The Full Belmonte, 12/23/2023
Supreme Court denies request to hear Trump immunity dispute
Many cases related to former President Donald Trump could reach the Supreme Court in the coming months.
PHOTO: GODOFREDO A. VÁSQUEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS
“The Supreme Court has rejected a request by special counsel Jack Smith to expedite arguments over whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
It’s a significant blow for Smith, who said in his court filing that it was ‘of imperative public importance’ for the court to decide that question ahead of Trump’s federal election interference trial scheduled for March.
With the Supreme Court refusing to take up the issue for now, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is scheduled to hear arguments over it on Jan. 9.
Once the appeals court rules, the Supreme Court could decide quickly on whether to take up the case.” [NBC News]
UN approves watered-down resolution on aid to Gaza without call for suspension of hostilities
The U.N. Security Council holding a vote on Friday. Charly Triballeau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
“The U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution Friday calling for immediate speeded-up aid deliveries to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza – but without the original call for an ‘urgent suspension of hostilities’ between Israel and Hamas. The long-delayed vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining.” Read More at AP News
Israel has pushed almost 2 million Palestinians out of their homes — the largest displacement in the region since 1948
“During the current conflict, few parts of Gaza have been spared bombardment, and Israel’s often haphazard and confusing evacuation orders have forced the displaced into ever-shrinking ‘safe’ areas.”
Read more at Washington Post
“The Biden administration has vastly extended US claims to sovereignty over the ocean floor by an area twice the size of California, securing rights to potentially resource-rich seabeds at a time when Washington is ramping up efforts to safeguard supplies of minerals key to future technologies. The so-called Extended Continental Shelf covers about 386,100 square miles (1 million square km), predominantly in the Arctic and Bering Sea, an area of increasing strategic importance where Canada and Russia also have claims. The US has also declared the shelf’s boundaries in the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf of Mexico.” [Bloomberg]
“President Biden pardoned thousands of people who were convicted of marijuana offenses and granted clemency to 11 more who were serving ‘disproportionately long’ drug sentences, Axios' Emma Hurt writes.” [Axios]
Chicago man exonerated in 2011 murder case where legally blind eyewitness gave testimony
“Darien Harris spent more than 12 years in an Illinois prison, convicted of murder in part on the testimony of an eyewitness who was legally blind. His case is the latest in a dozen exonerations this year in Chicago’s Cook County, where defendants have been represented by attorneys with The Exoneration Project.” Read More at AP News
“A jury convicted two Colorado paramedics of criminally negligent homicide in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, an unarmed Black man.” [New York Times]
Holiday travel rush in full swing as storms slam West Coast
“The holiday travel rush is hitting its peak, with millions of Americans all across the country hitting the road and taking to the skies.
115 million people are expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this season, a 2-percent increase from last year, according to AAA.
Air travel is expected to break records with 7.5 million people flying this season, topping 2019’s record of 7.3 million passengers, according to AAA.
And we’re tracking the dangerous storms that have brought heavy rain and flooding to Southern California.
The system is now making its way into the Desert Southwest, and will spread into the Rockies and Plains tomorrow. 25 million across the Southwest remain under flood alerts this afternoon.
On Christmas Eve, a long line of storms is expected to push through the central part of the U.S. from Iowa to the Gulf Coast.
And on Christmas Day, a new storm will develop over the Northeast, bringing more rain and some mountain snow.” [NBC News]
First American hostage confirmed dead in Gaza, kibbutz says
“A 73-year-old American-Israeli hostage who was taken from kibbutz Nir Oz during the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack has died, a spokesperson for the kibbutz announced today.
Gadi Hagi, a father of four and a grandfather of seven, is the first known American to die in Hamas captivity since the war began. His body is still in Gaza, according to the spokesperson.
Hagi’s wife, Judy Weinstein, 70, who was also kidnapped on Oct. 7, is wounded and still being held in Hamas captivity, the spokesperson said.
As the situation in Gaza continues to deteriorate, the U.N. Security Council today passed a resolution calling for more humanitarian pauses in Gaza. Both the U.S. and Russia abstained from the vote.” [NBC News]
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s oldest ally and confidant was behind Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s assassination in August.
“Ex-spy Nikolai Patrushev approved the plan that was two months in the making, according to Western intelligence officials and a former Russian intelligence officer. Patrushev had warned Putin for a long time that Moscow’s reliance on the mercenary army in Ukraine was giving Prigozhin too much political and military clout. Then, the warlord’s public clashes with military brass turned into an outright mutiny in June. A small bomb was hidden under the wing of Prigozhin’s plane; after about 30 minutes of flying, the aircraft crashed, killing the 10 people on board. The Kremlin has denied involvement in Prigozhin’s death.” [Wall Street Journal]
Israel is hunting for top-level Hamas officials in the Gaza city of Khan Younis.
“It says Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza leader of the U.S.-designated terrorist organization, is hiding underground in tunnels with his closest confidants and some of the hostages Hamas kidnapped during its deadly Oct. 7 assault on Israel that sparked the war. The death toll from the war surpasses 20,000, according to Gazan authorities. The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution aimed at getting significantly more humanitarian aid to Gaza.” [Wall Street Journal]
Police release bodycam video from deadly university shooting
People have been paying their respects to the victims throughout the day. Credit: Reuters
“Czech police have released harrowing bodycam showing officers responding to the mass shooting at a university in Prague that killed 14 people, and injured 25 others.
The footage shows officers with guns drawn storming a building at Charles University, searching the corridors for the gunman, and evacuating students.
A separate video posted on social media appears to show students jumping from a roof ledge onto a balcony to escape the gunman.
Police say the shooter, who was a student at the university, took his own life. They have not publicly identified him.
Today a convoy of hearses was seen leaving the university complex, after the worst mass shooting in the Czech Republic’s history.” [NBC News]
Cries Grow for More Aid to Gaza
From left, the Russian, Palestinian, and Egyptian representatives to the United Nations—Vasily Nebenzya, Riyad Mansour, and Osama Abdelkhalek, respectively—attend a U.N. Security Council meeting on the Israel-Hamas war in New York City on Dec. 22.Charly Triballeau/AFP
“The United Nations Security Council approved a resolution on Friday demanding that more aid be allowed to enter Gaza. The United States and Russia both abstained from the vote after days of deadlock and U.S. veto threats.
The resolution dropped a previous call to suspend hostilities, instead recommending that ‘urgent steps’ be taken to allow unhindered humanitarian access into the war-torn Gaza Strip. The draft’s text, largely supported by Arab countries, originally called for a ‘cessation’ in hostilities that was then watered down to say ‘suspension’ at the United States’ urging. But that, too, was eventually removed after Washington decided not to commit to any cease-fire demands.
The United States remains Israel’s staunchest ally despite growing criticism of its war operations and alleged indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians. According to a Gallup poll published Friday, Israelis’ approval of U.S. leadership hit a record-high 81 percent this year, up from 65 percent in 2022.
The United States worked closely with the United Arab Emirates, which first submitted the draft resolution, and Egypt to come to a working compromise. Although Cairo is not a current member of the Security Council, it was heavily involved in U.N. discussions due to its role overseeing the Rafah border crossing into Gaza as well as its help mediating a pause in fighting and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas.
A U.N. report published Thursday highlighting ‘catastrophic hunger and starvation’ in Gaza also pushed the Security Council to pass the resolution. It detailed how 1 in 4 Gazans are starving and the risk of famine is increasing, blaming insufficient humanitarian assistance. Although Israel has allowed some food and medical aid into Gaza via the Rafah crossing, limits on fuel imports and continued bombardments have worsened Gaza’s dire humanitarian crisis.
‘I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza—and at this speed,’ said Arif Husain, the chief economist for the U.N. World Food Program.
Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) widened their offensive into central Gaza on Friday. Senior military officials said Israel’s air force destroyed a long-range missile launch site in Juhor ad-Dik, which they alleged was responsible for ‘recent launches into Israeli territory,’ possibly including Hamas’s strikes against Tel Aviv on Thursday. The IDF also ordered residents of al-Bureij to move south immediately ahead of Israeli bombardments.
A shift in fighting toward central Gaza does not appear to be diminishing Israeli attacks across other parts of the region. Locals reported heavy shelling and airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza this week, which Israeli forces say houses Hamas operations. And fighting wrought further destruction in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah as Palestinian civilians struggle to find shelter. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 53,300 others wounded since war began on Oct. 7, the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported.” [Foreign Policy]
“Luanda’s oil row. Angola announced on Thursday that it will leave OPEC, arguing that the oil cartel no longer serves the central African country’s interests. Angola, which seeks to increase crude oil production to boost its economy, decried the OPEC+ decision in November to cut output quotas for 2024. Luanda’s departure from the bloc caused oil prices to drop by 2.4 percent on Thursday and hinted at fracturing OPEC unity.
Angola joined OPEC in 2007, and it produced roughly 4 percent of the bloc’s oil. Now analysts are wondering if Nigeria, another OPEC member and the most populous country in the group, will also leave. Nigeria has also been trying to raise its crude output. However, ‘[d]espite being Africa’s largest oil producer, Nigeria has no functional refinery, so it can’t just produce more fuel to bring down the high cost of gas,’ Nigerian journalist Pelumi Salako wrote for Foreign Policy.
Both Ecuador and Qatar have also left OPEC in the past decade, and Indonesia suspended its membership in 2016.” [Foreign Policy]
“Landmark reversal from Japan. In a policy pivot, Japan announced on Friday that it will relax export restrictions to sell Patriot surface-to-air missile systems to the United States. The sale will help Washington grow its military stockpiles as it struggles to garner congressional support to send more aid to Ukraine. Japan has largely restricted weapons exports since World War II, with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first easing some export restrictions in 2014.
Tokyo hopes the decision will ‘contribute to Japan and the Indo-Pacific region’s peace and stability,’ Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Friday. Regional experts believe that relaxing decades-old export laws will help counter Chinese and North Korean aggression, with U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan applauding the move, saying it will help U.S. forces ‘maintain a credible deterrence and response capability’ in the region.” [Foreign Policy]
“Khan’s continued campaign. Pakistan’s Supreme Court granted former Prime Minister Imran Khan bail on Friday for charges accusing him of leaking state secrets. It is unlikely that he will be released while serving a three-year sentence for corruption, among other crimes. The court also refused to reverse a decision disqualifying Khan from running in next February’s national election.
Still, the legal rulings have not dwindled Khan’s electoral ambitions. The former leader, who remains one of the most popular prime ministers in the nation’s history, submitted his nomination papers on Friday. Earlier this week, he delivered a speech from prison—with an artificial intelligence-generated voice—as part of his campaign efforts. Islamabad banned the country’s TV stations from broadcasting the message.” [Foreign Policy]
“Not even an hour after elusive artist Banksy confirmed the authenticity of a new piece in south London on Friday, two men stole the installation. Banksy’s latest project was a stop sign with three drone-like military aircraft on it. The thieves could face severe consequences if caught stealing or selling the artwork. The anonymous artist is not thought to be behind its removal.” [Foreign Policy]
“OpenAI is said to be in early discussions to raise a fresh round of funding at a valuation at or above $100 billion, a deal that would cement the ChatGPT maker as one of the world’s most valuable startups, behind only Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp.” [Bloomberg]
Director Christopher Nolan speaks on stage about his movie ‘Oppenheimer’ on April 26, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. | Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images
“NIGHTLY FLIX — If you’ve been a regular reader of POLITICO Nightly this year, you’d know that there’s been more than enough to keep politics junkies entertained: from a consequential speakership fight to fights over the soul of the Democratic party to criminal indictments of former President Donald Trump to TikTok’s Ron DeSantis obsession.
But beyond all of the headlines out of D.C. or Iowa that have kept us all voraciously reading and watching and discussing, sometimes the best way to excavate political truth is through fiction: art that makes us think a little more deeply or that gives us a new perspective on politics.
This year, the movie industry has (often, certainly not all the time) provided us with just that — a solid slate of films that have been the highlights of the best movie year in a long time, many of which have had a lot to say about modern politics.
Here is Nightly’s list of movies that said something interesting about our politics and values — and, of course, kept us entertained.
Anatomy of a Fall: A French courtroom drama directed by Justine Triet that might have the most beautiful setting captured on film this year — a cabin in the French Alps — descends quickly into darkness after Daniel (Milo Machado Graner), a young boy who’s visually impaired, finds his dad dead. Daniel’s mother Sandra Voyter (Sandra Hüller) is immediately suspected and finds herself in the midst of a very public trial in France. The film, which is in almost equal parts English, French and German, is concerned with themes of family, justice, memory and the blending of fact and fiction. It’s also a fascinating look into how the French legal system works, and how different it is from its American counterpart.
Oppenheimer: Christopher Nolan’s epic biopic of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) might reach emotional heights during the Trinity test, but it is directly concerned with questions of politics throughout. Oppenheimer, suspected of being a communist, finds himself at first jettisoned from the nuclear project — and then decades later, from American political life. As Nolan trains the camera on Oppenheimer’s face in essential moments in the film, we see him reckoning with questions of his own responsibility for Hiroshima and Nagasaki and setting off a world in which we’re always trying to build a bigger bomb.
Barbie: The other (and much more profitable) half of the biggest movie weekend in years, Barbie might be based on a doll introduced in the late 1950s, but the political questions it considers are all of the moment. When Barbie (Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) leave a world in which women are in control and find themselves in modern-day Los Angeles, they’re each confronted with existential questions about what it means to be a man or a woman outside the artificial world of a Barbie dream house. Brought to life by Greta Gerwig, the film has launched all kinds of opinions and disagreements about its politics and message — its cultural impact is impossible to ignore.
Poor Things: Propped up by a virtuosic performance from Emma Stone as Bella Baxter, a woman reanimated and set out into the world by Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), Poor Things is a journey into the strange, steampunk-filled mind of director Yorgos Lanthimos. We watch as Bella discovers the world beyond a laboratory and transforms, along the way participating in a beautifully choreographed number with Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo, in a hilarious turn). Lanthimos has a predilection for the bizarre that makes the film aesthetically fascinating, but the heart of his movie is about questions of our responsibility to others. If someone without any context were dropped into the world, how would they learn about it and understand it for themselves?
The Sweet East: Still in very limited release, The Sweet East is the debut feature from Sean Price Williams. It follows Lillian (Talia Ryder), a high school senior on a school trip to Washington D.C. who’s separated from her classmates during a bungled arcade shooting. The film becomes a journey into the nooks and crannies of America, as Ryder confronts a white supremacist rally and meets disgruntled professor Lawrence (Simon Rex), travels to New York and finds a director and producer (Ayo Edibiri and Jeremy O. Harris) casting a film on colonial America and a host of other strange characters who all project some of their own fantasies onto Lillian. The story, which resists having a pat political message, instead confronts more complex and difficult questions about modern day America, and in particular the East Coast. It also looks beautiful — Williams’ background as a cinematographer who shot features like Good Time comes through here in his portrayal of cityscapes and the country alike.
The Killer: What looks at first like a classic assassin film in a stark setting from David Fincher quickly transforms into much more than that. We’re treated to an ongoing monologue from the titular killer (Michael Fassbender), who insists on repeating phrases like ‘forbid empathy’ and loves The Smiths (the soundtrack to the whole film). The thing is, despite his many skills, he’s not as perfect at his job as one might originally believe from his own monologuing. As he sets off on a revenge journey, we’re taken around the world and watch as elements of our political and economic system are subtly parodied by Fincher — and help to prop up Fassbender’s amorality.
BS High: The only documentary on the list, BS High is a sports movie about a school that barely played sports and wasn’t really a school at all. You may remember an August 2021 incident in which a ‘high school’ called Bishop Sycamore — advertised as an athletic training academy — was destroyed in a nationally televised football game by IMG Academy. As it turned out, the high school didn’t exist. The documentary goes beyond the incident and gets plenty of access to Roy Johnson, the coach who created the scam. The end result is a product that’s at home in a now long line of scammer and grifter movies and TV shows. Johnson is, by all accounts, proud to talk openly about his own grift and how he pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. He’s the sort of character that’s existed around the world for centuries, but is increasingly common in America today: he’s a leading member of the age of the scammer.
May December: Loosely based on American teacher Mary Kay Letourneau and her relationship with one of her students that lasted into adulthood, May December follows actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) as she drops into the lives of Gracie Atherton (Julianne Moore) and Joe (Charles Melton) as she does research for a role in a biopic. As Berry and Atherton, Portman and Moore play off of each other well, both constantly sizing the other one up. Melton also gives a true breakout performance that’s the heart of the film, as he plays a character that seems 13 and in his 30s all at once. The politics here exist within the deeply screwed up family dynamic, but just because they exist within the home doesn’t mean they’re any less potent.
Killers of the Flower Moon: For decades, Martin Scorsese has made movies about American greed and excess; he’s one of the most nakedly political filmmakers of the century. But for a long time, a segment of the moviegoing public has attached to many of these epics — Goodfellas, Casino, The Wolf of Wall Street — by training in on the excess and the rise rather than the fall. In some ways, it’s hard to totally blame them: he makes greed look really good, to paraphrase one of his contemporaries. But in his later period, he’s been much more direct about peeling back that facade to reveal the rot underneath. That’s true in Killers of the Flower Moon more than any of his other works. The film continues to look beautiful, but it’s three and a half hours of the brutality of Americans, with white men plundering the land and fortune and lives of our native population. If it wasn’t clear before, Scorsese seems to be saying, this is what it’s been about all along.” [POLITICO]
“Actor Charlie Sheen was assaulted with a deadly weapon by a woman at his Malibu home, police in Los Angeles have said.” [BBC]
There's a push to call the poinsettia by another name
“Nearly 200 years after the plant with the bright crimson leaves was introduced in the U.S., attention is once again turning to the poinsettia’s origins and the checkered history of its namesake, a slaveowner and lawmaker who played a part in the forced removal of Native Americans from their land. Some people would now rather call the plant by the name of its Indigenous origin in southern Mexico.” Read More at AP News
Banksy stop sign in London nabbed with bolt cutters an hour after its reveal
“A red stop sign with three military drones on it was taken in the middle of the day by a man with bolt cutters as witnesses snapped photos and shot video in the Peckham section of south London.” Read More at AP News
THE WEEK IN CULTURE
“Just how formulaic are Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies? The Upshot (over)analyzed 424 of them to find just how many feature high-powered women moving from the big city to a small town.
Vin Diesel’s former assistant accused him of sexual assault in a lawsuit.
“I’m a fan”: Mariah Carey, the queen of Christmas, met President Biden at the White House, Jezebel reports. He played her song.
Kim Kardashian filled her bathtub with brown liquid meant to be Christmas chocolate. The internet had its mind in the drain, The Cut reports.
Shari Redstone rules a vast media kingdom, including Paramount Pictures. Read why she’s considering a sale.
Amazon Studios reached a deal to create television shows and movie based on the popular tabletop game Warhammer 40,000. Actor Henry Cavill will executive produce and appear in the show.
Directors Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach got married after 12 years together, People reports.
Celine Dion’s sister shared that the singer, who was diagnosed with stiff-person syndrome, no longer has control of her muscles, Vulture reports.
A dress belonging to Princess Diana sold for $1.15 million at auction.
Antonio Negri was an Italian philosopher whose writing and activism calling for a new workers’ revolution landed him in prison and made him an intellectual celebrity. He died at 90.” [New York Times]