The Full Belmonte, 4/23/22
“Ukraine will again try to evacuate civilians from beleaguered Mariupol
Efforts to evacuate civilians to safer areas will continue in Ukraine Saturday, the nation's officials said. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on the Telegram messaging app there will be another attempt to evacuate women, children and the elderly from the strategic port city of Mariupol, which has been besieged by Russian forces for weeks and reduced largely to rubble. Capturing Mariupol is seen as central to what has been called a new phase of Russia's invasion, but thousands of Ukrainians remain in the Azovstal steel mill complex. Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops Thursday not to storm the stronghold but to seal it off. Another mass grave was found, this time in the village of Vynohradne, officials said Friday. The city council posted a satellite photo from Planet Labs showing what it said was a grave that could hold the bodies of at least 1,000 Mariupol residents. The discovery of mass graves has led to accusations that the Russians are trying to conceal the slaughter of civilians.” Read more at USA Today
“The Dow saw its worst one-day loss since October 2020. The index tumbled nearly 1,000 points, or 2.8%, capping its fourth straight week of losses. The S&P 500 also dropped 2.8%, while the Nasdaq fell 2.55%. All three indexes were down more than 1.8% for the week as company financial results, concerns about inflation and the Fed’s pace of monetary tightening weighed on investors.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, told G.O.P. lawmakers in the days after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol that former President Donald J. Trump acknowledged he bore ‘some responsibility’ for what happened that day, new audio revealed on Friday.
The audio obtained by The New York Times is part of a series of revelations about Republican leaders’ private condemnations of Mr. Trump in the days after his supporters stormed the Capitol.
Mr. McCarthy’s assertion would be the clearest indication yet that Mr. Trump may have admitted some measure of culpability for the deadly mob. The revelation comes as congressional investigators scour for evidence of Mr. Trump’s involvement in his supporters’ failed attempt to block the official certification of his loss in the 2020 election.
‘Let me be very clear to all of you, and I have been very clear to the president: He bears responsibilities for his words and actions,’ Mr. McCarthy told House Republicans on a Jan. 11 conference call. ‘No if, ands or buts.’
‘I asked him personally today: Does he hold responsibility for what happened?’ Mr. McCarthy said. ‘Does he feel bad about what happened? He told me he does have some responsibility for what happened and he’d need to acknowledge that.’
Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment, but in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Friday he said Mr. McCarthy’s claim that he had accepted some responsibility for the attack was ‘false.’
The recording of the meeting was obtained in reporting for the upcoming book ‘This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden and the Battle for America’s Future.’ The book, which details several private conversations between Republicans talking derisively about the former president, has quickly become an embarrassment and a potential political problem for Mr. McCarthy.On Thursday, The Times reported that Mr. McCarthy told his leadership team that he would call Mr. Trump and urge him to quit. Mr. McCarthy said that he would tell Mr. Trump of the impending impeachment resolution: ‘I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.’
Mr. McCarthy on Thursday called the report ‘totally false and wrong,’ but the claim was swiftly disproved when The Times published a recording of the call hours later. On Friday, he repeated the falsehood, telling reporters in Ridgecrest, Calif., ‘I never thought that he should resign.’
The exposure of Mr. McCarthy’s dishonesty comes at a pivotal moment in the 57-year-old Republican leader’s long-plotted rise to power. The Californian is widely expected to become the next speaker of the House of Representatives if Republicans take control of the chamber after the midterm elections, an outcome seen as highly likely by strategists in both parties. But he has long faced questions about his capacity to manage the unruly, ideologically fractious flock of lawmakers who make up the House Republican conference.Those lawmakers were looking to Mr. Trump on Friday to guide their response. Mr. Trump and Mr. McCarthy spoke on Thursday evening, a conversation first reported by The Washington Post.In private, Mr. Trump enjoyed watching Mr. McCarthy’s misfortune, according to four people who had spoken to him about the episode and asked for anonymity to discuss private conversations. In his view, the fact that Mr. McCarthy never asked him to resign, and instead reaffirmed his devotion, only illustrated the former president’s grip on his party, they said.’I think it’s all a big compliment, frankly,’ Mr. Trump told The Wall Street Journal.The once, and perhaps future, Republican standard-bearer has often been privately dismissive of Mr. McCarthy. And it could serve Mr. Trump’s purposes if Mr. McCarthy continues as House Republican leader — but as a weakened figure even more closely dependent on Mr. Trump’s approval.Mr. McCarthy is already a fragile figure atop the House Republican conference, embraced by the party’s various factions more out of convenience than fierce loyalty. Still, few lawmakers used the moment to criticize him on Friday.” Read more at New York Times
“Last year, the foundation that runs the sprawling Virginia estate that was the home of President James Madison announced what it called a groundbreaking agreement to share power with a group representing descendants of the hundreds of enslaved workers who built and maintained the plantation.
The agreement, held up as a model for other historic sites of enslavement, promised to give the descendants equal authority on the foundation’s board, making them ‘coequals in sharing governing power and responsibility for the very site that enslaved their ancestors,’ Gene Hickok, the board chairman, said in June 2021.
But after months of simmering conflict, the descendants’ group now accuses the majority-white board of thwarting that agreement to share control of Montpelier, the fourth president’s 2,650-acre estate, just outside Orange, Va.
A major breaking point came last month when the foundation’s board effectively stripped the descendants’ group, the Montpelier Descendants Committee, of the exclusive power to recommend representatives to serve on the board, and affirmed its own power to nominate those members….
Tensions came to a head this week when the foundation fired three staff members, including an executive vice president, prompting a rebuke by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which owns the property.
‘The National Trust has been working to achieve a resolution to the very public dispute between the foundation and the Montpelier Descendants Committee, but these and other recent actions by the foundation lead us to question whether a resolution is possible under the current leadership,’ the trust said in a statement.
Mr. Hickock said in a statement that the “actions taken this week were for repeated and disruptive violations of our employment policies.” He said the issues involved dated back more than 18 months and “have to do with employees ignoring or violating the policies of the foundation and continually seeking to undermine the management of the foundation.”
‘The atmosphere at Montpelier had become untenable and toxic, aggravated by misleading public statements made by the M.D.C. and by bias demonstrated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation,’ Mr. Hickock said. ‘Work was not getting done. Projects were being halted. Montpelier’s leadership could not allow that to continue.’
Matt Reeves, who was fired as the director of archaeology and landscape restoration after 22 years at Montpelier, rejected that characterization.
‘All of this is related to the board failing to recognize the partnership we’ve had with the descendant community for 20 years,’ Mr. Reeves said in an interview.
Montpelier had worked with descendants to present a more accurate picture of Madison and to reconcile his legacy as a slaveholder with his reputation as a founding father. A 2017 exhibition called ‘The Mere Distinction of Colour,’ for example, sought to illuminate the lives of enslaved workers at Montpelier and the political and economic factors that cemented slavery in the Constitution.” Read more at New York Times
“WASHINGTON — Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, on Friday repeated false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election as she defended her actions surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, in an extraordinary hearing that asked whether she should be labeled an ‘insurrectionist’ and barred from office under the Constitution.
While under oath at an administrative law hearing in Atlanta, Ms. Greene insisted that ‘a tremendous amount of fraudulent activity’ had robbed former President Donald J. Trump of his re-election, an assertion that has been soundly refuted by multiple courts, Republican-led recounts and Mr. Trump’s own attorney general, William P. Barr.
But despite her exhortations on social media to ‘#FightForTrump,’ she said she had possessed no knowledge that protesters intended to invade the Capitol on Jan. 6, or disrupt the congressional joint session called to count the electoral votes and confirm Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. She said she did not recall meeting with any of the instigators.
And Ms. Greene said neither she nor members of her staff had offered anyone tours of the Capitol complex before Jan. 6, 2021, nor had they provided anyone with a map of the complex, refuting tales of a conspiracy promoted by some Democrats that she had helped the rioters plan their attack.
‘I was asking people to come for a peaceful march, which is what everyone is entitled to do under their First Amendment,’ Ms. Greene testified. ‘I was not asking them to actively engage in violence.’
The contentious hearing unfolded after a group of constituents from her Northwest Georgia district, supported by liberal lawyers, filed suit to block Ms. Greene, a vigorously right-wing lawmaker, from appearing on the ballot for re-election. They charged that she had exhorted rioters to take up arms to block the certification of Mr. Biden’s election, and helped organize the assembly behind the White House on Jan. 6, 2021, that turned into a violent mob.
The legal case appeared to be on shaky ground as the administrative law judge, Charles R. Beaudrot, repeatedly sided with Ms. Greene’s lawyer, the prominent conservative election attorney James Bopp Jr., who maintained that much of the questioning violated his client’s right of free speech. Judge Beaudrot will make a recommendation on whether to bar Ms. Greene from the ballot, but the final decision will fall to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — the same official who resisted pressure from Mr. Trump to change the presidential election results in the state, and who faces a Trump-backed challenger, Representative Jody Hice, in the coming Republican primary.
But the proceeding afforded lawyers pressing the case against Ms. Greene to maintain their pressure and keep attention on her role on Jan. 6, and compel her to answer for it. The proceedings were broadcast on C-SPAN, live-streamed on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook and revealed a House Republican that was often peevish and sometimes on the defensive….
At the heart of the case against Ms. Greene is the plaintiffs’ claim that the congresswoman is disqualified from seeking re-election because her support of the rioters who attacked the Capitol made her an “insurrectionist” under the Constitution, and therefore barred her under the little-known third section of the 14th Amendment, which was adopted during the Reconstruction years to punish members of the Confederacy.
That section declares that ‘no person shall’ hold ‘any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath’ to ‘support the Constitution,’ had then ‘engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.’
Similar cases have suffered setbacks in North Carolina, where a federal judge blocked a challenge against Representative Madison Cawthorn, another far-right Republican, and in Arizona, where the Superior Court in Maricopa County ruled on Thursday that it did not have the authority to block the re-elections of two other conservative Republicans, Representatives Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and the candidacy for secretary of state of a state representative, Mark Finchem.
A separate effort is pending against Republicans, including Senator Ron Johnson, in Wisconsin.
But so far, only the case against Ms. Greene has been allowed to proceed. And on Friday, she was forced to answer questions under oath.” Read more at New York Times
“Tennessee might soon require drunken drivers to pay support to their victims’ kids. A first-of-its-kind bill passed by state lawmakers this week would allow courts to determine the appropriate amount to be paid when a driver is convicted of killing anyone with minor children. Lawmakmilar laws.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
“More than 4,300 children and teenagers died from gun-related injuries in 2020, surpassing vehicle crashes and drug overdoses as the leading cause of mortality among American youths.” [Vox] Read more at NBC News / Aria Bendix
“Researchers at the University of Michigan published that finding in the New England Journal of Medicine, drawing on mortality data recently released by the CDC.” [Vox] Read more at NEJM / Jason E. Goldstick, Rebecca M. Cunningham, and Patrick M. Carter
“The researchers found that gun-related deaths among those younger than 20 years old in 2020 jumped 29 percent from the previous year.” [Vox] Read more at Forbes / Nina Shapiro
“They also found the number of gun-related injuries among children and teens began to closely mirror the number of vehicle crash-related injuries — the leading cause of mortality among youths at the time — sometime after 2017.” [Vox] Read more at The Hill / Shirin Ali
“The authors also called for sustained federal anti-gun violence funding, writing, ‘we continue to fail to protect our youth from a preventable cause of death.’” [Vox] Read more at BBC
“The US saw the largest year-over-year rise in firearms-related deaths on record in 2020. At least 45,222 people died of gunshot wounds, a 14 percent jump from the year before.” [Vox] Read more at The Trace / Jennifer Mascia
“Europe thinks tech companies should take more responsibility for harmful posts. EU lawmakers began negotiations Friday on the Digital Services Act, which includes standards for taking down illegal content, dealing with user complaints and vetting the identities of third-party sellers. Online platforms with more than 45 million European users would also be expected to complete annual risk assessments and share more information about their algorithms.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Macron, Le Pen face off in France's presidential election
French President Emmanuel Macron, the centrist incumbent up for reelection, will face off against far-right candidate Marine Le Pen in a winner-takes-all runoff for the French presidency Sunday. Macron faced Le Pen in the presidential runoff five years ago, but polls show Le Pen is much closer to a potential victory this time. Macron has invested efforts in trying to draw in young voters who supported more politically extreme candidates in the first round of the election, with a rally on climate action early last week. Meanwhile, Le Pen has spent the past few years trying to rebrand as less extreme but remains intent on rolling back rights for Muslims and drastically reducing immigration, policies Macron warns to be racist and dangerous. If victorious, Le Pen would become France's first female president in her third attempt at the seat.” Read more at USA Today
“The airplane passenger Mike Tyson punched Wednesday night has a long criminal record, according to court records.
Melvin Townsend III of Punta Gorda, Florida was listed in 2019 as having ‘habitual felony offender status,’ when he was sentenced to 25 months for grand theft, according to court records with the Clerk of Circuit Court in Charlotte County, Florida.
Townsend, 36, also has been convicted of fraud by identity theft, trafficking in property known to be stolen, use or possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of a controlled substance without a prescription, court records show.
The conviction of grand theft property of more than $300 but less than $5,000 stemmed from an incident in which Townsend stole a trailer by hitching it to his truck and later told police, ‘I am sorry for everything and I was going to return the records,’’ according to court records.
Video footage published Thursday by TMZ showed Tyson, the 55-year-old former champion boxer, punching Townsend on a Jet Blue flight at San Francisco International Airport bound for Miami after Townsend apparently badgered Tyson.” Read more at USA Today
“Memorial service, vigil set for former NFL QB Dwayne Haskins
A service will be held Saturday to honor Dwayne Haskins, the former NFL and Ohio State quarterback who died on April 9 at 24 when he was hit by a dump truck in Florida. The service will take place in Rockaway Township, New Jersey, where Haskins was born and raised until his high school years. A vigil is also planned for Sunday night at Haskins' high school in Potomac, Maryland. Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin, former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer and current Ohio State coach Ryan Day were among the several hundred mourners who attended an emotional 90-minute memorial service in Pittsburgh Friday. Haskins spent the 2021 season with the Steelers. Haskins' parents said in a statement to USA TODAY Sports that they were not attending the Friday service. ‘We have never met or spoken to the wife (Kalabrya), and we didn't want our son's funeral service to be the place we met her for the first time,’ Dwayne Sr. and Tamara Haskins said.” Read more at USA Today
Houston Gamblers quarterback Clayton Thorson.Butch Dill/Associated Press
“The U.S.F.L., a new (old) football league: Part nostalgia play, part technological test grounds, the U.S.F.L. had its grand reopening under new management last weekend. The league first appeared in the 1980s as an off-season alternative to the N.F.L. It launched the pro careers of Herschel Walker and Doug Flutie, and Donald Trump owned a team.
In its new form, the U.S.F.L. is a showcase for emerging football technology. Trackers can spot where a ball is down. Camera angles include first-person views from helmets and aerials from drones flying around the field. And next season, the league says, that glowing first-down line, standard on N.F.L. broadcasts, may actually appear on U.S.F.L. fields. Noon Eastern today on Fox, and 3 p.m. tomorrow on NBC.” Read more at New York Times
