The Full Belmonte, 12/7/2022
Dems tighten Senate hold
Sen. Raphael Warnock holds his daughter, Chloé, and his son, Caleb, at his election-night party in Atlanta. Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters
“Sen. Raphael Warnock's path to winning Georgia's runoff yesterday is the one Democrats will need to win the 2024 presidential election in what has been a very red state:
Maintaining their edge in the suburbs — while motivating the Black base to turn out, Axios' Josh Kraushaar reports.
Why it matters: Warnock's victory gives Democrats a pivotal 51st Senate seat, up from 50 in this Congress, where Vice President Harris had to break ties.
That means more of President Biden's judicial nominees can be confirmed — and gives Democrats near-unilateral power to issue subpoenas without Republican buy-in.
Warnock beat Republican Herschel Walker 51% to 49%, in a race AP called at 10:26 p.m.
In November, Warnock led 49% to 48%, with Libertarian Chase Oliver getting 2%.
The $401 million race was the nation's most expensive, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.
"An astonishing $1.4 billion has been spent on just four races in the state since the beginning of 2020," The New York Times found.
Herschel Walker concedes in Atlanta last night, accompanied by his wife, Julie, and former football star Doug Flutie. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images
Reality check: Walker's loss caps a historic GOP embarrassment. 2022 is the first midterm election since 1934 — 88 years ago — when the party in power successfully defended every incumbent Senate seat.
Celebrity candidates endorsed by President Trump — including Walker, a Heisman Trophy winner — performed disastrously this cycle, squandering numerous winnable races across the country.
What happened: The biggest GOP culprit was candidate recruitment.
Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), head of the GOP's Senate campaign committee, made a point of staying out of primaries. That allowed not-ready-for-prime-time candidates to emerge as nominees.
The bottom line: In Georgia, Walker was the only statewide Republican candidate who lost. The GOP swept every other office — from governor to state insurance commissioner.
Gov. Brian Kemp (R) won re-election by 7½ points.” Read more at Axios
Trump Organization
“Two Trump Organization companies were found guilty Tuesday on multiple charges of criminal tax fraud and falsifying business records. A Manhattan jury specifically found the Trump Corp. and Trump Payroll Corp. guilty on all charges they faced connected to a 15-year scheme to defraud tax authorities by failing to report and pay taxes on compensation for top executives. Former President Donald Trump and his family were not charged in this case, but Trump was mentioned repeatedly during the trial by prosecutors referencing his connection to the benefits doled out to certain executives -- including company-funded apartments, car leases and personal expenses. The Trump Organization could face a maximum of $1.61 million in fines. Attorneys representing the organization said they plan to appeal.” Read more at CNN
More fatal police shootings are going unreported.
(The Washington Post)
“The numbers: Police have shot and killed about 1,000 people every year since 2015, according to data tracked by The Post. Only about a third of those — and fewer every year — have been reported by the U.S. government.
Why this matters: It creates a misleading picture of how police are using force in the U.S. and complicates accountability efforts.” Read more at Washington Post
California’s winter is off to a promising start.
“What to know: Parts of the Sierra Nevada have more than doublethe expected snowpack for this time of year, and another big storm could arrive this weekend.
This is good news: California has had three years of extreme drought, and mountain snow is a key source of water. However, much more rain and snow are needed.” Read more at Washington Post
Gas prices
“A sharp drop in oil prices this week is a good sign that prices at the pump will continue decreasing, analysts say. Oil prices have tumbled to their lowest level of the year -- despite worries about the health of the economy and amid concerns about new restrictions imposed on Russian energy. On Monday, the European Union banned certain oil imports from Russia while the West placed a $60 cap on Russian oil. Both moves are designed to hurt Russia's ability to finance its war in Ukraine without hurting consumers abroad. In the US, the national average price for regular gasoline currently stands at $3.35 a gallon, according to AAA. Gas prices have dropped 14 cents in the past week and 42 cents in a month.” Read more at CNN
DeSantis' secret weapon
Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks about environmental protection last week on Key Biscayne. Photo: Lynne Sladky/AP
“If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis runs for the GOP's 2024 presidential nomination, he has an opening to attack former President Trump's COVID response from the right, Axios' Caitlin Owens reports.
Why it matters: The federal COVID response has become a red-meat issue for the party's base. DeSantis' 2020 actions are very aligned with today's GOP's tone.
DeSantis has even said he wishes he'd been more vocal in speaking out against the Trump administration's calls for lockdowns early in the pandemic.
GOP strategist Alex Conant, who worked on Sen. Marco Rubio's campaign in 2016, said: ‘DeSantis is a conservative rockstar in large part because of how he handled COVID in Florida.’
DeSantis' hands-off approach to the pandemic — reopening schools for in-person learning earlier than other states, fighting vaccine mandates and refusing to reimpose restrictions during case spikes — was a key to developing his political brand.
Reality check: Florida's COVID death rate is on the higher end of the spectrum, compared to other states.
Flashback: As much as Democrats have criticized Trump's COVID response, there's an opening to attack it from the right.
Trump announced a 15-day national shutdown in mid-March of 2020. That was extended after the virus continued to spread.
He appeared on TV regularly with Anthony Fauci, who remained a face of Trump's COVID response even as the right grew increasingly frustrated with him.
The other side: Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said Trump and his administration ‘worked tirelessly to secure medical equipment to save the lives of Americans who were infected.’
‘He also fought against any attempt to federalize the pandemic response by protecting every state’s right to ultimately decide what is best for their people.’” Read more at Axios
Germany arrests 25 accused of plotting coup
Image caption, Among the 25 detained was a minor aristocrat called Heinrich XIII
By Paul Kirby
BBC News
“Twenty-five people have been arrested in raids across Germany on suspicion of plotting to overthrow the government.
The group of far-right and ex-military figures are said to have prepared to storm the parliament building, the Reichstag, and seize power.
A minor aristocrat described as Prince Heinrich XIII, 71, is alleged to have been central to their plans.
According to federal prosecutors, he is one of two alleged ringleaders among those arrested across 11 German states.
The plotters are said to include members of the extremist Reichsbürger [Citizens of the Reich] movement, which has long been in the sights of German police over violent attacks and racist conspiracy theories. They also refuse to recognise the modern German state.
Other suspects came from the QAnon movement who believe their country is in the hands of a "deep state".
Plotters prepared to kill for their ends
An estimated 50 men and women are alleged to have been part of the group, said to have plotted to overthrow the republic and replace it with a new state modelled on the Germany of 1871 - an empire called the Second Reich.
"We don't yet have a name for this group," said a spokeswoman for the federal prosecutor's office.
Three thousand officers took part in 130 raids across much of the country, with two people arrested in Austria and Italy. Those detained were due to be questioned later in the day.
Image caption, Police carried out raids across 11 of Germany's 16 states
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted that a major anti-terror operation was taking place and a suspected ‘armed attack on constitutional bodies was planned’.
The federal prosecutor's office said the group had been plotting a violent coup since November 2021 and members of its central ‘Rat’ (council) had since held regular meetings.
They had already established plans to rule Germany with departments covering health, justice and foreign affairs, the prosecutor said. Members understood they could only realise their goals by ‘military means and violence against state representatives’, which included carrying out killings.
Investigators are thought to have got wind of the group when they uncovered a kidnap plot last April involving a gang who called themselves United Patriots.
They too were part of the Reichsbürger scene and had allegedly planned to abduct Health Minister Karl Lauterbach while also creating ‘civil war conditions’ to bring about an end to Germany's democracy.
A former far-right AfD member of the lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, is suspected of being part of the plot, and of being lined up as the group's justice minister. Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who was among the 25 people arrested, returned to her role as judge last year and a court has since turned down attempts to dislodge her.
A prominent lawyer was pencilled in to handle the group's foreign affairs, with Prince Heinrich as leader.
Aristocrat 'fuelled by conspiracy theories'
Heinrich XIII comes from an old noble family known as the House of Reuss, which ruled over parts of the modern eastern state of Thuringia until 1918. All the male members of the family were given the name Heinrich as well as a number.
Descendants still own a few castles and Heinrich himself is said to have a hunting lodge at Bad Lobenstein in Thuringia.
The rest of the family have long distanced themselves from the minor aristocrat, with one spokesman telling local broadcaster MDR during the summer that Heinrich was an ‘at times confused’ man who had fallen for ‘misconceptions fuelled by conspiracy theories’.
As well as a shadow government, the plotters allegedly had plans for a military arm run by a second ringleader identified as Rüdiger von P.
They were made up of active and former members of the military, officials believe, and included ex-elite soldiers from special units. The aim of the military arm was to eliminate democratic bodies at local level, prosecutors said.
Rüdiger von P is suspected of trying to recruit police officers in northern Germany and of having an eye on army barracks too. Bases in the states of Hesse, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria were all inspected for possible use after the government was overthrown, officials said.
One of those under investigation had been a member of the Special Commando Forces, and police searched his home and his room at the Graf-Zeppelin military base in Calw, south-west of Stuttgart.
Another suspect has been identified as Vitalia B, a Russian woman who was asked to approach Moscow on Heinrich's behalf. The Russian embassy in Berlin said in a statement that it did not ‘maintain contacts with representatives of terrorist groups and other illegal entities’.
Several violent attacks have been linked to Germany's far-right in recent years. In 2020, a 43-year-old man shot dead nine people of foreign origin in the western town of Hanau, and a Reichsbürger member was jailed for killing a policeman in 2016.
The Reichsbürger movement is estimated to have as many as 21,000 followers, of whom around 5% are considered to belong to the extreme right.” Read more at BBC
China
“China scrapped some of its most controversial Covid-19 rules today, a clear sign that the central government is moving away from its strict zero-Covid approach that prompted protests across the country. China's State Council unveiled 10 new guidelines that loosen some restrictions -- most notably, allowing home quarantine and largely scrapping the health QR code that has been mandatory for entering most public places, according to a statement reported by state broadcaster CCTV. Since early in the pandemic, the color of these codes displayed on mobile phones -- in red, amber or green -- decided whether users could leave their homes, use public transportation and enter public places, or potentially need to quarantine. Major cities in the region are also taking steps this week to loosen requirements on Covid testing.” Read more at CNN
New Zealand places child in anti-vax blood case in custody
By Matt Murphy
BBC News
“A New Zealand court has ordered a child at the centre of a case over blood transfusions from donors vaccinated against Covid-19 be taken into temporary custody by health officials.
The four-month-old boy is in a hospital in Auckland awaiting urgent treatment to correct a heart disorder.
His parents had blocked the operation and sought a court ruling that he receive blood from unvaccinated donors.
But the High Court ruled the operation was in the child's ‘best interest’.
Justice Ian Gault ordered that the boy - identified as Baby W in court documents - be placed under the guardianship of the court ‘from the date of the order until completion of his surgery and post-operative recovery’.
He dismissed the parents' request for unvaccinated blood, calling it unnecessary and impractical, and agreed with health authorities that the boy's ‘survival [was] actually dependent on the application being granted’.
But he emphasised that the parents remained the boy's primary guardians and said doctors must keep them informed at all times about his treatment and condition.
Justice Gault also rejected a request from the parents' lawyer, Sue Grey, that a tailored donor service with blood from exclusively unvaccinated donors be established.
Ms Grey said the long-term effects of the vaccine were ‘untested’ and accused doctors of refusing to provide an alternate donor service for ideological reasons.
But lawyer for the state blood service said the establishment of any direct donor service would have been a ‘slippery slope’ and would ‘damage an excellent blood service’.
Citing evidence from New Zealand's chief medical officer, Justice Gault ruled that there was ‘no scientific evidence there is any Covid-19 vaccine-related risk from blood donated’ by vaccinated donors.
The case has become a vector for anti-vaccine activists in New Zealand with demonstrators - many of whom carried placards - gathering outside the court before the ruling was delivered on Wednesday.
It also emerged during the case that during a meeting with doctors at the Starship hospital in Auckland, the parents had been accompanied by a ‘support person’ who hijacked the conference.
They said the person presented a host of unfounded conspiracy theories, and went on to claim that children were dying from transfusions at the hospital.
Addressing the demonstrators outside the court house following the ruling, former TV host and leading anti-vaccine campaigner Liz Gunn said the decision was ‘wrong on every level’.
Te Whatu Ora (Health NZ) acknowledged that the case was a ‘difficult situation for all involved’ but emphasised that its priority was the ‘the health and wellbeing’ of all children in its care.” Read more at BBC
Apple
“Apple has been sued by two women who allege their previous romantic partners used the company's AirTag devices to track their whereabouts, potentially putting their safety at risk. AirTags are Bluetooth locators that users attach to items -- such as keys, wallets or laptops -- that enable their location to be found on a map. While the devices can be a helpful tool to prevent losing personal items, some experts have warned that they could be used to track people without their consent. In this new lawsuit against Apple, one of the women said her ex-boyfriend allegedly placed a disguised AirTag into the wheel well of a tire on her car. The other woman said her ex-husband, who had been harassing her and challenging her about her whereabouts, placed an AirTag in her child's backpack, the lawsuit said.” Read more at CNN
Europe is switching off airplane mode for good.
“The details: Airlines will be allowed to provide 5G connectivity to passengers — including for phone calls — in the European Union’s member states by June, the European Commission recently decided.
Will the U.S. be next? Probably not. Europe uses different frequencies for 5G than the U.S., where there are concerns that antennas could interfere with aircraft equipment.” Read more at Washington Post
Huge email breach
Photo Illustration: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
“Rackspace Technology, one of the largest cloud and email hosting providers in the U.S., said a ransomware attack is to blame for a massive outage that's kept some customers out of their email inboxes since Friday.
Why it matters: The crisis provides a window into the hidden world of email hosting, where clients entrust their deepest electronic secrets to third-party cloud providers for storage and protection, writes Sam Sabin, author of Axios Codebook.
Threat level: Data on Rackspace's servers could include archived email messages and contact lists.
The ransomware attack has Rackspace scrambling to get some of its hosting services back online and left customers without access to their email inboxes over the weekend.
Kevin Beaumont, a security researcher and former Microsoft employee, estimates thousands of small-to-medium-sized businesses are affected by the outage.
A handful of customers — from investment firms to waste management facilities — are sharing on LinkedIn that their emails are still down due to the incident.
Rackspace said yesterday it has hired a ‘leading cyber defense firm’ to investigate the attack, but the company is "unable to provide a timeline for restoration."
The company hasn't disclosed how hackers gained access to its systems, who is behind the attack or how much data they were able to access before deploying the ransomware.
Customers can set up email forwarding to an external email address for incoming emails, Rackspace said.” Read more at Axios
San Francisco makes U-turn on 'killer robots' plan
Image caption, A bomb disposal robot extends its arm
By Ben Derico
BBC News, San Francisco
San Francisco has reversed its decision to authorise police to use robots equipped with lethal weapons.
“The proposal, which was passed last week by the city's legislators, the board of supervisors, would have allowed police to access robots that can kill.
It had faced fierce criticism from civil liberties groups.
After voting unanimously to pause the proposal on Tuesday, the board sent the issue to committee for further review.
The measure would have allowed the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) to kill suspects with robots in extreme situations.
The vote came following a new California law requiring city police forces to keep inventories of military-grade equipment and seek approval for their use.” Read more at BBC
U.S. chip boom is just beginning
President Biden in Phoenix yesterday. Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP
“The national rush to bring home key inputs for the American economy got a huge boost from yesterday's announcement by Taiwan-based chip giant TSMC that it's tripling its investment in Arizona.
‘American manufacturing is back, folks,’ President Biden said at a TSMC construction site in Phoenix.
TSMC's announcement is the latest in a string of high-profile investment plans from computer chip companies, Matt Phillips writes for Axios Markets:
Intel announced it would spend $20 billion on a new chip production facility near Columbus, Ohio, and has plans to spend a similar amount building out plants in Chandler, Arizona.
Samsung floated the possibility that it could follow a previously announced $17 billion investment in chip production in Austin, with up to $200 billion on 11 plants in the area, Bloomberg reports.
Apple CEO Tim Cook spoke at the White House event in Phoenix yesterday. Photo: Ross D. Franklin/AP
The big picture: The last few years of economic disarray — broken supply chains, inflation, war in Ukraine, growing tensions with China — upended the globalization that emerged after the Cold War.
COVID sparked global government scrambles for essentials — first masks and vaccines, then semiconductors, and now oil and gas.” Read more at AXIOS
Calling a bull
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
“What goes down must go up. That's the message being sent by big global investors managing trillions of dollars in savings and retirement funds, Axios chief financial correspondent Felix Salmon writes.
Why it matters: Most investors think we're either in a recession already, or that one is inevitable. But that doesn't mean they're pessimistic when it comes to the markets.
A Goldman Sachs analysis of hedge funds and mutual funds with $5 trillion of assets under management shows they're betting the bear market is over.
The funds are betting on growth stocks that should outperform if the economy avoids a recession entirely.
By the numbers: Less than 15% of U.S. investors think we're going to avoid a recession, according to a survey out today from investment manager Natixis.
But more than half of global investors see a ‘safe landing,’ according to the survey.
The bottom line: The market isn't the economy, and investors are beginning to think stocks have already bottomed out.
Stock market investors expect returns of about 8% next year. Bond market investors expect growth of around 7%.
82% of investors believe crypto will continue to underperform in 2023.” Read more at Axios
Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images
“More than two dozen disappointed Swifties have filed a class action lawsuit accusing Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, of fraud, misrepresentation and antitrust violations over its botched Taylor Swift Eras Tour ticket sale.” Read more at NPR
Pearl Harbor Day
Photo: AP
“Above: 81 years ago today, a small boat rescues a USS West Virginia crew member from the water after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, pushing the U.S. into World War II.
A handful of centenarian survivors of the attack will gather at Pearl Harbor today.
The youngest active-duty personnel on Dec. 7, 1941, would have been about 17 — making them 98 today.” Read more at Axios
1 fun thing: Apple karaoke
Image: Apple Music via AP
“Apple Music wants to help you and your friends sing along, with a new feature it's rolling out just as people gather for end-of-year parties:
Apple Music Sing lets you adjust a song's vocals, and gives an enhanced beat-by-beat, syllable-by-syllable lyric display, AP reports.
For duets, the lyrics switch from the left side of the screen to the right depending on who is singing.
Apple Music Sing will be available for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV later this month. A specific date wasn't given.” Read more at Axios