reACTIONary
reACTIONary's JournalSantos's Lies Were Known to Some Well-Connected Republicans
Source: New York Times (No Paywall)
George Santos inspired no shortage of suspicion during his 2022 campaign, including in the upper echelons of his own party, yet many Republicans looked the other way.
Some of Mr. Santos’s own vendors were so alarmed after seeing the study in late November 2021 that they urged him to drop out of the race, and warned that he could risk public humiliation by continuing. When Mr. Santos disputed key findings and vowed to continue running, members of the campaign team quit, according to three of the four people The New York Times spoke to with knowledge of the study.
The episode, which has not been previously reported, is the most explicit evidence to date that a small circle of well-connected Republican campaign professionals had indications far earlier than the public that Mr. Santos was spinning an elaborate web of deceits, and that the candidate himself had been warned about just how vulnerable those lies were to unraveling.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/13/nyregion/george-santos-republicans-lies.html?unlocked_article_code=GTdewFz2g4ypaAHi7CQ4ysrjEBsqY9iV2G-mirmHXyXzMkOCUPRTnS4QgZRGj9eWx_-R_SGaArUrzBzaMe2_G88qXRrcVzBezWeQpAjQeFZQDRGyF2hUf3ITHgqE1EHVbY3xCXR01X4LXbLYamN0
Justice Department clears Postal Service to carry abortion drugs into red states
Source: Politico
The Justice Department has cleared the U.S. Postal Service to deliver abortion drugs to states that have strict limits on terminating pregnancy, and has offered limited assurances that a federal law addressing the issue won’t be used to prosecute people criminally over such mailings.
A legal opinion, from Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel, concludes that a nearly 150-year-old statute aimed at fighting “vice” through the mail is not enforceable against mailings of abortion drugs as long as the sender does not know that the drugs will be used illegally.
“We conclude that [the statute] does not prohibit the mailing, or the delivery or receipt by mail, of mifepristone or misoprostol where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully,” OLC chief Christopher Schroeder wrote in the 21-page opinion posted online Tuesday.
“There are manifold ways in which recipients in every state may use these drugs, including to produce an abortion, without violating state law,” Schroeder added. “Therefore, the mere mailing of such drugs to a particular jurisdiction is an insufficient basis for concluding that the sender intends them to be used unlawfully.”
Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/03/justice-department-postal-abortion-drugs-00076274
2 Charged in Attacks on Substations in Washington State
Source: New York Times, No Paywall
One man told law enforcement officials that he and another person had planned to disrupt power in the area to commit a burglary, according to court documents. The attacks left thousands without power.
Two men were charged on Tuesday in connection with attacks on four power substations in Washington State on Dec. 25 that left thousands without power, a crime that the authorities said had been intended as a ruse so that the men could burglarize a local business.
The men, Matthew Greenwood, 32, and Jeremy Crahan, 40, of Puyallup, Wash., were arrested on Dec. 31 after an investigation led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Both were charged on Tuesday with conspiracy to damage energy facilities and possession of an unregistered firearm, the Justice Department said.
After he was arrested, Mr. Greenwood told law enforcement officials that he and Mr. Crahan had been planning to disrupt power in the area to commit a burglary, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Western District of Washington. Mr. Greenwood said that he and Mr. Crahan broke into the four substations by using bolt cutters. The men caused the outages using various methods, including manipulating breakers and tampering with switches, according to court documents.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/us/power-substation-attacks-arrest-washington.html?unlocked_article_code=fKiDoTbOBuDY4AOuz-of84sriEYnWnlky1iHYo2iVkPuDFLiY5axxfpUJ2B255_ErVEqXIrVl6fTvFfLRfaAE2YNwDesPoEGO3dS_IbtL_M9-d8_gmSoRhVv-rPQbnAZAXmVdHJOE7JClmuEEqgaMwDU7wKROBmy_iZQCBZJhhdOyD0xX9VtsA14ME2t3WYM73dJ1CPGgqHg_Jdn4R8_Z40FSzZrU8UVLjui1abxokUeWm9OlWLwbY3mRI6vmr9oeUjWfqFu3W-QIbPS_Ea5tT0LCjOqkFg9-561azfPN-HR1QBM03CocGAb11hRD8FpaXmvFGMFojmv1-m6sWuB67JZp5NIMZ-vVXqrTmUVZg&smid=share-url
A tiny paper broke the George Santos scandal, but no one paid attention
https://wapo.st/3CcFuVJMonths before the New York Times published a December article suggesting Rep.-elect George Santos (R-N.Y.) had fabricated much of his résumé and biography, a tiny publication on Long Island was ringing alarm bells about its local candidate.
The North Shore Leader wrote in September, when few others were covering Santos, about his “inexplicable rise” in reported net worth — from essentially nothing in 2020 to as much as $11 million two years later.
The story noted other oddities about the self-described gay Trump supporter with Jewish heritage, who would go on to flip New York’s 3rd Congressional District from blue to red, and is now under investigation by authorities for misrepresenting his background to voters.
“Interestingly, Santos shows no U.S. real property in his financial disclosure, although he has repeatedly claimed to own ‘a mansion in Oyster Bay Cove’ on Tiffany Road; and ‘a mansion in the Hamptons’ on Dune Road,” managing editor Maureen Daly wrote in the Leader. “For a man of such alleged wealth, campaign records show that Santos and his husband live in a rented apartment, in an attached rowhouse in Queens.”
https://wapo.st/3CcFuVJ
Defenestration Update...
Pavel Antov, a Russian lawmaker and businessman who made his fortune in the sausage industry, died after falling from the third floor of his hotel room while on vacation in India — the latest Russian businessman to die under mysterious circumstances this year.
https://wapo.st/3YWBmTQ
Moorish Americans take over a rural gun range, sparking a strange showdown
.... after county officials took action, deeming the site an unlawful firing range and filing an injunction to stop it from operating in September, that events took several unexpected turns. That was when a group calling itself Moorish Americans — an offshoot of the extremist “sovereign citizen” movement whose members believe they are immune from dealings with U.S. legal and financial systems — essentially took over the range, declaring it “protected under the consular jurisdiction of Morocco.”
There followed arrests, flurries of spurious legal documents and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, all to the accompaniment of what neighbors describe as an ongoing din of gunfire on weekends. Things escalated last week when sheriff’s deputies raided the property, seizing what Bell said were about a dozen firearms.
The saga in Welcome, an agglomeration of tumbledown farmhouses and newly built homes roped together by winding country roads, highlights several enduring American loves: Guns, conspiracy theories, property rights and fruitless litigation.
https://wapo.st/3vjUbTm
Former Anti-Abortion Leader Alleges Another Supreme Court Breach
Source: New York Times, No Paywall
Both court decisions were triumphs for conservatives and the religious right. Both majority opinions were written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. But the leak of the draft opinion overturning the constitutional right to abortion was disclosed in the news media by Politico, setting off a national uproar. With Hobby Lobby, according to Mr. Schenck, the outcome was shared with only a handful of advocates.
........
Mr. Schenck recruited wealthy donors like Mrs. Wright and her husband, Donald, encouraging them to invite some of the justices to meals, to their vacation homes or to private clubs. He advised allies to contribute money to the Supreme Court Historical Society and then mingle with justices at its functions. He ingratiated himself with court officials who could help give him access, records show.
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/19/us/supreme-court-leak-abortion-roe-wade.html?unlocked_article_code=rPLXnkL-A_KhgGTpQt-kGSTyOTnwhaX9xT5EmtOEhuybSkCYR1txiOgiKtJWJfbByQgyeJNMZs_tFirkFLFQ38oc1Wk2Hl-P0BrpWZvJqioLH8k1gF2GiW_2Hoe8SGo5d4SpWaHumms0bc-OzIal
Found on Facebook...
... ironically enough.
Mark Zuckerberg Is No Longer One Of The 10 Richest Americans
Oh well.
Co-founder of Trump's media company details Truth Social's bitter infighting
Source: Washington Post (No Paywall)
Will Wilkerson, one of Trump Media & Technology Group’s first employees, alleges the company violated securities laws and that Trump pressured executives to hand over their shares to his wife. He shared a cache of internal documents with The Post and federal investigators that he says support his claims.
Will Wilkerson, then an executive at former president Donald Trump’s start-up Trump Media & Technology Group, was at a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., coffee shop with company co-founder Andy Litinsky last October when Trump called Litinsky with a question: Would he give up some of his shares to Trump’s wife, Melania?
Litinsky tried to brush it off, telling Trump “the gift would have meant a huge tax bill he couldn’t pay,” Wilkerson said in an interview. “Trump didn’t care. He said, ‘Do whatever you need to do.’ ”
Five months later, Litinsky ... was abruptly removed from the company’s board. Wilkerson said he believes it was payback for his refusal to turn over a small fortune to the former president’s wife.
Read more: https://wapo.st/3D0g4eQ
Republicans are not heeding this message: Winning is not all about the base.
Independent voters don’t want mini-Trumps, are bored by Biden. Researchers who study independents advise ‘elections are won in the middle,’ even though many Republicans are not heeding the message. Independents will make or break Biden and the Democrats in November. Winning is not all about the base.
“First, the base will turn out. It always does in both parties. Second, elections are won in the middle,”
https://wapo.st/3CBrEMf
Conservatives outnumbered liberals by nine percentage points in 2016 and by 14 percent in 2020, according to exit polling data. After narrowly winning independents in 2016, Trump lost them to Biden by 13 percentage points four years later, ending his chances of a second term.
“Only one other major party presidential candidate has lost independents by a larger margin than Trump — Walter Mondale in 1984,” Winston wrote.
https://rollcall.com/2022/09/14/independents-will-make-or-break-biden-and-the-democrats-in-november/
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