The Full Belmonte, 7/11/2022
Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, also known as the QAnon Shaman, seen before the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“Members of the House select committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol say the panel's next public hearing on Tuesday will focus on how the violent mob came together and the role of extremist groups in the deadly insurrection. ‘We are going to be connecting the dots during these hearings between these groups and those who were trying -- in government circles -- to overturn the election,’ Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. The congresswoman said the hearings will focus on connections between the Trump administration and militia groups such as the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Florida Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy, who also sits on the committee, told NBC Sunday that the panel could present evidence that members of Congress encouraged extremist groups to come to Washington on January 6, echoing former President Donald Trump's tweet the previous month that January 6 would ‘be wild.’ She called that tweet a ‘siren call’ for those groups.” Read more at CNN
“Former President DONALD TRUMP’s attorney JUSTIN CLARK interviewed with federal investigators two weeks ago, the Justice Department revealed in a court filing early Monday morning, a significant development that could reverberate in multiple investigations facing Trump’s inner circle.” More from Kyle Cheney at POLITICO
“Former US President Donald Trump’s decision to let his one-time chief strategist Steve Bannon speak to a House panel investigating the Capitol insurrection sets the stage for a new round of potentially dramatic testimony.” Read more at Bloomberg
Today's cover of The Guardian.
“‘The Uber Files,’ including 124,000+ leaked documents, reveal that the ride-share pioneer flouted laws, duped police and exploited drivers as it bulldozed into cities around the world, The Guardian reports.
When then-Vice President Biden was late to a Davos meeting, Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick texted a colleague: ‘I've had my people let him know that every minute late he is, is one less minute he will have with me.’
The Guardian shared the documents (2013-2017) with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a nonprofit networkthat coordinated simultaneous stories published around the world yesterday.
ICIJ said the files include WhatsApp texts, iMessages, ‘emails, invoices, briefing notes, presentations and other documents exchanged by top Uber executives, government bureaucrats and world leaders in nearly 30 countries.’
Uber said in a statement: ‘There has been no shortage of reporting on Uber's mistakes prior to 2017. Thousands of stories have been published, multiple books have been written—there's even been a TV series.’
‘It's ... exactly why Uber hired a new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, who was tasked with transforming every aspect of how Uber operates. ... We've moved from an era of confrontation to one of collaboration.’
‘We have not and will not make excuses for past behavior that is clearly not in line with our present values,’ the statement concludes. ‘Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we've done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.’
Devon Spurgeon, a spokesperson for Kalanick, said in a statement that he ‘never authorized any actions or programs that would obstruct justice in any country.’
What's next: More stories from the Uber Files will drop today.” Read more at Axios
Image caption, New recruits to the Ukranian army being trained by UK armed forces personnel at a military base near Manchester
“Ukraine plans a ‘million-strong army’ equipped with Nato weapons to retake the south of the country from occupying Russians, the defence minister says.
Retaking the areas around the Black Sea coast was vital to the country's economy, Oleksii Reznikov said.
However, the comments are more of a rallying cry than a concrete plan, says the BBC's Joe Inwood in Kyiv.
The defence minister's remarks come as Russia makes progress in taking territory in the eastern Donbas region.
An attack on a block of flats on Sunday killed at least 22 people - with more than 20 feared buried under the rubble.
Rescuers are still looking for survivors at the site of the five-storey building in Chasiv Yar, near the city of Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region which has been the focus of a Russian push.” Read more at BBC
“President Joe Biden will hold an event at the White House on Monday to celebrate the passage of a landmark gun violence prevention bill. Biden announced the event last month when he signed the bill into law, saying he would ‘mark this historic achievement’ alongside members of Congress who voted for the bill and families victimized by gun tragedies. Lawmakers passed the gun safety legislation after the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where a gunman opened fire at an elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers. The White House event comes a week after a Fourth of July parade shooting in Highland Park, Illinois, that left seven dead and dozens wounded.” Read more at USA Today
Yesenia Hernandez, second from left, granddaughter to Nicolas Toledo-Zaragoza, who was killed during Monday's Highland Park., Ill., Fourth of July parade, and an unidentified man, right, cry outside the Iglesia Emanuel Church during a private family viewing before the funeral service Friday, July 8, 2022, in Waukegan, Illinois.Charles Rex Arbogast, AP
“President Biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, as voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33 percent job-approval rating.
Widespread concerns about the economy and inflation have helped turn the national mood decidedly dark, both on Mr. Biden and the trajectory of the nation. More than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction, a pervasive sense of pessimism that spans every corner of the country, every age range and racial group, cities, suburbs and rural areas, as well as both political parties.” Read more at New York Times
“The Texas House Investigative Committee's preliminary report into the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde could be released within the next 10 days, and the committee's chairman is pushing for the report to include the critical 77 minutes of ‘hallway’ surveillance video, according to a source close to the committee. The chairman is not pushing for the release of any video showing victims or footage of violence, per this source. The shooting took place May 24, when a gunman killed 19 young students and two teachers inside a classroom before authorities breached the door more than an hour later. Rep. Dustin Burrows, the committee chairman, said on Twitter last week that he is prohibited from releasing the video because he signed a non-disclosure agreement with Texas Department of Public Safety. In his tweet, Burrows attached a letter to the DPS asking for permission to release the video, and a response from DPS denying the request.” Read more at CNN
Photo: Noah Berger/AP
“Above: A firefighter tries to protect a sequoia tree in Yosemite National Park, Calif., on Friday.
The Washburn wildfire is threatening hundreds of ancient giants in Yosemite's biggest grove of sequoias, which are the largest trees in the world. A sprinkler system kept the tree trunks moist.
The blaze more than doubled in size in a day, as firefighters braced for warmer and drier weather this week, the L.A. Times reports.” Read more at Axios
“Twitter hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz in preparation for suing Elon Musk to try to hold him to his $44 billion deal.
Why Delaware? Delaware is the corporate home to more than half of U.S. public companies, including Twitter, and more than 60% of the Fortune 500. Bloomberg explains why:
‘Chancery judges — business law experts — hear cases without juries and can't award punitive damages.’
‘[E]fforts to terminate a deal can play out within a few months, often ending with settlements.’
Choose your news ... Reuters: ‘Twitter has legal edge in deal dispute with Musk.’
Bloomberg: ‘Musk Effort to Kill Deal Leaves Twitter With Only Bad Options.’” Read more at Axios
“Bill Richardson, the former New Mexico governor and US Ambassador to the United Nations, is expected to travel to Russia soon to discuss securing the release of WNBA star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan, according to a source. The planned trip to Moscow by Richardson, who privately works on behalf of families of hostages and detainees, comes amid US government efforts to free the two Americans and mounting pressure to bring them home. Both Griner and Whelan are considered wrongfully detained by the US government, and their families have been working with the non-profit Richardson Center. News of the trip comes days after Griner, who has been detained in Russia since February after being arrested on drug smuggling charges, pleaded guilty in a court outside Moscow. She faces up to 10 years in prison. Whelan was arrested in 2018 on espionage charges he vehemently denies. He was sentenced in 2020 to 16 years in prison.” Read more at CNN
“A hearing is set for Monday in a challenge to Utah's abortion ban. The hearing comes as Third District Judge Andrew Stone blocked Utah’s trigger law from going into effect on June 27 for 14 days to allow time to hear arguments against the law. Planned Parenthood of Utah and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah filed a lawsuit on June 25, contending the 2020 law violates the state constitution's equal protection and privacy provisions. Under Utah's law, which bans most abortions with some limited exceptions, anyone found guilty of performing an abortion could face up to 15 years in prison. Utah’s Planned Parenthood resumed abortions at several locations since the judge halted the law, according to the Salt Lake Tribune.” Read more at USA Today
People attend an abortion-rights protest at the Utah State Capitol, Friday, June 24, 2022, in Salt Lake City.Rick Bowmer, AP
“At least 10 heat records were broken in cities across the Southwest and central U.S. over the weekend, and more could fall Monday and later this week amid continued forecasts of searing heat. Cities and towns in Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas all saw record highs on Friday and Saturday. Some broke temperature records set nearly a decade ago and others exceeded previous highs by up to six degrees. The high temperatures are largely the result of a ‘heat dome’ – a persistent region of high pressure trapping heat over the area.” Read more at USA Today
Yonny Hodges floats in the Lacy Park Pool, Friday, July 8, 2022 in Tulsa, Okla. It is the 5th day in a row for temperatures of 100 degrees Fahrenheit or more, the first time since July 2012.Mike Simons, AP
“The Army suspended a three-star general after he appeared to mock Jill Biden in a tweet about abortion rights.” Read more at USA Today
“Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa finally capitulated to protesters over the weekend by announcing his resignation, effective July 13. His prime minister, Ranil Wickremesinghe only appointed in May following the resignation of Rajapaksa’s brother Mahinda, also said he would leave his post.
The dramatic departures come after a weekend in which public protests, ongoing since March, boiled over. Hundreds of demonstrators stormed the presidential palace on Saturday, while others set Wickremesinghe’s house on fire.
Mahinda Yapa Abeywardena, the current speaker of parliament, is expected to step in as interim president before lawmakers select one of their own to serve out the remaining two years of Rajapaksa’s term.
And while Rajapaksa’s exit provides some level of accountability, the damage he and his family have inflicted on the country of 22 million will not be undone quickly. Disastrous economic policies have put Sri Lanka in a public debt crisis, and a decision to pay it off with the last of its foreign reserves has left little for necessities. The result has been massive shortages of basic goods, fuel, and medicine—and a growing anti-government revolt.
The country attempted to stanch the bleeding in May, defaulting on some of its debt for the first time in its history.
Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to receive up to $3 billion in loans ended with no clear resolution last month. After the weekend’s upheaval, the IMF said it was monitoring the current political situation and hoped to resume talks once it had reached a resolution.
Speaking to CNBC after the talks concluded last month, Shanta Devarajan, a Georgetown University professor and member of Sri Lanka’s negotiating team, said the two sides were ‘very close’ to taking a key step toward loan approval: an agreement with the IMF outlining the policies the country must undertake to bring down its deficit and restructure its debt.
With IMF resources on hold, Sri Lanka has been barely kept running by credit lines from neighboring India, which has provided $4 billion so far. It’s also renegotiating a currency swap worth $1.5 billion with China, but needs new terms after its low levels of foreign reserves breached the initial agreement, signed last year.
Outgoing Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe had planned on getting together the country’s main donors—India, China, and Japan—for a conference in August, but his departure puts that meeting in jeopardy.
In the short term, Sri Lanka is hoping that Indian tourists can provide some much-needed foreign currency. The government has already organized roadshows in five Indian cities next month to help revive its tourism industry.
Although the White House has made much of its shift to the Indo-Pacific, U.S. involvement has been minimal so far. On a visit to the country in late June, a U.S. Treasury team announced $120 million in financing for local businesses as well as $27 million for Sri Lanka’s dairy industry and $5.75 million in humanitarian assistance.
The debt domino. Sri Lanka’s default could be just one of many in emerging market countries this year, as the war in Ukraine, the coronavirus pandemic, and the rising value of the U.S. dollar combine to damage already weak economies. Bloomberg’s Sovereign Debt Vulnerability Scorecard finds that El Salvador, Ghana, Egypt, Tunisia, and Pakistan are the closest to following Sri Lanka.
The risk of cascading crises is why Western leaders need to focus not just on the war in Ukraine but the wider ‘global economic unwinding driven by the COVID-19 pandemic, climate breakdown, and degradation of the international political and economic system,’ Mark Malloch-Brown writes in Foreign Policy.
Countries like Sri Lanka that enter debt restructuring should, at a minimum ‘expect an immediate debt repayment standstill and ultimately debt reductions matched to a realistic plan for economic growth,’ Malloch-Brown writes.
‘But too many governments are looking away, trying to ride a wave of patriotism over Ukraine but without the vision, will, skill, or bandwidth to respond at scale on this other front, which threatens global stability perhaps as much as Russia’s invasion.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Japan’s election. Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party secured a decisive victory in Sunday’s upper house elections, which took place just days after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated on the campaign trail. The result means that Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will have enough control of both chambers to propose constitutional amendments.
Last Friday, Tobias Harris assessed Abe’s legacy and the country he has left behind.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Covid-19 cases in Shanghai continued to climb as parts of China’s financial hub face more rounds of mass testing, with new sub-variants providing a constant challenge to the nation’s zero-tolerance approach to the virus. The latest figures indicate that China’s spike in infections that began about a week ago has further to run — bad news after officials declared victory over Covid and praised their handling of a crisis that left China’s most global city locked down in May and June.” Read more at Bloomberg
Residents are tested for Covid-19 in Shanghai yesterday. Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
“Syria aid. U.N. Security Council members continue to work on a deal to allow external humanitarian aid deliveries to northern Syria after the group missed a deadline to extend the U.N. mandate on Sunday. Russia vetoed a one-year extension to the program on Friday, and was unable to garner support for an alternative six-month extension proposal. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield described the aid issue as one of ‘life-and-death’ and called the impasse a ‘a dark, dark day in the Security Council.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Attack in Donetsk. Rescue workers continue to sort through the rubble after a Russian rocket attack struck residential buildings in Chasiv Yar in Ukraine’s Donetsk region late Saturday. At least 15 people were killed in the attack, while 24 people are believed to be still trapped.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Political violence in Brazil. A local official from Brazil’s opposition Workers’ Party (PT) was shot dead on Saturday by a man shouting support for President Jair Bolsonaro. The two men killed each other in a shootout after the assailant entered the victim’s birthday party while brandishing a gun in the city of Foz de Iguaçu. The incident raises fears of political violence ahead of October’s presidential election, which has already been marked by Bolsonaro’s claims of fraud. Polls currently show PT candidate Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defeating Bolsonaro.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“The Uber files. French President Emmanuel Macron was named in an international investigation of car service Uber, which suggests the French leader personally intervened on behalf of the company to thwart local regulators while serving as economy minister. The report also highlights attempts to influence foreign governments from a number of former Obama administration officials as part of a lobbying campaign regarding regulation of the rideshare industry in the mid-2010s.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Gantz and Saar team up. Israel’s Justice Minister Gideon Saar and Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced a political partnership on Sunday ahead of November’s general election. Saar and Gantz, who head the New Hope and Blue and White parties, respectively, will hope to improve on the 14 seats their parties won in the March 2021 election.” Read more at Foreign Policy
“Russia’s former McDonald’s restaurants, now rebranded under new local ownership, are taking fries off the menu in some locations due to a potato shortage. Similar supply snags have already ensnarled fast-food chains in Japan and Kenya.
The potato variety needed to make the fries had a poor harvest in 2021, the company explained to TASS news agency, while sanctions made foreign imports unfeasible. The chain plans to have everything back to normal by the fall.
Russia’s agriculture ministry tried to assuage concerns of a wider shortage, saying in a statement that the market was ‘fully supplied.’” Read more at Foreign Policy
Photo: AFP via Getty Images
“Above: Serbia's Novak Djokovic, 35, holds the Wimbledon trophy in 2011, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, 2021 — and yesterday, after using steady brilliance to beat trick-shot-hitting, chattering Nick Kyrgios of Australia for a fourth straight championship in London.
Among men, only Roger Federer has more Wimbledon titles than Djokovic (eight). Only Rafael Nadal owns more Grand Slam trophies — 22, to Djokovic's 21. —AP Read more at Axios
Elena Rybakina celebrates with the Wimbledon trophy.PHOTO: MATTHEW CHILDS/REUTERS
“WIMBLEDON, England—In the fraught months leading up to Wimbledon, the organizers of the most famous tournament in tennis made the decision to ban players from Russia and Belarus. The choice was controversial for an individual sport, but the All England Club said it was a necessary response to the invasion of Ukraine.
What Wimbledon hadn’t counted on was crowning a women’s singles champion from Moscow.
But on Saturday, Elena Rybakina gave them no choice. Playing under the flag of Kazakhstan, which she has represented since 2018, she defeated Ons Jabeur of Tunisia in three sets, 3-6, 6-2, 6-2. In the process, Rybakina also became Kazakhstan’s first-ever major tennis champion.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
“Lives Lived: Susie Steiner, the author of the Manon Bradshaw detective novels, was declared legally blind from a rare disease months before she sold her first book. She died at 51.” Read more at New York Times