The Full Belmonte, 10/11/2022
Several Ukrainian cities were hit by strikes Monday during Russia’s most intense assault on the country since the war began.
PHOTO: GLEB GARANICH/REUTERS
Russia carried out dozens of strikes on the Ukrainian electrical grid and other civilian infrastructure.
“In response to a weekend attack Moscow blamed on Ukraine that seriously damaged a bridge connecting Russia to occupied Crimea, a barrage of missiles hit Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities that had been relatively safe since early in the war. While the attacks appear to have little strategic value—of at least 84 missiles that were fired, 43 were intercepted, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said—they drew praise from Russian criticswho say that Moscow hasn’t shown enough toughness in the war. Kyiv residents say they’re trying to live as normally as possible to show they won’t be cowed by the strikes.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine
By DASHA LITVINOVA
“TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — Moscow’s barrage of missile strikes on cities all across Ukraine has elicited celebratory comments from Russian officials and pro-Kremlin pundits, who in recent weeks have actively criticized the Russian military for a series of embarrassing setbacks on the battlefield.
Russian nationalist commentators and state media’s war correspondents lauded Monday’s attack as an appropriate, and long-awaited, response to Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive in the northeast and the south and a weekend attack on a key bridge between Russia and Crimea, the prized Black Sea peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.
Many argued, however, that Moscow should keep up the intensity of Monday’s missile strikes in order to win the war now. Some analysts suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin is becoming a hostage of his own allies’ views on how the campaign in Ukraine should unfold….
The response came on Monday morning, with Moscow launching dozens of missiles at Ukrainian cities simultaneously, killing and wounding scores and inflicting unprecedented damage on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure. The strikes, which hit 15 Ukrainian cities, most of them regional capitals, knocked out power lines, damaged railway stations and roads, and left cities without water supplies.
For the first time in months, Russian missiles exploded in the very heart of Kyiv, in dangerous proximity to government buildings.” Read more at AP News
“US President Joe Biden’s new restrictions on technology exports to China could undercut that country’s ability to develop wide swaths of its economy, from semiconductors and supercomputers to surveillance systems and advanced weapons. The Commerce Department over the weekend unveiled sweeping regulations that limit the sale of semiconductors and chip-making equipment to Chinese customers, striking at the foundation of Beijing’s efforts to build its own chip industry. The Biden administration also added 31 organizations to its “unverified” list, including Yangtze Memory Technologies and a subsidiary of leading chip equipment maker Naura Technology Group, severely limiting their ability to buy tech from abroad. The moves are Biden’s most aggressive yet as he seeks to stop China from developing capabilities the White House sees as threatening the US economy and national security.—Natasha Solo-Lyons Read more at Bloomberg
Los Angeles Council president resigns after racist remarks
By JOHN ANTCZAK
“LOS ANGELES (AP) — The president of the Los Angeles City Council resigned from the post Monday after she was heard making racist comments and other coarse remarks in a leaked recording of a conversation with other Latino leaders.
Council President Nury Martinez issued an apology and expressed shame.
‘In the end, it is not my apologies that matter most; it will be the actions I take from this day forward. I hope that you will give me the opportunity to make amends,’ she said in a statement. ‘Therefore, effective immediately I am resigning as President of the Los Angeles City Council.’
The statement did not say she would resign her council seat. There was no immediate response to a call and email sent to her spokesperson.
Martinez said in the recorded conversation that white Councilmember Mike Bonin handled his young Black son as if he were an ‘accessory’ and described the son as behaving ‘Parece changuito,’ or ‘like a monkey,’ the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.
Martinez also referred to Bonin as a ‘little bitch’ and at another point mocked Oaxacans, the Times said.
‘I see a lot of little short dark people,’ Martinez said in reference to a particular area of the largely Hispanic Koreatown neighborhood.
‘I was like, I don’t know where these people are from, I don’t know what village they came (from), how they got here,’ Martinez said, adding ‘Tan feos’ — ‘They’re ugly.’
The recording’s content rocked the political establishment just weeks before elections for the mayor’s office and several council seats.
Bonin and his husband, Sean Arian, had issued a statement calling for the resignations of Martinez and two other council members who were involved.
‘The entirety of the recorded conversation ... displayed a repeated and vulgar anti-Black sentiment, and a coordinated effort to weaken Black political representation in Los Angeles,’ they said.
The conversation was recorded in October 2021, and others present were Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León and Los Angeles County Federation of Labor President Ron Herrera, the Times reported. The overall discussion was about frustrations with redistricting maps produced by a city commission.
The Times reported that the approximately hourlong audio was posted on Reddit by a now-suspended user, and that it was unclear who recorded the audio and whether anyone else was present at the meeting.” Read more at AP News
Wife of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to Testify in Weinstein Trial
Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker and former actor, has accused the once-powerful film mogul, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual assault.
By Corina Knoll
Oct. 10, 2022
“LOS ANGELES — The second sex crimes trial of Harvey Weinstein is underway in Los Angeles and among the witnesses expected to testify is Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a filmmaker, former actress and the wife of California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
Ms. Siebel Newsom is one of the many women who came forward to describe an encounter with Mr. Weinstein. Her involvement was confirmed on Monday by her lawyer, as jury selection began in a case where the once-powerful film producer faces four counts each of rape and forcible oral copulation.
Ms. Siebel Newsom, who was working as an actor and documentary filmmaker, wrote an essay for HuffPost in 2017 in which she mentioned a meeting with Mr. Weinstein during her earlier years in the industry. The article was published a day after The New York Times broke the news that he had paid off women accusing him of sexual misconduct for decades.
‘I believe every word that was written in the New York Times, because very similar things happened to me,’ read the headline on the essay.
Ms. Siebel Newsom, 48, described how she had received an invitation to meet with Mr. Weinstein at a hotel about a role in an upcoming film.
‘I was naïve, new to the industry, and didn’t know how to deal with his aggressive advances,’ she wrote.
‘Staff were present and then all of a sudden disappeared like clockwork, leaving me alone with this extremely powerful and intimidating Hollywood legend.’
The experience, Ms. Siebel Newsom wrote, was one of many that inspired her 2011 documentary, ‘Miss Representation,’ about how women are oversexualized in the media.
Mr. Weinstein, 70, faces 11 charges in a trial that is expected to last up to eight weeks. Included in those charges are one count of sexual penetration with a foreign object by force and two counts of sexual battery by restraint. The acts are said to have taken place between 2004 and 2013 in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, Calif., and involved five women. One of the women has been publicly identified as Lauren Young, a model and actress who testified at the New York trial in 2020 to show a pattern of abuse.” Read more at New York Times
Mastriano’s Attacks on Jewish School Set Off Outcry Over Antisemitic Signaling
The G.O.P. candidate for governor, who promotes Christian power and disdains separation of church and state, is alarming Jewish voters in his contest with the Democratic candidate, Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish.
By Katie Glueck
Oct. 10, 2022
“MERION STATION, Pa. — Four years after the massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue, believed to be the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history, Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor of Pennsylvania, has rattled a diverse swath of the state’s Jewish community, alarming liberal Jews with his remarks and far-right associations, and giving pause to more conservative ones.
Some of those voters have recoiled from Mr. Mastriano’s opposition to abortion rights under any circumstance, or from his strident election denialism. But the race between Mr. Mastriano, a state senator, and his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Shapiro — a Jewish day school alum who features challah in his advertising and routinely borrows from Pirkei Avot, a collection of Jewish ethics — has also centered to an extraordinary degree on Mr. Shapiro’s religion.
Mr. Mastriano, who promotes Christian power and disdains the separation of church and state, has repeatedly lashed Mr. Shapiro for attending and sending his children to what Mr. Mastriano calls a ‘privileged, exclusive, elite’ school, suggesting to one audience that it evinced Mr. Shapiro’s ‘disdain for people like us.’
It is a Jewish day school, where students are given both secular and religious instruction. But Mr. Mastriano’s language in portraying it as an elitist reserve seemed to be a dog whistle.
‘Apparently now it’s some kind of racist thing if I talk about the school,’ Mr. Mastriano said at a recent event as he cast himself as a champion of school choice for all. ‘It’s a very expensive, elite school.’
The focus on Mr. Shapiro’s religion has freighted one of the nation’s most consequential elections with an unusually raw and personal dimension.
‘You have a candidate who is Jewish, an observant Jewish candidate, who puts his observance and his faith in his campaign ads,’ said Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League. ‘And then you have someone who associates with unapologetic, unabashed antisemites running against him.’
In a closely divided state where races are often won on the margins, Mr. Mastriano is now losing ground with a small but significant part of the Trump coalition, squandering opportunities with more conservative and religiously observant Jews who embraced the former president and his party because of his often-hawkish stance concerning Israel, but who now express grave reservations about Mr. Mastriano.
This summer, Mr. Mastriano’s campaign came under scrutiny for paying $5,000 to the far-right social media platform Gab. The man accused of perpetrating the Pittsburgh shooting had posted antisemitic screeds on Gab, and Mr. Mastriano’s payment drew bipartisan condemnation. The platform’s founder, Andrew Torba, defended Mr. Mastriano and declared that ‘we’re not bending the knee to the 2 percent anymore,’ an apparent reference to American Jewry.” Read more at New York Times
“Colonoscopy screening exams that are recommended for older US adults failed to reduce the risk of death from colon cancer in a 10-year study that questions the benefits of the common procedure.” Read more at Bloomberg
The Origins of the G.O.P. Tactic of Sending Migrants to Blue States
The idea of sending new arrivals to left-leaning areas circulated in conservative circles for years. It gained traction under Donald J. Trump, and now Republican governors have put it into practice.
Oct. 11, 2022, 3:00 a.m. ET
“In the fall of 2018, President Donald J. Trump was pushing aides on an idea he wanted to carry out on the border — transporting undocumented immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities.
The idea had simmered for months, culminating in a call Mr. Trump placed to Kirstjen Nielsen, his homeland security secretary.
Mr. Trump, Ms. Nielsen’s former chief of staff recalled, wanted to round up migrants in Republican-controlled states and ‘bus and dump’ them in major cities. He wanted to bus migrants who had been deemed to be ‘murderers, rapists and criminals’ to places, such as California, where officials had declined to help carry out the administration’s rigorous deportation policies, according to the former chief of staff, Miles Taylor.
The idea never advanced in the Trump administration, in part because of legal concerns. But four years later, three Republican governors have brought it to visceral life, busing and flying thousands of migrants — not just criminals — from the border and dropping them off in Martha’s Vineyard, New York City and other Democratic-leaning areas.
The former president’s influence on the Republican Party can be measured not only in the electoral victories and losses of the candidates he endorses but also in the nativism that has come to define the party’s immigration politics. The Republican governors of Arizona, Florida and Texas turned an abandoned Trumpian notion into action, inspired by his hard-line immigration policies as well as his taste for a combative style of political theater.
‘The immigration policies of the Trump administration are now the baseline even for Republican congressional leadership and Republican candidates across the country,’ said John A. Zadrozny, a former Trump administration official.
In recent weeks, the three governors — Greg Abbott of Texas, Ron DeSantis of Florida and Doug Ducey of Arizona — have been criticized for treating desperate migrants fleeing Venezuela and other countries as political pawns. Migrants have been sent to blue cities, states and even vacation spots where local officials were caught by surprise and lacked a support network for people seeking refuge.
More on U.S. Immigration
Two Million Arrests: For the first time, the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants along the southwestern border exceeded two million in one year, continuing a historic pace of undocumented immigrants coming to the country.
Fixing ‘a Very Broken System’: By making a few changes to the asylum process in the United States, the Biden administration hopes to chip away at a massive backlog of immigration cases.
An Immigration Showdown: Republican governors are increasingly deploying a tactic that involves sending migrants to places like Washington, New York and Massachusetts to provoke outrage over record arrivals at the border.
Starting a New Life: While many migrants recently sent to Democratic strongholds have been left at least temporarily homeless, some are already employed and achieving some measure of stability.
Mr. Trump routinely pushed his administration to exceed the bounds of what the law would allow. The practice of shipping humans across the country to score political points — an echo of the Reverse Freedom Rides of the early 1960s, when Southern segregationists sent Black families to Northern cities as a racist stunt — underscores how far to the right Republicans have shifted on immigration since Mr. Trump’s rise, often with a callousness that they believe appeals to their voting base.” Read more at New York Times
“Millions of Americans are racing to file their 2021 federal taxes before time runs out. After two years of leniency due to pandemic-related chaos, the Internal Revenue Service is back to imposing fines on those who miss the deadline. Plus, the interest rate for underpayments increased to 6% on Oct. 1, up from 5%, so it’s now going to cost you even more if you haven’t paid everything you owe.” Read more at Bloomberg
Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
Tokyo Opens Same-Sex Partnership System for Applications
System does not give recognition to same-sex marriage
Japan lags behind G-7 peers in marriage-equality rights
“A system to register same-sex partnerships opened for applications in Tokyo on Tuesday, in a symbolic step forward for a country that has fallen behind its peers on embracing diversity.
The system does not offer the legal benefits of marriage for same-sex couples, but has been welcomed by LGBTQ rights groups as a small step forward. Japan is the only Group of Seven major democracy not to allow either same-sex marriage or civil unions -- despite polls showing that the public is largely in favor of the change…
With its own population aging and rapidly shrinking, the lack of such provisions could damage Japan’s ability to compete for talent against the dozens of countries that have legalized marriage equality, industry bodieshave warned. Nonetheless, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, the leader of the conservative ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has urged caution on the issue.
The system is open to couples of whom at least one partner lives, works or studies in Tokyo, and where both are at least 18 and are not already married or in a partnership. Applications are to be made online, and certification will be available from Nov. 1, according to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government website.” Read more at Bloomberg
Trump speaks via video at rally of global far-right in Spain
By JOSEPH WILSON and ALICIA LEÓN
Spain's Vox party leader Santiago Abascal speaks to supporters during a rally in Madrid Spain, Sunday Oct. 9, 2022. Former U.S. President Donald Trump has thrown his weight behind Spain's far-right in a video shown at a rally in Madrid that also featured messages Italy's Giorgia Meloni and Hungary's Viktor Orban. The annual rally comes just weeks after Abascal and the rest of Europe's far-right celebrated the victory of Meloni's neo-fascist Brothers of Italy Party. (Jesus Hellin/Europa Press via AP)
“MADRID (AP) — Former U.S. President Donald Trump threw his weight behind Spain’s far-right Sunday in a video shown at a rally in Madrid that also featured messages by the leading stars of Europe’s populist right like Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
In a recording that lasted under 40 seconds made while Trump was on a plane, Trump thanked Spain’s far-right Vox party and its leader Santiago Abascal for what he called the ‘great job’ they do.
‘We have to make sure that we protect our borders and do lots of very good conservative things,’ Trump said. ‘Spain is a great country and we want to keep it a great country. So congratulations to Vox for so many great messages you get out to the people of Spain and the people of the world.’
Vox captured national attention on Spain’s political landscape in 2019 when it became the third-largest force in Spain’s Parliament after an election that led to a national left-wing coalition that still holds power. Vox’s messages include zero tolerance for Catalan separatism, disdain for gender equality, diatribes against unauthorized immigration from Africa and embracing both the ‘Reconquista’ of medieval Spain from Islam as well as the legacy of Gen. Francisco Franco’s 20th-century dictatorship.” Read more at AP News
Farmers condemn New Zealand’s proposed tax on animal burps
By NICK PERRY
“WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — New Zealand’s government on Tuesday proposed taxing the greenhouse gasses that farm animals make from burping and peeing as part of a plan to tackle climate change.
The government said the farm levy would be a world first, and that farmers should be able to recoup the cost by charging more for climate-friendly products.
But farmers quickly condemned the plan. Federated Farmers, the industry’s main lobby group, said the plan would ‘rip the guts out of small town New Zealand’ and see farms replaced with trees.
Federated Farmers President Andrew Hoggard said farmers had been trying to work with the government for more than two years on an emissions reduction plan that wouldn’t decrease food production.” Read more at AP News
Tomato shortage
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
“America's salad bowl is in trouble: Price hikes coming for tomatoes, onions and garlic next year.
‘There's just not enough water to grow everything that we normally grow,’ California Board of Food and Agriculture president Don Cameron told Reuters.
Zoom in: California accounts for 95% of the nation's processed tomato production and 35% of global production, Axios' Sareen Habeshian reports.
Kraft told Reuters it couldn't rule out price increases — but can guarantee ketchup and other products on the shelves.
Zoom out: The Southwest is gripped by its worst megadrought since the Dark Ages, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.
The past 22 years rank as the driest period for the region since at least 800 A.D.” Read more at Axios
Rex Orange County: musician charged with six counts of sexual assault
Alexander O’Connor is alleged to have assaulted a woman over the course of two days in June
Mon 10 Oct 2022 15.41 EDT
“The musician Rex Orange County, aka Alexander O’Connor, has been charged with six counts of sexually assaulting a woman, the Sun has reported.
On 1 June, the 24-year-old allegedly assaulted the woman twice in London’s West End and then four times the next day, including once in a taxi and on three instances at his home in Notting Hill. The woman is reputedly over the age of 16.
O’Connor appeared at Southwark crown court on 10 October. He pleaded not guilty to all six charges and was released on unconditional bail….
O’Connor attended the Brit school and in 2015 self-released his debut album, Bcos U Will Never B Free. It became a grassroots hit, piquing the interest of US rapper Tyler, the Creator, who invited O’Connor to work on his 2017 album, Flower Boy.
He has released four albums, the latest being this year’s Who Cares?, and also collaborated with artists including Randy Newman and Chance the Rapper.” Read more at The Guardian