris updated Zero House themselves but adopted the same mid-century palette when creating its interiors. "The house was built between 1959 and 1961 by a Hungarian architect," said Garrett, who explained that the original design was informed by Californian Case Study Houses such as Charles and Ray Eames's 1949 home and design studio.
"It's a great example of a number of imaginative mid-century domestic houses dotted around metro-land," he told Dezeen. "Our main aim was to freshen it up relatively in keeping with the time but not to feel like we were living in a total time capsule." The pair maintained the matchbox timber ceilings that run throughout the two-storey home, which were stained with a dark reddish tone alongside stained wooden doors.
Slim mahogany tiles clad the floor-to-ceiling fireplace in the living room, which features the same micro-cement flooring found at Canyon House and opens out onto a lush garden. Garrett and Morris also maintained the home's many exposed brick walls and inserted geometric timber shelving that displays eclectic ornaments including amorphous vases and a colourful set of nesting dolls.
snip
September 11, 2023
https://themessenger.com/politics/9-11-anniversary-president-joe-biden-calls-for-unity
President Joe Biden, speaking at a military base in Alaska, marked the 22nd anniversary of September 11 with a call for unity – and a reminder to remain vigilant in the fight to preserve democracy. “It shouldn’t take a national tragedy to remind us of the power of national unity, but that’s how we truly honor those we lost on 9/11 – by remembering what we can do together,” he said. Biden said the “central lesson” of 9/11 is that there’s nothing the U.S. can’t accomplish when Americans defend democracy. Terrorists failed “but we must remain vigilant,” he said, because of a “rising tide of hatred and extremism and political violence.”
“It's more important than ever that we come together around the principle of American democracy, regardless of our political backgrounds,” he said. “We must not succumb to the poisonous politics of difference and division. Me must never allow ourselves to be pulled apart by petty manufactured grievances. We must continue to stand united.” Biden added, “Always remember, American democracy depends not on some of us, but on all of us.”
Biden delivered his remarks in Anchorage before more than 1,000 U.S. service members, first responders and their families. His speech came during his return trip to Washington from the G20 Summit in India and his meetings with leaders in Vietnam. “These trips are a central part of how we're going to ensure the United States is flanked by the broadest array of allies and partners who will stand with us and deter any threat to our security, to build a world that is safer for all of our children – something that today of all days, we're reminded of, is not a given,” he said.
Biden noted how, earlier in the day, he visited a memorial honoring the late Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was a prisoner of war for more than five years during the Vietnam War. He recalled how he and his longtime friend – “like two brothers” – would “argue like hell” when they served together in the Senate and then go to lunch together. He said McCain, as he was dying, kissed him, told him he loved him and asked him to say his eulogy. He admired McCain, he said, because he put duty to his country first, above his party, politics and his own person.
snip
Biden, On 9/11, Says Americans Must Not Succumb to the Poisonous Politics of Difference and Division
The president called on Americans to defend democracy in remarks at an Alaskan military basehttps://themessenger.com/politics/9-11-anniversary-president-joe-biden-calls-for-unity
President Joe Biden, speaking at a military base in Alaska, marked the 22nd anniversary of September 11 with a call for unity – and a reminder to remain vigilant in the fight to preserve democracy. “It shouldn’t take a national tragedy to remind us of the power of national unity, but that’s how we truly honor those we lost on 9/11 – by remembering what we can do together,” he said. Biden said the “central lesson” of 9/11 is that there’s nothing the U.S. can’t accomplish when Americans defend democracy. Terrorists failed “but we must remain vigilant,” he said, because of a “rising tide of hatred and extremism and political violence.”
“It's more important than ever that we come together around the principle of American democracy, regardless of our political backgrounds,” he said. “We must not succumb to the poisonous politics of difference and division. Me must never allow ourselves to be pulled apart by petty manufactured grievances. We must continue to stand united.” Biden added, “Always remember, American democracy depends not on some of us, but on all of us.”
Biden delivered his remarks in Anchorage before more than 1,000 U.S. service members, first responders and their families. His speech came during his return trip to Washington from the G20 Summit in India and his meetings with leaders in Vietnam. “These trips are a central part of how we're going to ensure the United States is flanked by the broadest array of allies and partners who will stand with us and deter any threat to our security, to build a world that is safer for all of our children – something that today of all days, we're reminded of, is not a given,” he said.
Biden noted how, earlier in the day, he visited a memorial honoring the late Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican who was a prisoner of war for more than five years during the Vietnam War. He recalled how he and his longtime friend – “like two brothers” – would “argue like hell” when they served together in the Senate and then go to lunch together. He said McCain, as he was dying, kissed him, told him he loved him and asked him to say his eulogy. He admired McCain, he said, because he put duty to his country first, above his party, politics and his own person.
snip
September 11, 2023
Rules that exempt drugs from Medicare negotiation if there’s ‘meaningful’ generic competition could whittle down the effect of the program.
https://prospect.org/health/2023-09-11-we-may-not-negotiate-prices-for-ten-drugs-after-all/
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services cannot select a drug for negotiation until seven years after its launch for small-molecule drugs, and up to 11 years after launch for so-called “biologics.”
The day that the Biden administration revealed the first ten drugs under its Medicare price negotiation process, the companies that own and market those drugs saw their stock prices go up. “Today is a nonevent,” said one industry analyst. Part of this is because the actual negotiated prices won’t take effect until 2026, too far in the future for Mr. Market to blink an eye. But there’s another factor that has been highlighted: Some of the drugs are going to face generic competition before we ever get to 2026. If that competition is legitimate, those drugs will no longer be eligible for price negotiation. And under the rules of the law, the administration can’t select another drug to get the number back up to ten.
All that means that the ten drugs being negotiated could be whittled down to eight, or six, or even fewer. To the average senior, it doesn’t matter if their prescription prices go down because of a new generic on the market or because of a government negotiation. And if the program makes it harder for drug companies to avoid competition, that’s certainly positive. But there’s an opportunity cost here. If drugs were already scheduled for competition and they’re put in the negotiation bucket, the result could be fewer drugs with their prices forced downward.
The real problem is that those deciding what drugs to negotiate on are hemmed in by the terms of the law. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cannot select a drug for negotiation until seven years after its launch for small-molecule drugs, and up to 11 years after launch for so-called “biologics.” In the future, this will incentivize higher launch prices, so drug companies can make back their investment early before the government can react. For now, the three-year lag between the negotiation announcement and the prices taking effect makes it difficult to choose the most outrageously priced drugs while making sure that they won’t face generic competition before negotiations are complete.
One tactic the drug companies might use is to invite “competition” in name only, for a generic alternative that isn’t heavily marketed or priced aggressively, in order to ward off negotiation. This is where regulation from CMS will really matter. “CMS is being very clear in articulating that they will be critical about ensuring that bona fide marketing is actually taking place,” said Steve Knievel, an advocate with Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. CMS won’t “consider it sufficient [just] for a product to have a generic or a biosimilar that has received approval from FDA.”
snip
We May Not Negotiate Prices for Ten Drugs After All
Rules that exempt drugs from Medicare negotiation if there’s ‘meaningful’ generic competition could whittle down the effect of the program.
https://prospect.org/health/2023-09-11-we-may-not-negotiate-prices-for-ten-drugs-after-all/
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services cannot select a drug for negotiation until seven years after its launch for small-molecule drugs, and up to 11 years after launch for so-called “biologics.”
The day that the Biden administration revealed the first ten drugs under its Medicare price negotiation process, the companies that own and market those drugs saw their stock prices go up. “Today is a nonevent,” said one industry analyst. Part of this is because the actual negotiated prices won’t take effect until 2026, too far in the future for Mr. Market to blink an eye. But there’s another factor that has been highlighted: Some of the drugs are going to face generic competition before we ever get to 2026. If that competition is legitimate, those drugs will no longer be eligible for price negotiation. And under the rules of the law, the administration can’t select another drug to get the number back up to ten.
All that means that the ten drugs being negotiated could be whittled down to eight, or six, or even fewer. To the average senior, it doesn’t matter if their prescription prices go down because of a new generic on the market or because of a government negotiation. And if the program makes it harder for drug companies to avoid competition, that’s certainly positive. But there’s an opportunity cost here. If drugs were already scheduled for competition and they’re put in the negotiation bucket, the result could be fewer drugs with their prices forced downward.
The real problem is that those deciding what drugs to negotiate on are hemmed in by the terms of the law. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) cannot select a drug for negotiation until seven years after its launch for small-molecule drugs, and up to 11 years after launch for so-called “biologics.” In the future, this will incentivize higher launch prices, so drug companies can make back their investment early before the government can react. For now, the three-year lag between the negotiation announcement and the prices taking effect makes it difficult to choose the most outrageously priced drugs while making sure that they won’t face generic competition before negotiations are complete.
One tactic the drug companies might use is to invite “competition” in name only, for a generic alternative that isn’t heavily marketed or priced aggressively, in order to ward off negotiation. This is where regulation from CMS will really matter. “CMS is being very clear in articulating that they will be critical about ensuring that bona fide marketing is actually taking place,” said Steve Knievel, an advocate with Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. CMS won’t “consider it sufficient [just] for a product to have a generic or a biosimilar that has received approval from FDA.”
snip
September 10, 2023
Larry Chen travels to Bogotá, Colombia, to visit the world famous Toyota Land Cruiser shop, The FJ Company. They use a modern GRJ 70 series Land Cruisers and merge it with a vintage FJ Land Cruiser to make a supercharged modern Land Cruiser with the vintage look we all know and love. Follow along as Larry Chen walks you through the process of how a 2023 FJ Land Cruiser is made.
BEST in the World: Toyota FJ & G40-S Land Cruisers From Colombia - Capturing Car Culture
Larry Chen travels to Bogotá, Colombia, to visit the world famous Toyota Land Cruiser shop, The FJ Company. They use a modern GRJ 70 series Land Cruisers and merge it with a vintage FJ Land Cruiser to make a supercharged modern Land Cruiser with the vintage look we all know and love. Follow along as Larry Chen walks you through the process of how a 2023 FJ Land Cruiser is made.
September 10, 2023
In the culmination of a year of work, Jay shows off this unbelievable 1963 Jaguar XKE, rescued from an ultra-cluttered garage in Burbank, CA. Jay details the salvage process of this gorgeous original and mostly unrestored beauty, before taking it for a ride through the canyons. This is truly the perfect car for a two-lane country road!
Unbelievable Burbank Barn Find: 1963 Jaguar XKE 🤎 - Jay Leno's Garage
In the culmination of a year of work, Jay shows off this unbelievable 1963 Jaguar XKE, rescued from an ultra-cluttered garage in Burbank, CA. Jay details the salvage process of this gorgeous original and mostly unrestored beauty, before taking it for a ride through the canyons. This is truly the perfect car for a two-lane country road!
September 9, 2023
On her second album, “Guts,” which flaunts rock brashness and singer-songwriter intimacy, the sudden pop star is showing just how fraught life is at the top.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/arts/music/olivia-rodrigo-guts-review.html
https://archive.ph/DUWg9
One of the fundamental conditions — or is it goals? — of pop stardom is hiding the work. You may see Beyoncé sweat, or note how Taylor Swift’s real-life travails inform her artistic choices, but the music created by the most famous performers in pop rarely refers back to the costs, literal and emotional, of making it. But what if you want to show the work? That’s the novel approach of Olivia Rodrigo, a modern and somewhat signature pop star. At the beginning of 2021, she released “Drivers License,” her first single outside the Disney ecosystem she was creatively raised in, and experienced the kind of supernova ascent that’s impossible to anticipate or recreate. Her jolting debut album, “Sour,” released a few months later, showed her to be a spiky, vivid writer and singer, but one who hadn’t quite seen the world.
Two years later, on her poignantly fraught, spiritually and sonically agitated follow-up album “Guts,” Rodrigo has seen too much. “Guts” is an almost real-time reckoning with the maelstrom of new celebrity, the choices it forces upon you and the compromises you make along the way. As on “Sour,” Rodrigo, who is 20 now, toggles between bratty rock gestures and piano-driven melancholy. But regardless of musical mode, her emotional position is consistent throughout these dozen songs about betrayal, regret and self-flagellation. “I used to think I was smart/But you made me look so naïve,” she howls on the lead single “Vampire” — she’s referring to a toxic ex, but she may as well be singing about the spotlight itself. Or as she puts it on “Making the Bed,” “I got the things I wanted/It’s just not what I imagined.”
Rodrigo is a songwriter of rather astonishing purity — even in her most stylized lyrics, she never wanders far from the unformed gut-kick of a feeling. Sometimes on this album, she triples down. “I loved you truly/Gotta laugh at the stupidity,” she chuckles on “Vampire.” “I look so stupid thinking/Two plus two equals five/and I’m the love of your life,” she croons on “Logical.” “My God, how could I be so stupid,” she sighs on “Love Is Embarrassing.” Don’t mistake Rodrigo’s weakness for weakness, though. Her self-doubt is a powerful animating force. Throughout this album, she kiln-fires her anxieties into lyrics that cut deep. “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” is about the existential struggle of self-love, particularly under an unrelenting public eye. The impudent “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” captures the essence of outsider awkwardness.
The dreamy — and perhaps “Folklore”-esque — “Lacy” is about being robbed of your illusions: “I despise my rotten mind/and how much it worships you,” Rodrigo sings. From a young star who’s had what appears to be frosty relations with Swift, an idol who was retroactively granted songwriting credit on Rodrigo’s first album, it reads like the bruise from a door slammed shut in her face. Several other songs are about being on the wrong side of a manipulative relationship. “Logical” and “The Grudge” tackle it via self-serious angst. But Rodrigo has more spark when she’s playfully ambivalent about how, or if, to break free. “Bad Idea Right?,” driven by throbbing bass and drizzled with layered, saccharine chanting, is about how holding on can be more fun than letting go. And “Get Him Back!” is a revenge fantasy — “I wanna meet his mom/Just to tell her her son sucks” — that’s maybe, just maybe, leaning in to double entendre.
snip
Olivia Rodrigo Has Seen the World Now, and She's Livid
On her second album, “Guts,” which flaunts rock brashness and singer-songwriter intimacy, the sudden pop star is showing just how fraught life is at the top.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/arts/music/olivia-rodrigo-guts-review.html
https://archive.ph/DUWg9
One of the fundamental conditions — or is it goals? — of pop stardom is hiding the work. You may see Beyoncé sweat, or note how Taylor Swift’s real-life travails inform her artistic choices, but the music created by the most famous performers in pop rarely refers back to the costs, literal and emotional, of making it. But what if you want to show the work? That’s the novel approach of Olivia Rodrigo, a modern and somewhat signature pop star. At the beginning of 2021, she released “Drivers License,” her first single outside the Disney ecosystem she was creatively raised in, and experienced the kind of supernova ascent that’s impossible to anticipate or recreate. Her jolting debut album, “Sour,” released a few months later, showed her to be a spiky, vivid writer and singer, but one who hadn’t quite seen the world.
Two years later, on her poignantly fraught, spiritually and sonically agitated follow-up album “Guts,” Rodrigo has seen too much. “Guts” is an almost real-time reckoning with the maelstrom of new celebrity, the choices it forces upon you and the compromises you make along the way. As on “Sour,” Rodrigo, who is 20 now, toggles between bratty rock gestures and piano-driven melancholy. But regardless of musical mode, her emotional position is consistent throughout these dozen songs about betrayal, regret and self-flagellation. “I used to think I was smart/But you made me look so naïve,” she howls on the lead single “Vampire” — she’s referring to a toxic ex, but she may as well be singing about the spotlight itself. Or as she puts it on “Making the Bed,” “I got the things I wanted/It’s just not what I imagined.”
Rodrigo is a songwriter of rather astonishing purity — even in her most stylized lyrics, she never wanders far from the unformed gut-kick of a feeling. Sometimes on this album, she triples down. “I loved you truly/Gotta laugh at the stupidity,” she chuckles on “Vampire.” “I look so stupid thinking/Two plus two equals five/and I’m the love of your life,” she croons on “Logical.” “My God, how could I be so stupid,” she sighs on “Love Is Embarrassing.” Don’t mistake Rodrigo’s weakness for weakness, though. Her self-doubt is a powerful animating force. Throughout this album, she kiln-fires her anxieties into lyrics that cut deep. “Pretty Isn’t Pretty” is about the existential struggle of self-love, particularly under an unrelenting public eye. The impudent “Ballad of a Homeschooled Girl” captures the essence of outsider awkwardness.
The dreamy — and perhaps “Folklore”-esque — “Lacy” is about being robbed of your illusions: “I despise my rotten mind/and how much it worships you,” Rodrigo sings. From a young star who’s had what appears to be frosty relations with Swift, an idol who was retroactively granted songwriting credit on Rodrigo’s first album, it reads like the bruise from a door slammed shut in her face. Several other songs are about being on the wrong side of a manipulative relationship. “Logical” and “The Grudge” tackle it via self-serious angst. But Rodrigo has more spark when she’s playfully ambivalent about how, or if, to break free. “Bad Idea Right?,” driven by throbbing bass and drizzled with layered, saccharine chanting, is about how holding on can be more fun than letting go. And “Get Him Back!” is a revenge fantasy — “I wanna meet his mom/Just to tell her her son sucks” — that’s maybe, just maybe, leaning in to double entendre.
snip
September 9, 2023
Today on TAP: What did we learn from the financial collapse of September 2008? Not enough.
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-08-wasted-crisis-2008-financial-collapse/
Fifteen years ago this week, Wall Street was on the verge of the worst collapse since 1929. The cause was regulators’ indulgence of opaque securities that were highly leveraged and thinly capitalized, such as credit default swaps and bonds backed by high-risk subprime mortgages. When bankers’ bets started going bad in 2007, the initial response of the Fed and the Treasury was to prop up the system by merging failed banks into bigger banks or having the government cover losses. In March 2008, when the investment bank Bear Stearns became insolvent, the Federal Reserve guaranteed its bad loans to facilitate its acquisition by J.P. Morgan.
Exactly 15 years ago today, the government took over the biggest players in the secondary mortgage market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were underwater because the securities backing mortgages had plummeted in market value. But a week later, on September 15, the Fed and the Treasury decided that enough was enough. They decided not to bail out failing Lehman Brothers. And that collapse triggered a full-blown financial crisis. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission later found that most money center banks were literally insolvent. Had government not come to the rescue with even more bailouts, the collapse would have triggered another Great Depression. Yet these bailouts left existing executives in place and did not break up a single large bank.
Presumably, Congress acted to head off another repeat of speculative meltdown when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. But 13 years later, old abuses are repeating themselves in new forms. Dodd-Frank was supposed to put an end to banks that were “too big to fail.” But today the system is more highly concentrated than ever. The Treasury and the Fed were up to their old tricks when they encouraged the largest of the banks, JPMorgan Chase, to bail out the failed First Republic Bank, making JPMorgan even bigger. The latest banking crisis involves regional banks that are overexposed to commercial real estate that keeps losing value. The Wall Street Journal calls this a “doom loop.” As a recent Journal story explained, banks not only overinvested in real estate loans.
Between 2015 and 2022, banks’ direct lending to commercial real estate doubled, to $3.6 trillion, equal to 20 percent of their deposits. And banks more than doubled their indirect real estate exposure with loans to mortgage companies and to real estate investment trusts as well as mortgage-backed bonds. Now, with the property market in free fall, banks increasingly find that the collateral is worth less than the loans. If this crisis spreads, the cause will be exactly the same as the cause of the 2008 collapse: regulators and examiners failing to look closely at risky fads in bank portfolios and failing to demand that risky investments be backed by more capital. As long as regulators are more concerned about coddling bankers than protecting the public, these periodic financial meltdowns will keep recurring.
snip
The Wasted Crisis
Today on TAP: What did we learn from the financial collapse of September 2008? Not enough.
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-08-wasted-crisis-2008-financial-collapse/
Fifteen years ago this week, Wall Street was on the verge of the worst collapse since 1929. The cause was regulators’ indulgence of opaque securities that were highly leveraged and thinly capitalized, such as credit default swaps and bonds backed by high-risk subprime mortgages. When bankers’ bets started going bad in 2007, the initial response of the Fed and the Treasury was to prop up the system by merging failed banks into bigger banks or having the government cover losses. In March 2008, when the investment bank Bear Stearns became insolvent, the Federal Reserve guaranteed its bad loans to facilitate its acquisition by J.P. Morgan.
Exactly 15 years ago today, the government took over the biggest players in the secondary mortgage market, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which were underwater because the securities backing mortgages had plummeted in market value. But a week later, on September 15, the Fed and the Treasury decided that enough was enough. They decided not to bail out failing Lehman Brothers. And that collapse triggered a full-blown financial crisis. The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission later found that most money center banks were literally insolvent. Had government not come to the rescue with even more bailouts, the collapse would have triggered another Great Depression. Yet these bailouts left existing executives in place and did not break up a single large bank.
Presumably, Congress acted to head off another repeat of speculative meltdown when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010. But 13 years later, old abuses are repeating themselves in new forms. Dodd-Frank was supposed to put an end to banks that were “too big to fail.” But today the system is more highly concentrated than ever. The Treasury and the Fed were up to their old tricks when they encouraged the largest of the banks, JPMorgan Chase, to bail out the failed First Republic Bank, making JPMorgan even bigger. The latest banking crisis involves regional banks that are overexposed to commercial real estate that keeps losing value. The Wall Street Journal calls this a “doom loop.” As a recent Journal story explained, banks not only overinvested in real estate loans.
Between 2015 and 2022, banks’ direct lending to commercial real estate doubled, to $3.6 trillion, equal to 20 percent of their deposits. And banks more than doubled their indirect real estate exposure with loans to mortgage companies and to real estate investment trusts as well as mortgage-backed bonds. Now, with the property market in free fall, banks increasingly find that the collateral is worth less than the loans. If this crisis spreads, the cause will be exactly the same as the cause of the 2008 collapse: regulators and examiners failing to look closely at risky fads in bank portfolios and failing to demand that risky investments be backed by more capital. As long as regulators are more concerned about coddling bankers than protecting the public, these periodic financial meltdowns will keep recurring.
snip
September 8, 2023
https://www.thedailybeast.com/doj-shouldnt-explore-for-crimes-to-indict-hunter-biden
https://archive.ph/XoiNk
The Justice Department’s announcement that Special Counsel David Weiss intends to indict President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for gun charges by the end of the month reminds me of the iconic opening to the Star Trek series in which Captain James T. Kirk solemnly intones about the “five-year mission” of the starship Enterprise. Weiss—originally appointed by former President Donald Trump to be the U.S. Attorney for Delaware—has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years and counting, with no charges and no convictions. The promised indictment appears to be the latest misstep by the U.S. Department of Justice in a case that can only be described now as a debacle.
Only a little more than a month ago, the DOJ and Hunter Biden’s defense team had reached agreements over Biden’s tax issues and his alleged false statement (denying that he was addicted to drugs) on an application to buy a gun. But that deal spectacularly crashed and burned in open court as under questioning by federal district court Judge Maryellen Noreika—who like Special Counsel Weiss was appointed by Trump—as the two parties could not agree whether the plea agreement over taxes and the diversion agreement over the gun charge would protect Biden from any future charges that might arise. The prosecution insisted the investigation was ongoing, while the defense said these two agreements would put an end to investigations.
At that court hearing, Judge Noreika also questioned whether giving her authority to decide if Biden might be found in breach of the diversion agreement amounted to an unconstitutional delegation of the executive branch’s authority to prosecute—given that most diversion agreement breaches are handled by the prosecution. In the aftermath of this embarrassment, Special Counsel Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland decided—despite their mutual insistence that Weiss previously had no limits upon his ability to investigate the case—it had become necessary to appoint Weiss as a special counsel, because Weiss asked to become one and because of what Garland characterized as “extraordinary circumstances related to the matter.”
Special Counsel Weiss’ plan to indict Hunter Biden now over the gun charges is both ill-timed and ill-advised. It’s ill-timed because it comes in the wake of a federal court of appeals striking down as unconstitutional the very gun federal law that Biden may be charged with violating—a decision that was pending at the time of the failed plea deal in July, but which has since been decided. If the deal in July had gone through then the prosecution would likely have been unaffected by the adverse gun decision. Now, however, Biden’s defense team is likely to challenge the constitutionality of the charges. The planned indictment is also ill-advised because the defense has a colorable argument that DOJ cannot renege on the diversion agreement. Biden’s defense attorney Abbe Lowell has already stated that in their view the diversion agreement was already entered into, approved, and that Biden is in full compliance with the terms.
snip
DOJ Shouldn't Explore for Crimes to Indict Hunter Biden
The likely imminent indictment of the president’s son is what happens when prosecutors cast about for something, anything, to charge.https://www.thedailybeast.com/doj-shouldnt-explore-for-crimes-to-indict-hunter-biden
https://archive.ph/XoiNk
The Justice Department’s announcement that Special Counsel David Weiss intends to indict President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for gun charges by the end of the month reminds me of the iconic opening to the Star Trek series in which Captain James T. Kirk solemnly intones about the “five-year mission” of the starship Enterprise. Weiss—originally appointed by former President Donald Trump to be the U.S. Attorney for Delaware—has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years and counting, with no charges and no convictions. The promised indictment appears to be the latest misstep by the U.S. Department of Justice in a case that can only be described now as a debacle.
Only a little more than a month ago, the DOJ and Hunter Biden’s defense team had reached agreements over Biden’s tax issues and his alleged false statement (denying that he was addicted to drugs) on an application to buy a gun. But that deal spectacularly crashed and burned in open court as under questioning by federal district court Judge Maryellen Noreika—who like Special Counsel Weiss was appointed by Trump—as the two parties could not agree whether the plea agreement over taxes and the diversion agreement over the gun charge would protect Biden from any future charges that might arise. The prosecution insisted the investigation was ongoing, while the defense said these two agreements would put an end to investigations.
At that court hearing, Judge Noreika also questioned whether giving her authority to decide if Biden might be found in breach of the diversion agreement amounted to an unconstitutional delegation of the executive branch’s authority to prosecute—given that most diversion agreement breaches are handled by the prosecution. In the aftermath of this embarrassment, Special Counsel Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland decided—despite their mutual insistence that Weiss previously had no limits upon his ability to investigate the case—it had become necessary to appoint Weiss as a special counsel, because Weiss asked to become one and because of what Garland characterized as “extraordinary circumstances related to the matter.”
Special Counsel Weiss’ plan to indict Hunter Biden now over the gun charges is both ill-timed and ill-advised. It’s ill-timed because it comes in the wake of a federal court of appeals striking down as unconstitutional the very gun federal law that Biden may be charged with violating—a decision that was pending at the time of the failed plea deal in July, but which has since been decided. If the deal in July had gone through then the prosecution would likely have been unaffected by the adverse gun decision. Now, however, Biden’s defense team is likely to challenge the constitutionality of the charges. The planned indictment is also ill-advised because the defense has a colorable argument that DOJ cannot renege on the diversion agreement. Biden’s defense attorney Abbe Lowell has already stated that in their view the diversion agreement was already entered into, approved, and that Biden is in full compliance with the terms.
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September 8, 2023
https://www.reckon.news/lgbtq/2023/09/ill-bring-a-match-alabama-mayors-texts-ignite-a-war-over-lgbtq-books-at-local-library.html
On the morning of Mar. 21, Mayor of Ozark, Ala. Mark Blankenship sent a private text that would jeopardize the presence of queer books on library shelves at the Ozark Dale County Library. Now, the fate of LGBTQ books is in turmoil. Blankenship’s message was directed to Karen Speck, the Library Director and the Board of Trustee member Monica Carroll. His message to the two included a photo and a text that read: “What do I need to do to have these 61 books removed from our library?”
The photo attached was a series of Young Adult (YA) books from the library, labeled with LGBTQ stickers on the spine. Carroll joined in on Blankenship’s sentiment over wanting to remove LGBTQ books, adding in the group chat, “I’ll bring a match,” implying that she would burn the books herself. Of the 1,600 books being banned in the U.S., 4 in 10 are LGBTQ-related, according to a 2022 study by PEN America. In an interview with the 19th, CEO of LGBTQ+ political advocacy organization Equality Texas noted that “Book bans internalize a sense of shame and isolation within young LGBTQ+ people, especially as many struggle to find self-acceptance and self-love.”
Mayor Blankenship wants to remove queer books he himself has never read
Last Friday, a motion was raised for the LGBTQ books from the YA section to be moved to the adult section of the library. Because it did not get a second, the motion failed to pass. In an interview with Alabama Political Reporter, Blankenship admitted to not having “studied the books” he seeks to ban but has looked through the “general nature of the books,” adding that “I think they’re inappropriate based on what I know about them just from looking at them,” he said. When asked what made the LGBTQ book inappropriate, he said, “I don’t want children exposed to it in our library. Any kind of sexual content at the young age of 12.” Although he admits that not all the LGBTQ-labeled books are sexual and that even the non-LGBTQ ones might be sexual, he feels strongly about the removal regardless.
In another text message to Speck and Carroll, Mayor Blankenship implied that it would be best to remove LGBTQ books for the sake of his city council. He said, “In Ozark, Alabama the large majority of the people don’t want to see this in our library. 100% of my city council will agree. I hate to see the library lose funding over this mess!” Adam Kamerer tells Reckon that he had an issue with Blankenship’s usage of the phrase “100% of my city council” because it was used “as leverage to try to force the library board to comply with his requests,” he said. Kamerer is a resident of Dale County, in which Ozark is located. He is also the person who filed a FOIA request for Mayor Blankenship’s texts to be shared publicly.
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'I'll bring a match': Alabama mayor's texts ignite a war over LGBTQ books at local library
https://www.reckon.news/lgbtq/2023/09/ill-bring-a-match-alabama-mayors-texts-ignite-a-war-over-lgbtq-books-at-local-library.html
On the morning of Mar. 21, Mayor of Ozark, Ala. Mark Blankenship sent a private text that would jeopardize the presence of queer books on library shelves at the Ozark Dale County Library. Now, the fate of LGBTQ books is in turmoil. Blankenship’s message was directed to Karen Speck, the Library Director and the Board of Trustee member Monica Carroll. His message to the two included a photo and a text that read: “What do I need to do to have these 61 books removed from our library?”
The photo attached was a series of Young Adult (YA) books from the library, labeled with LGBTQ stickers on the spine. Carroll joined in on Blankenship’s sentiment over wanting to remove LGBTQ books, adding in the group chat, “I’ll bring a match,” implying that she would burn the books herself. Of the 1,600 books being banned in the U.S., 4 in 10 are LGBTQ-related, according to a 2022 study by PEN America. In an interview with the 19th, CEO of LGBTQ+ political advocacy organization Equality Texas noted that “Book bans internalize a sense of shame and isolation within young LGBTQ+ people, especially as many struggle to find self-acceptance and self-love.”
Mayor Blankenship wants to remove queer books he himself has never read
Last Friday, a motion was raised for the LGBTQ books from the YA section to be moved to the adult section of the library. Because it did not get a second, the motion failed to pass. In an interview with Alabama Political Reporter, Blankenship admitted to not having “studied the books” he seeks to ban but has looked through the “general nature of the books,” adding that “I think they’re inappropriate based on what I know about them just from looking at them,” he said. When asked what made the LGBTQ book inappropriate, he said, “I don’t want children exposed to it in our library. Any kind of sexual content at the young age of 12.” Although he admits that not all the LGBTQ-labeled books are sexual and that even the non-LGBTQ ones might be sexual, he feels strongly about the removal regardless.
In another text message to Speck and Carroll, Mayor Blankenship implied that it would be best to remove LGBTQ books for the sake of his city council. He said, “In Ozark, Alabama the large majority of the people don’t want to see this in our library. 100% of my city council will agree. I hate to see the library lose funding over this mess!” Adam Kamerer tells Reckon that he had an issue with Blankenship’s usage of the phrase “100% of my city council” because it was used “as leverage to try to force the library board to comply with his requests,” he said. Kamerer is a resident of Dale County, in which Ozark is located. He is also the person who filed a FOIA request for Mayor Blankenship’s texts to be shared publicly.
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