The Full Belmonte, 2/19/2022
“MOSCOW—Russia Saturday test-launched ballistic and cruise missiles in what it described as strategic deterrence exercises, a pointed reminder of its ability to wage nuclear war amid a standoff with the West over Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putinpersonally oversaw the launches from a command center alongside his Belarusian ally and counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, a Kremlin pool report said.
A combination of ballistic and cruise missiles was to be launched as part of the maneuvers, which involved the country’s strategic missile forces and the Black Sea fleet, the Kremlin said, according to Russia’s Defense Ministry television channel, Zvezda.
The exercises come as the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization warn that Russia, which has amassed between 169,000 and 190,000 military personnel near Ukraine and in Crimea, is preparing a massive attack on its neighbor. President Biden warned Friday that he expected Mr. Putin to invade Ukraine in the coming days, with targets including the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
On Saturday, leaders of the Russian-led breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas called on all able men to take up arms to defend their territory, in a move that could escalate tensions toward a full-scale war. Washington has warned that Moscow is looking for an excuse to start hostilities in the region, where roughly 14,000 people have died in fighting since Russia fomented a separatist uprising there in 2014, sending weapons and troops across the border.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
A Ukrainian service member at a training ground in an undisclosed location in the country, in a photo released by Ukrainian forces.
PHOTO: UKRAINIAN NAVAL FORCES/REUTERS
“Russian-backed separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine ordered a general military mobilization Saturday of all men ‘able to hold weapons in their hands’ as the Biden administration continued to warn that it believes Russia will attack Ukraine in the coming days and use a fabricated pretext to justify an invasion.
The leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic issued decrees, published on Russian state media, to take up arms after baselessly claiming that Ukraine was on the verge of launching an assault on the breakaway territories. There is no evidence to that claim as monitoring groups, U.S. intelligence and independent journalists and activists in the area all say it is false.
Late Friday, Donetsk leader Denis Pushilin and Luhansk's chief Leonid Pasechnik declared a general state of emergency and said they were evacuating civilians across the border to Russia amid escalating threats from Ukraine's military, another claim for which there does not appear to be any credible evidence.
Online investigations specialist website Bellingcat reported that timestamps on the rebel videos calling for the evacuations to Russia show the videos were recorded two days before the alleged – unverified – Ukraine threats, which separatists said included shelling, attacks on gas pipelines and preparations for chemical weapons attacks.” Read more at USA Today
“U.S. officials warn that a Russian attack on Ukraine is imminent.
They say it will include jet fighters, tanks, ballistic missiles and cyberattacks, with 169,000 to 190,000 troops massed near Ukraine and in Crimea. Military personnel numbered 100,000 on Jan. 30. Avoiding a war appears unlikely, according to experts, though the Biden administration is still trying diplomacy. The U.S. ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe called it ‘the most significant military mobilization in Europe since the Second World War.’ The Kremlin and Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Vice President Kamala Harris warned Russia leaders that the West would target ‘those who are complicit’ in any invasion.” Read more at New York Times
“Eastern Ukrainians cowered as shells blew out windows and hit schools and homes.” Read more at New York Times
“Russia’s troop buildup could be a sign that Vladimir Putin has become more reckless, some analysts say.” Read more at New York Times
“How did Ukraine become a flash point? Your questions, answered.” Read more at New York Times
“OTTAWA — The police warning boomed from speakers: ‘You must leave. You will be arrested.’
After weeks of a light-touch response followed by days of such warnings, as critics urged them to act, police in Canada’s national capital on Friday tramped through inches of snow and began closing in on self-styled ‘Freedom Convoy’ protesters, who have paralyzed the downtown area with their illegally parked big rigs, bringing ordinary movement through the city to a grinding halt and disrupting the lives of residents.
Ottawa’s Interim Police Chief Steve Bell told reporters that authorities had arrested at least 100 people for various offenses, including mischief, as of Friday afternoon. They included several convoy organizers and boosters. Police said they also had towed 21 vehicles.
Bell said officers were carrying out a ‘methodical and well-resourced plan’ and would work until ‘the residents and community have their entire city back.’ Police on Friday afternoon said in a tweet that some protesters were assaulting officers and trying to remove their weapons.” Read more at Washington Post
Stewart Rhodes has been charged with seditious conspiracy in the Capitol attack last year. (Susan Walsh/Associated Press)
“A second federal judge has ordered Stewart Rhodes, founder and leader of the extremist group Oath Keepers, to remain jailed pending trial on a charge of seditious conspiracy for allegedly guiding a months-long effort to use political violence to prevent the swearing-in of President Biden.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta of Washington on Friday denied Rhodes’s renewed request for bond pending a July trial, calling his case the most serious brought against nearly 750 federal defendants charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Rhodes is accused, with 10 other defendants, of coordinating travel, organizing into teams, undergoing paramilitary training, and staging weapons, ready ‘to answer Rhodes’ call to take up arms at Rhodes’ direction’ before, during and after Jan. 6 to prevent Biden’s inauguration, the indictment alleges.” Read more at Washington Post
“Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine for young children isn’t working well against Omicron so far.
U.S. health regulators delayed their review of the vaccine in children under 5 years old because, during testing, the initial two-dose series showed early signs of weakness against the new variant. An early look at data showed the vaccine to be effective against Delta while that was the dominant strain, but some vaccinated children developed Covid-19 after Omicron emerged. So few study subjects, whether vaccinated or unvaccinated, developed Covid-19 during testing thus far that the small number of Omicron cases made the vaccine appear less effective in an early statistical analysis. As more cases emerge, Pfizer’s shot might be shown to provide stronger protection against Omicron if the bulk of infections are in unvaccinated subjects.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“A federal judge in Washington ruled on Friday that three civil lawsuits against Donald J. Trump related to the attack on the Capitol last January were able to move forward, saying that the former president was not shielded by the normal protections of immunity or the First Amendment.
The ruling by the judge, Amit P. Mehta, meant that the plaintiffs in the suits — several members of Congress and police officers who served at the Capitol during the attack — will likely be able to seek information from Mr. Trump about the specific role he played in fostering the chaos at the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
If ultimately found liable, Mr. Trump could also be on the hook for financial damages.
Judge Mehta’s order capped a difficult week for Mr. Trump, one in which a judge in New York ruled that he had to answer questions from state investigators examining his company, the Trump Organization, for evidence of fraud. Officials at the National Archives also said that Mr. Trump had taken classified national security documents from the White House to his private club in Florida.
The lawsuits, all of which were filed last year, accused Mr. Trump of overlapping charges of conspiring with several others — people like his lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, his son Donald Trump Jr. and extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers militia — to sow doubts about the 2020 election, culminating in the violent storming of the Capitol. Judge Mehta allowed the suits to go ahead against the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, but dismissed them against Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump’s son.” Read more at New York Times
“The National Archives and Records Administration confirmed in a letter Friday that it found items marked classified in boxes of White House records that former president Donald Trump took with him to his Mar-a-Lago residence.
In a letter to Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), U.S. Archivist David S. Ferriero wrote that officials had ‘identified items marked as classified national security information within the boxes’ at Mar-a-Lago and had been in touch with the Justice Department over the matter.
The Washington Post reported last week that some of the Mar-a-Lago documents were marked as classified, including some at the ‘top secret’ level — a revelation that seemed likely to intensify the legal pressure that Trump or his staffers could face.
Ferriero’s letter, though, provides the first official confirmation of classified material being in the boxes, and it is likely to reignite calls that the Justice Department investigate to see how the information got out of secure facilities, and who might have seen it.” Read more at Washington Post
From left, Travis McMichael, William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, and Gregory McMichael during their state murder trial at at the Glynn County Courthouse in Brunswick, Ga. (Pool/Associated Press
“The defense team in the federal hate crimes trial of three White men convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery rested Friday after brief testimony from a single defense witness, setting the stage for closing arguments Monday in a case that hinges on whether the men were motivated by racial animus.
Prosecutors called 20 witnesses over four days this week in an attempt to establish a pattern of racist views from Gregory Michael, 66, Travis McMichael, 36, and William ‘Roddie’ Bryan, 52, who chased and killed Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, in a coastal Georgia subdivision in February 2020.
One of those witnesses, a White woman, broke down in tears Friday while describing being subject to racist harassment from Travis McMichael because she had dated a Black man.
By comparison, the defense called only Evelyn ‘Lindy’ Cofer, a longtime resident of Satilla Shores, where Arbery was killed. Cofer was an active participant in a Facebook chat group that often focused on neighborhood crime. She testified that she had reported a man might be living under a bridge in the community’s entrance.
Defense lawyers also played an audio recording in which Gregory McMichael reported the same man to the Glynn County police department, which they said demonstrated he was regularly vigilant about reporting suspicious activity.
Federal prosecutors must prove the McMichaels and Bryan were motivated to chase and intimidate Arbery because he was Black. But the defense lawyers have said the defendants suspected Arbery of break-ins and trespassing and had only sought to question him. Arbery was jogging on a public street when the three men cut him off in a pair of pickup trucks, leading to an altercation in which Travis McMichael fatally shot him.
The defendants are facing charges that they intimidated Arbery and interfered with his use of a public street, which is a hate crime charge. They are also charged with attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels are each facing an additional count of brandishing a firearm in a criminal act.
The three men are facing life sentences after being convicted of murder in the state trial; only Bryan would be eligible for parole, after 30 years.
Travis McMichael, who testified in his own defense during the state trial, did not take the stand in the federal trial. Prosecutors called a range of witnesses who lived near the defendants or worked with them. Several recounted the men making racist statements about Black people in text messages and social media posts, as well as in conversations.” Read more at Washington Post
“Thousands of Texans have had their absentee ballot applications denied as a result of regulations put in place under the state’s new election law, a jump in rejections that could force many older and disabled voters to either vote in person or not at all in primary elections early next month.
With a Friday deadline, election officials in the state’s most populous counties have rejected 10 percent — or 12,000 — of the absentee ballot applications received as of Thursday, according to voting data obtained by The New York Times. Officials said the rejection rate reflected a significant increase from past years, and most often because a voter failed to satisfy the new identification requirements.
‘It’s high, there’s no question,’ Bruce Sherbet, the election administrator for Collin County, northeast of Dallas, said of the number of rejections. Mr. Sherbet said his county typically rejects a handful of applications. This year, that number was roughly 300.
The Times tallied rejected applications in 12 of the 13 Texas counties with more than 400,000 residents. Bexar County, home to San Antonio, did not disclose its numbers. The total of rejected ballots could still change as applications were still arriving ahead of the Friday night deadline.” Read more at New York Times
“Holographic foil. Special ink designed to be sensitive to temperature changes. Nearly invisible ‘stealth numbers’ that can be located only using special ultraviolet or infrared lights.
Those are among the high-tech security features that would be required to be embedded on ballots under measures proposed in at least four states by Republican lawmakers — all promoters of false claims that the 2020 election was marred by mass fraud — in an attempt to make the ballots as hard to counterfeit as passports or currency.
But the specialized inks and watermarks also would limit the number of companies capable of selling ballot paper — potentially to just one Texas firm with no previous experience in elections that consulted with the lawmakers proposing the measures.
Mark Finchem, an Arizona state representative spearheading the initiative, said in an interview that he developed ideas for the proposals after discussions with executives of Authentix, a company in Addison, Tex. The firm has since hosted other GOP lawmakers at its office and given presentations about the idea to legislators in two states, according to participants and social media posts.
The proposals face stiff battles before they can become law, but they demonstrate the potentially lucrative business opportunities created by suspicions that Donald Trump and his allies have spread about the security of elections. They also vividly illustrate how a loose network of die-hard Trump supporters is coordinating to push concerns about mass electoral fraud, including through conference calls that one participant said have included regular discussion of the nearly identically worded anti-counterfeit bills.
There is no evidence that counterfeit or fake ballots have been a problem in American elections. Yet, when versions of the measure modeled on Finchem’s proposal were heard late last month by committees of the Virginia and Arizona state Senates, citizens lined up to tell lawmakers that they believed the 2020 presidential election had been rigged against Trump and that new measures were needed to prevent counterfeits.” Read more at Washington Post
“AUSTIN, Texas—Nineteen Austin police officers will face criminal charges stemming from their alleged misconduct during protests in the spring of 2020, the police union president said late Thursday.
Some Austin protesters and observers were wounded critically by bean bag munitions fired into crowds during protests following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
The specific charges that the Austin officers are facing aren’t yet public. District Attorney José Garza, whose office directed an investigation and grand jury review of their conduct, confirmed an unspecified number of indictments, but said he could offer no further details until those being charged had been booked.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Kim Potter listens Friday during a sentencing hearing in Minneapolis.
PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS
“Kim Potter was sentenced to two years in prison for fatally shooting Daunte Wright. The former Brooklyn Center, Minn., police officer testified that she had thought she was reaching for her stun gun but grabbed her handgun instead. She was convicted in December of first-degree manslaughter in the death of Wright, 20. The April 11 killing happened during the trial of ex-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the killing of George Floyd and is serving a sentence of 22.5 years.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The Senate unanimously passed a bill requiring Supreme Court justices and other federal judges to promptly post online their stock trades and financial holdings. The legislation requires the posts be made within 90 days of filings. This would allow litigants to learn about conflict-of-interest law violations, like those a Wall Street Journal investigation uncovered. The bill now goes to the House, which passed similar financial-disclosures legislation in December by a vote of 422-4.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The number of House Democrats not seeking reelection this year has hit a 30-year high — a bleak benchmark reflecting frustrations with the gridlock on Capitol Hill, the toxicity of relations between the parties and the challenges facing Democrats as they fight to keep their slim majority in the lower chamber.
Rep. Kathleen Rice’s (D-N.Y.) announcement this week that she won’t run again made her the 30th House Democrat to call it quits. That’s the most for the party since 1992, when 41 House Democrats decided to retire even as voters were sending their presidential nominee, Bill Clinton, to the White House.
It marks just the third time since 1978 that either party has seen at least 30 retirements in a single cycle, according to figures tallied by the non-partisan Brookings Institution. The last instance was just four years ago, in the 2018 midterms, when 34 House Republicans made for the exits. It was a grim sign of things to come: The GOP went on to lose 41 seats — and the House majority — in a Democratic wave widely viewed as a referendum on then-President Trump.
This year, it’s President Biden’s Democrats who face the difficult terrain. Between Biden’s sagging approval ratings, a stalled policy agenda in Congress, nationwide redistricting, and the historical trend that the incumbent president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections, the odds of winning the House are increasingly in the Republicans’ favor.” Read more at The Hill
“WASHINGTON—Virginia’s new Republican attorney general dropped his state’s effort to compel federal certification of the Equal Rights Amendment, saying the proposal’s ratification period expired decades ago and further litigation would be pointless.
The move by Attorney General Jason Miyares, in a court filing Friday, delivers a blow to a once largely uncontroversial effort to anchor equal rights regardless of sex in the Constitution, giving women equal footing in the workplace and before courts. The proposed amendment, supported by both political parties when it passed Congress in 1972, lost momentum in pursuit of the necessary ratifications as conservatives argued it could expose women to the military draft, disadvantage them in child-custody hearings, and ease arguments for abortion rights.
Congress initially set a seven-year window for ratification, later extending the deadline to 1981. That date passed with the proposal stalled at 35 state ratifications, three short of the 38 needed to make it part of the Constitution.
In 2017, Nevada sought to reanimate the amendment when its legislature ratified it, followed by Illinois. The Virginia Legislature took up the ERA in 2020, and over the objection of Mr. Miyares—then serving in the House of Delegates—approved the measure, marking its 38th ratification. The three states declared the Constitution amended, despite the expiration date and actions by several other states to rescind their previous approvals of the amendment.
When the U.S. archivist, David Ferriero, took no action to certify the ERA’s approval, Nevada, Illinois and Virginia sued to force him. After a federal district judge dismissed the suit in March 2021, citing the expired deadline, the three states appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, which has yet to take action. The Democratic attorneys general of Nevada and Illinois remain in the suit.
The text of the proposed amendment is brief: ‘Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,’ it reads. ‘The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.’
Katherine Franke, who directs the ERA Project at Columbia Law School, said the lawsuit against the archivist, even if successful, would do little to settle the status of the amendment.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“The lights are flickering on the U.S. electrical grid.
And it likely will get even less dependable, a Wall Street Journal review of federal data shows. In 2000, Americans experienced fewer than two dozen large, sustained outages, but 20 years later, that total shot up to more than 180. The disruptions can be blamed on aging transmission and distribution systems, extreme weather stressing the grid and a shift from coal, nuclear and gas-fired power plants to solar and wind.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
A multivehicle pileup occurred along a stretch of highway in Illinois as blizzard conditions and gusty winds swept across the region.PHOTO: AP
“A multicar pileup involving more than 100 vehicles shut down a 30-mile stretch of highway in Illinois as drivers contended with ice and snowy conditions amid a winter storm.
Illinois State Police closed Interstate 39 between Normal, Ill., and Minonk, Ill., in the state’s central region on Thursday night after the multivehicle collision brought the highway to a standstill, according to law-enforcement officials. Stranded motorists were escorted to warming centers, police said.
The pileup occurred as blizzard conditions and gusty winds swept across the region. Snowfall totals from Thursday’s storm ranged from 6 to 9 inches for the region, according to the National Weather Service.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“China Finds a New Way to Dominate the U.S. in South America
China has made an important shift in its approach to South America: going local to expand and strengthen its financial grip. Jonathan Gilbert, Andrew Rosati and Ethan Bronner explain how China has made itself the continent’s No. 1 trading partner.” Read more at Wall Street Journal“Architect Seeks to Bring Sustainability to a City Ravaged by War
Architect Omar Degan is on a mission to help transform the war-ravaged Somali capital, Mogadishu, by championing cultural heritage and buildings in tune with the environment. As Donna Abu-Nasr and Mohamed Sheikh Nor report, his designs have been showcased by the New York Times.” Read more at BloombergOmar Degan in Mogadishu.
Source: Omar Designs
“Hidden Brain Drain Poses Threat to Argentina’s Fragile Recovery
Argentina has suffered periodic brain drains during turbulent times, but unlike episodes in the 1980s or 2000s, many tech-savvy college grads today are quitting their jobs but not their homeland. Patrick Gillespie reports on why high-skilled employees are ditching positions with peso salaries for freelance work paid in dollars.” Read more at Bloomberg“Meet the Ex-Airline Chief Seeking to Topple New Zealand’s Ardern
Christopher Luxon, a former CEO of Air New Zealand and senior executive at Unilever, tells Tracy Withers that his real-world experience is what the country needs as he prepares to take on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the 2023 election.” Read more at Bloomberg“Climate change is seen as a bigger threat than war by a majority of people living in some of the world’s top economies, according to a poll conducted for the Munich Security Conference this weekend. The top three risks named by 12,000 respondents were global warming, habitat destruction and extreme weather.” Read more at Bloomberg
The Belchatow coal power plant in Poland on Feb. 13.
Photographer: Bartek Sadowski/Bloomberg
Dwight Howard of the Los Angeles Lakers in 2020.Kyle Terada-USA Today Sports
“N.B.A. slam dunk contest: It’s All-Star weekend for the N.B.A. The festivities go beyond basketball; celebrities pack the stands, and the musical lineup rivals the Super Bowl. But the highlight remains the slam dunk contest. The formula hasn’t changed in decades — contestants dunk, judges hold up score cards — but the jams seem to get more elaborate every year. Will there be costumes? Will someone jump over a car? 8 Eastern tonight on TNT.” Read more at New York Times