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Celerity
Celerity's Journal
Celerity's Journal
September 30, 2023
This November’s races in Virginia are shaping up to be the wildest—complete with a streaming sex scandal—and most consequential in ages, as Glenn Youngkin and his GOP allies might get the power to push further right on everything from abortion to education.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/could-virginia-become-florida-20-legislative-races
https://archive.ph/xX2kF
It is exceedingly rare—as in, it basically never happens—that a first-time candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates becomes internationally famous. Yet last week, Susanna Gibson—nurse practitioner, mother of two, and Democrat from suburban Richmond—made headlines around the world after The Washington Post revealed that Gibson and her husband had performed sex acts for a live online audience. In at least two of the videos, the Post reported, Gibson told viewers she was “raising money for a good cause.”
Whether that “cause” was her campaign is unclear. In Gibson’s only public statement since the news broke, she quickly and deftly spun the controversy, claiming that she was the victim of a political dirty trick and of revenge porn. Her Republican opponent, a housing developer named David Owen, said his campaign had nothing to do with the videos surfacing. “I’m sure this is a difficult time for Susanna and her family,” Owen said, “and I’m remaining focused on my campaign.”
However the legalities of Gibson’s exposure may play out—her attorney has suggested that circulating the videos breaks the state’s revenge porn law—the episode is adding complexity to what was already a close and crucial race in an off-year election cycle with enormous stakes. All 140 of Virginia’s legislative seats are on the ballot; adding to the uncertainty is the fact that this will be the first election held with newly redistricted lines. “Without hyperbole, these are the most important, most unpredictable legislative races we’ve ever seen in Virginia, at a very strange time on the national calendar,” says David Mills, a former executive director of the Virginia Democratic Party. “Until we see the results in November, no one knows quite what to make of it.”
In-person early voting begins Friday. Roughly 20 contests are likely to determine whether Republicans gain control of both houses of Virginia’s legislature—and give Republican governor Glenn Youngkin the power to steer the state even further to the right on everything from abortion to school curriculum. “State Republicans were essentially one vote away from passing the abortion ban earlier this year,” says Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who grew up in Virginia and has worked campaigns in the state. “Which makes it happening with a Republican majority more than a theoretical threat.” Youngkin also has plenty at stake personally: Victory in the state this November would set him up nicely to become a Republican presidential contender in 2028. The governor’s PAC has been setting records, taking in $8.5 million this year, with much of the case being funneled toward legislative races.
snip
Could Virginia Become the Next Florida? It May Come Down to 20 Legislative Races
This November’s races in Virginia are shaping up to be the wildest—complete with a streaming sex scandal—and most consequential in ages, as Glenn Youngkin and his GOP allies might get the power to push further right on everything from abortion to education.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/could-virginia-become-florida-20-legislative-races
https://archive.ph/xX2kF
It is exceedingly rare—as in, it basically never happens—that a first-time candidate for Virginia’s House of Delegates becomes internationally famous. Yet last week, Susanna Gibson—nurse practitioner, mother of two, and Democrat from suburban Richmond—made headlines around the world after The Washington Post revealed that Gibson and her husband had performed sex acts for a live online audience. In at least two of the videos, the Post reported, Gibson told viewers she was “raising money for a good cause.”
Whether that “cause” was her campaign is unclear. In Gibson’s only public statement since the news broke, she quickly and deftly spun the controversy, claiming that she was the victim of a political dirty trick and of revenge porn. Her Republican opponent, a housing developer named David Owen, said his campaign had nothing to do with the videos surfacing. “I’m sure this is a difficult time for Susanna and her family,” Owen said, “and I’m remaining focused on my campaign.”
However the legalities of Gibson’s exposure may play out—her attorney has suggested that circulating the videos breaks the state’s revenge porn law—the episode is adding complexity to what was already a close and crucial race in an off-year election cycle with enormous stakes. All 140 of Virginia’s legislative seats are on the ballot; adding to the uncertainty is the fact that this will be the first election held with newly redistricted lines. “Without hyperbole, these are the most important, most unpredictable legislative races we’ve ever seen in Virginia, at a very strange time on the national calendar,” says David Mills, a former executive director of the Virginia Democratic Party. “Until we see the results in November, no one knows quite what to make of it.”
In-person early voting begins Friday. Roughly 20 contests are likely to determine whether Republicans gain control of both houses of Virginia’s legislature—and give Republican governor Glenn Youngkin the power to steer the state even further to the right on everything from abortion to school curriculum. “State Republicans were essentially one vote away from passing the abortion ban earlier this year,” says Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist who grew up in Virginia and has worked campaigns in the state. “Which makes it happening with a Republican majority more than a theoretical threat.” Youngkin also has plenty at stake personally: Victory in the state this November would set him up nicely to become a Republican presidential contender in 2028. The governor’s PAC has been setting records, taking in $8.5 million this year, with much of the case being funneled toward legislative races.
snip
September 30, 2023
A judge has ruled he engaged in years of massive fraud.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/trumps-lying-about-everything-may-cost-trump-tower
https://archive.ph/XElnl
Unless you were dropped on earth just 24 hours ago, you obviously know that Donald Trump is famous for lying about everything all the time, and that he has been telling lies for basically his entire life. He lies about dumb stuff, like that he invented the phrase “prime the pump” and that he was named “Michigan’s Man of the Year.” He lies about serious stuff, like that he saw “thousands” of supposed terrorist sympathizers “cheering” from New Jersey as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11. He told lies before he was president (sometimes by pretending to be his own spokesman, John Barron), he told lies when he was president (by The Washington Post’s count, a whopping 30,573 “false or misleading claims”), and he’s continued to tell lies since becoming an ex-president (see: the business about having won the 2020 election). At this point, his inability to open his mouth without 47 lies flying out should really be studied by a team of multidisciplinary scientists who can dedicate their life’s work to figuring out what is wrong with him.
Incredibly, the vast majority of Trump’s lies have never actually hurt him in the slightest. After all, he was elected president of the United States in 2016 and is currently the front-runner—by a landslide—for the GOP nomination. But on Tuesday, a specific set of falsehoods very much came back to bite him in the ass: the ones he told about his real estate holdings as owner of the Trump Organization. We speak, of course, of the explosive ruling issued by Judge Arthur Engoron, who declared—as part of a suit brought by the New York attorney general—that Trump, his two adults sons, and the Trump Organization committed years of fraud by hugely inflating the businesses’ assets (and Trump’s net worth), which led to better loan terms and lower insurance costs. Among the most absurd examples: Engoron found that Trump repeatedly overvalued Mar-a-Lago, and in one instance did so on a financial statement by as much as, wait for it, 2,300%. While an outside appraisal put the value of the Palm Beach club at approximately $28 million, due to restrictions on how the property can be used, the Trump Organization claimed it was worth as much as $612 million.
In another instance, Trump claimed his triplex at Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet—and valued it at $327 million based on that size—when it is actually only about 10,000. Which, y’know, is a pretty big difference. “A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” Engoron wrote, according to The New York Times. Elsewhere, the judge responded to Team Trump’s various defenses of its business practices by writing: “In defendants’ world, rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air…. That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”
As New York magazine notes, Engoron “ordered that the business certificates that allowed the family’s limited liability companies to operate in New York be rescinded and that independent receivers be put in place to manage them. This could mean that Trump will lose control over the iconic properties that bear his name such as Trump Tower, as well as make it more difficult for the former president to do business in his home state.” On top of all that, five defense lawyers were fined $7,500 a piece for making “frivolous” arguments that the judge had already rejected. As Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter David Cay Johnston notes, “A judge calling a lawyer’s argument ‘frivolous’ is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar.”
snip
Trump's Habit of Lying About Everything All the Time May Cost Him Trump Tower
A judge has ruled he engaged in years of massive fraud.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/trumps-lying-about-everything-may-cost-trump-tower
https://archive.ph/XElnl
Unless you were dropped on earth just 24 hours ago, you obviously know that Donald Trump is famous for lying about everything all the time, and that he has been telling lies for basically his entire life. He lies about dumb stuff, like that he invented the phrase “prime the pump” and that he was named “Michigan’s Man of the Year.” He lies about serious stuff, like that he saw “thousands” of supposed terrorist sympathizers “cheering” from New Jersey as the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11. He told lies before he was president (sometimes by pretending to be his own spokesman, John Barron), he told lies when he was president (by The Washington Post’s count, a whopping 30,573 “false or misleading claims”), and he’s continued to tell lies since becoming an ex-president (see: the business about having won the 2020 election). At this point, his inability to open his mouth without 47 lies flying out should really be studied by a team of multidisciplinary scientists who can dedicate their life’s work to figuring out what is wrong with him.
Incredibly, the vast majority of Trump’s lies have never actually hurt him in the slightest. After all, he was elected president of the United States in 2016 and is currently the front-runner—by a landslide—for the GOP nomination. But on Tuesday, a specific set of falsehoods very much came back to bite him in the ass: the ones he told about his real estate holdings as owner of the Trump Organization. We speak, of course, of the explosive ruling issued by Judge Arthur Engoron, who declared—as part of a suit brought by the New York attorney general—that Trump, his two adults sons, and the Trump Organization committed years of fraud by hugely inflating the businesses’ assets (and Trump’s net worth), which led to better loan terms and lower insurance costs. Among the most absurd examples: Engoron found that Trump repeatedly overvalued Mar-a-Lago, and in one instance did so on a financial statement by as much as, wait for it, 2,300%. While an outside appraisal put the value of the Palm Beach club at approximately $28 million, due to restrictions on how the property can be used, the Trump Organization claimed it was worth as much as $612 million.
In another instance, Trump claimed his triplex at Trump Tower was 30,000 square feet—and valued it at $327 million based on that size—when it is actually only about 10,000. Which, y’know, is a pretty big difference. “A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud,” Engoron wrote, according to The New York Times. Elsewhere, the judge responded to Team Trump’s various defenses of its business practices by writing: “In defendants’ world, rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air…. That is a fantasy world, not the real world.”
As New York magazine notes, Engoron “ordered that the business certificates that allowed the family’s limited liability companies to operate in New York be rescinded and that independent receivers be put in place to manage them. This could mean that Trump will lose control over the iconic properties that bear his name such as Trump Tower, as well as make it more difficult for the former president to do business in his home state.” On top of all that, five defense lawyers were fined $7,500 a piece for making “frivolous” arguments that the judge had already rejected. As Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter David Cay Johnston notes, “A judge calling a lawyer’s argument ‘frivolous’ is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar.”
snip
September 29, 2023
The GOP front-runner’s “treason” talk makes clear, yet again, that he’s a danger to democracy.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/donald-trump-democracy-media-2024-election
https://archive.ph/KYusj
In late September 2016, Salena Zito wrote glowingly in The Atlantic about Donald Trump on the campaign trail in Pittsburgh and famously postulated that “the press takes him literally, but not seriously,” while “his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Leaving aside Zito’s kid-glove treatment of Trump, she wasn’t wrong about the media, which even now—a chaotic presidency, a couple impeachments, an insurrection, and four criminal indictments later—isn’t taking the former guy returning to power “seriously” enough. With the 2024 cycle in full swing, he’s being largely covered like a normal candidate rather than someone who tried to end democracy. As Trump recently tossed out wild accusations of “treason” this past weekend, The Nation’s Jeet Heer noted how the Drudge Report “is more accurately conveying the gravity of Trump’s threat to USA democracy than the mainstream media.”
I can’t speak to what lurks in the hearts of political reporters and editors, but one has to wonder why there isn’t more coverage about Trump musing about sentencing the nation’s highest ranking general to death than, say, the age of the current president. “Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week. This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social, a day after an Atlantic story about how Milley, the soon-to-be-retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, had “protected the Constitution” from the former president.
“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump continued. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act. To be continued!!!” Oddly, Trump’s dangerous rant was not treated as the major news it absolutely should have been. “Only CNN and MSNBC covered Trump’s inflammatory Truth Social post about the general,” Media Matters noted Tuesday, “while broadcast news outlets and Fox News completely ignored it.”
Someone who surely didn’t ignore Trump’s post was Paul Gosar, the white nationalist adjacent congressman from Arizona. He wrote Sunday in his congressional newsletter how “in a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.” The notion of a Republican front-runner floating the idea of executing the chair of the joint chiefs of staff—a scenario echoed by a sitting member of Congress—is the kind of thing that should make your blood run cold. This is not what happens in a normal, healthy functioning democracy. We, in the media, need to be clear-eyed here.
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1705975692482003366
snip
Molly Jong-Fast: Let's Not Sleepwalk Into Another Trump Presidency
The GOP front-runner’s “treason” talk makes clear, yet again, that he’s a danger to democracy.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/donald-trump-democracy-media-2024-election
https://archive.ph/KYusj
In late September 2016, Salena Zito wrote glowingly in The Atlantic about Donald Trump on the campaign trail in Pittsburgh and famously postulated that “the press takes him literally, but not seriously,” while “his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” Leaving aside Zito’s kid-glove treatment of Trump, she wasn’t wrong about the media, which even now—a chaotic presidency, a couple impeachments, an insurrection, and four criminal indictments later—isn’t taking the former guy returning to power “seriously” enough. With the 2024 cycle in full swing, he’s being largely covered like a normal candidate rather than someone who tried to end democracy. As Trump recently tossed out wild accusations of “treason” this past weekend, The Nation’s Jeet Heer noted how the Drudge Report “is more accurately conveying the gravity of Trump’s threat to USA democracy than the mainstream media.”
I can’t speak to what lurks in the hearts of political reporters and editors, but one has to wonder why there isn’t more coverage about Trump musing about sentencing the nation’s highest ranking general to death than, say, the age of the current president. “Mark Milley, who led perhaps the most embarrassing moment in American history with his grossly incompetent implementation of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, costing many lives, leaving behind hundreds of American citizens, and handing over BILLIONS of dollars of the finest military equipment ever made, will be leaving the military next week. This will be a time for all citizens of the USA to celebrate!” Trump wrote Friday on Truth Social, a day after an Atlantic story about how Milley, the soon-to-be-retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, had “protected the Constitution” from the former president.
“This guy turned out to be a Woke train wreck who, if the Fake News reporting is correct, was actually dealing with China to give them a heads up on the thinking of the President of the United States,” Trump continued. “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH! A war between China and the United States could have been the result of this treasonous act. To be continued!!!” Oddly, Trump’s dangerous rant was not treated as the major news it absolutely should have been. “Only CNN and MSNBC covered Trump’s inflammatory Truth Social post about the general,” Media Matters noted Tuesday, “while broadcast news outlets and Fox News completely ignored it.”
Someone who surely didn’t ignore Trump’s post was Paul Gosar, the white nationalist adjacent congressman from Arizona. He wrote Sunday in his congressional newsletter how “in a better society, quislings like the strange sodomy-promoting General Milley would be hung.” The notion of a Republican front-runner floating the idea of executing the chair of the joint chiefs of staff—a scenario echoed by a sitting member of Congress—is the kind of thing that should make your blood run cold. This is not what happens in a normal, healthy functioning democracy. We, in the media, need to be clear-eyed here.
https://twitter.com/Bencjacobs/status/1705975692482003366
snip
September 29, 2023
Given how the first one went, you can probably guess why that's a bad thing.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/donald-trump-second-term-plans
https://archive.ph/sRxYL
In a reasonable society, an ex-president who's been indicted a whopping four times on a total of 91 felony counts—with charges ranging from obstruction of justice to conspiracy to defraud the United States—would not have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being president again. It simply would not be a thing, full stop. You try to overturn the results of a free and fair election, or ask state officials things like “Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me,” and you don’t get to be president again!
Obviously, though, we very much do not live in a reasonable society; we live in one in which Donald Trump is beating the next closest contender for the GOP nomination by a logic-defying 43 points. And one in which a guy who allegedly stored classified government documents next to the toilet—right there, where experts say they were potentially getting sprayed with shit particles!—and allegedly tried to “delete” Mar-a-Lago security camera footage requested by the Justice Department, is edging out the guy who did neither of those things in a general election matchup.
All of this means that Donald Trump has significantly better than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting reelected, and anyone who lived through his first term knows why that’s a legitimately terrifying prospect. But, of course, a second term for Trump wouldn’t be simply a repeat of the last time around when it comes to how many times a day you’d find yourself asking, “Oh, God what did he do now?" No, a second term for Trump would be so, so much worse. The following is just a small sampling of why:
Career civil servants are out, die-hard loyalists are in
Shortly before the 2020 election, Trump signed an executive order known as Schedule F, allowing his administration to gut employment protections for thousands of career federal employees whose jobs—which range from making sure the air is clean to ensuring food and drugs are safe—are not supposed to be subject to the whims of whomever is in the White House at the time. Stripped of such protections, the move would have given Trump the power to fire whoever he wanted, and replace them with individuals whose chief qualifications were unflagging loyalty. Trump, of course, was not able to stick around to see this plan out, and after Joe Biden was inaugurated, he canceled Trump’s executive order. But, with a possible second term on the horizon, Trump and his allies have made it clearer than ever that they would pick up exactly where they left off.
snip
Trump's Plans for a Second Term Are So Bad That They Almost Make the First One Look Good
Given how the first one went, you can probably guess why that's a bad thing.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/donald-trump-second-term-plans
https://archive.ph/sRxYL
In a reasonable society, an ex-president who's been indicted a whopping four times on a total of 91 felony counts—with charges ranging from obstruction of justice to conspiracy to defraud the United States—would not have a snowball's chance in hell of ever being president again. It simply would not be a thing, full stop. You try to overturn the results of a free and fair election, or ask state officials things like “Just say that the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me,” and you don’t get to be president again!
Obviously, though, we very much do not live in a reasonable society; we live in one in which Donald Trump is beating the next closest contender for the GOP nomination by a logic-defying 43 points. And one in which a guy who allegedly stored classified government documents next to the toilet—right there, where experts say they were potentially getting sprayed with shit particles!—and allegedly tried to “delete” Mar-a-Lago security camera footage requested by the Justice Department, is edging out the guy who did neither of those things in a general election matchup.
All of this means that Donald Trump has significantly better than a snowball’s chance in hell of getting reelected, and anyone who lived through his first term knows why that’s a legitimately terrifying prospect. But, of course, a second term for Trump wouldn’t be simply a repeat of the last time around when it comes to how many times a day you’d find yourself asking, “Oh, God what did he do now?" No, a second term for Trump would be so, so much worse. The following is just a small sampling of why:
Career civil servants are out, die-hard loyalists are in
Shortly before the 2020 election, Trump signed an executive order known as Schedule F, allowing his administration to gut employment protections for thousands of career federal employees whose jobs—which range from making sure the air is clean to ensuring food and drugs are safe—are not supposed to be subject to the whims of whomever is in the White House at the time. Stripped of such protections, the move would have given Trump the power to fire whoever he wanted, and replace them with individuals whose chief qualifications were unflagging loyalty. Trump, of course, was not able to stick around to see this plan out, and after Joe Biden was inaugurated, he canceled Trump’s executive order. But, with a possible second term on the horizon, Trump and his allies have made it clearer than ever that they would pick up exactly where they left off.
snip
September 29, 2023
More and more children are contacting criminal gangs in Sweden to offer their services as contract killers, the country's police chief said on Friday, after three people were murdered in 24 hours.
https://www.thelocal.se/20230929/swedish-police-chief-kids-are-contacting-gangs-to-become-killers
https://archive.ph/6voyF
Swedish police chief Anders Thornberg at the press conference on Friday. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT
Sweden has in recent years been in the grip of a bloody conflict between gangs fighting over arms and drug trafficking. That has escalated with internal fighting within a leading gang. Apartment buildings and homes across the country are frequently rocked by explosions. Shootings, once limited to disadvantaged areas, have become regular occurrences in public places in the usually tranquil, wealthy country.
"We have a situation where children are contacting criminal gangs to become killers," police chief Anders Thornberg told journalists. "The criminals are ruthless," Thornberg said, adding that the gangs also contacted people, often minors, and "furnished them with weapons and gave them the address in which to stage the attack".
Even the victims were often young. This month, 12 people were killed in shootings and explosions, the deadliest month in the past four years in Sweden. Senior police official Mats Lindström said he had seen many messages from young people contacting gangs for contract killings. In August 2023, there were 69 people aged under 18 in custody in Sweden, against 14 in the same month two years earlier.
On Thursday evening, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson vowed to defeat criminal gangs with the help of the military. "We are going to hunt down the gangs. We are going to defeat the gangs," Kristersson said in a televised address to the nation. "An increasing number of children and completely innocent people are affected by this extreme violence," Kristersson said. "Sweden has never seen anything like this. No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this."
snip
also see
Timeline: Sweden's deadliest month for shootings in four years
https://www.thelocal.se/20230915/timeline-six-fatal-gang-shootings-in-one-week-in-sweden
https://archive.ph/ykpL5
Swedish police chief: 'Kids are contacting gangs to become killers'
More and more children are contacting criminal gangs in Sweden to offer their services as contract killers, the country's police chief said on Friday, after three people were murdered in 24 hours.
https://www.thelocal.se/20230929/swedish-police-chief-kids-are-contacting-gangs-to-become-killers
https://archive.ph/6voyF
Swedish police chief Anders Thornberg at the press conference on Friday. Photo: Christine Olsson/TT
Sweden has in recent years been in the grip of a bloody conflict between gangs fighting over arms and drug trafficking. That has escalated with internal fighting within a leading gang. Apartment buildings and homes across the country are frequently rocked by explosions. Shootings, once limited to disadvantaged areas, have become regular occurrences in public places in the usually tranquil, wealthy country.
"We have a situation where children are contacting criminal gangs to become killers," police chief Anders Thornberg told journalists. "The criminals are ruthless," Thornberg said, adding that the gangs also contacted people, often minors, and "furnished them with weapons and gave them the address in which to stage the attack".
Even the victims were often young. This month, 12 people were killed in shootings and explosions, the deadliest month in the past four years in Sweden. Senior police official Mats Lindström said he had seen many messages from young people contacting gangs for contract killings. In August 2023, there were 69 people aged under 18 in custody in Sweden, against 14 in the same month two years earlier.
On Thursday evening, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson vowed to defeat criminal gangs with the help of the military. "We are going to hunt down the gangs. We are going to defeat the gangs," Kristersson said in a televised address to the nation. "An increasing number of children and completely innocent people are affected by this extreme violence," Kristersson said. "Sweden has never seen anything like this. No other country in Europe is seeing anything like this."
snip
also see
Timeline: Sweden's deadliest month for shootings in four years
https://www.thelocal.se/20230915/timeline-six-fatal-gang-shootings-in-one-week-in-sweden
https://archive.ph/ykpL5
September 29, 2023
Stockholm police have a list of around 150 addresses where they expect future gang related attacks could occur, a police source has told SVT news.
https://www.thelocal.se/20230929/police-list-150-addresses-in-sweden-at-risk-of-gang-attacks
https://archive.ph/hBBCK
Police at the scene of an explosion in Uppsala on Thursday morning, where a woman in her mid-20s was killed. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT
According to SVT's source, the addresses include properties belonging to or companies linked to criminals, as well as addresses where friends or relatives of active gang members live.
Catrine Kimerius Wikström, southern Stockholm's chief of police, did not confirm the number of addresses that were being monitored, saying only that police were trying to prioritise and monitor as many locations as possible, but that the sheer number of locations makes it impossible to keep an eye on them all.
"If you look at the number of individuals in these criminal structures and then locate every individual and their relatives, I think we all understand how many people we're talking about. It's impossible to be at all these locations at the same time," she told SVT.
Police list: 150 addresses in Stockholm at risk of gang attacks
Stockholm police have a list of around 150 addresses where they expect future gang related attacks could occur, a police source has told SVT news.
https://www.thelocal.se/20230929/police-list-150-addresses-in-sweden-at-risk-of-gang-attacks
https://archive.ph/hBBCK
Police at the scene of an explosion in Uppsala on Thursday morning, where a woman in her mid-20s was killed. Photo: Anders Wiklund/TT
According to SVT's source, the addresses include properties belonging to or companies linked to criminals, as well as addresses where friends or relatives of active gang members live.
Catrine Kimerius Wikström, southern Stockholm's chief of police, did not confirm the number of addresses that were being monitored, saying only that police were trying to prioritise and monitor as many locations as possible, but that the sheer number of locations makes it impossible to keep an eye on them all.
"If you look at the number of individuals in these criminal structures and then locate every individual and their relatives, I think we all understand how many people we're talking about. It's impossible to be at all these locations at the same time," she told SVT.
READ ALSO:
Who's who in Sweden's gang conflict?
Timeline: Sweden's deadliest month for shootings in four years
How could Sweden put an end to its deadly wave of gang crime?
Who's who in Sweden's gang conflict?
Timeline: Sweden's deadliest month for shootings in four years
How could Sweden put an end to its deadly wave of gang crime?
September 29, 2023
https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-29-what-writers-won-wga/
The end of the five-month Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike was the most important thing that’s happened in Hollywood in a while, but another important development has been largely overlooked. Amazon has announced that it would start running ads in Prime Video series and movies, which viewers can escape by purchasing a more expensive “ad-free” tier.
With Amazon’s move, pretty much every streaming service now has at least one tier with advertising, from Netflix to Max to Hulu to Peacock to Disney+. It’s just one way in which the streaming model, which has lost enormous amounts of money for virtually every company that has tried it, is slowly but surely turning back into traditional television. Cable companies are also now replacing the TV bundle, where they sold a collection of channels at one price, with a streaming bundle, where streaming networks are tied together at one price.
It’s realistic to expect that, in a few years, TV customers will have a streaming bill instead of a cable bill, one that will cost about the same to watch the same shows littered with the same ads. It makes sense for consumers who are overwhelmed with different charges for different streaming networks. And it makes sense for the networks to combine “carriage” revenue, which used to come from the cable companies that distributed their channels, with advertising revenue.
The writers were on strike because the actual entertainment creators were poised to become the only ones to lose out in this transition. As I wrote when the strike began in May, entertainment writing over the past decade has shifted to a gig-economy model, making it next to impossible to earn a living. This was a function of streaming video popping up as a “new” distribution channel, unrestricted by the contractual agreements of broadcast and cable.
snip
What the Writers Won
https://prospect.org/labor/2023-09-29-what-writers-won-wga/
The end of the five-month Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike was the most important thing that’s happened in Hollywood in a while, but another important development has been largely overlooked. Amazon has announced that it would start running ads in Prime Video series and movies, which viewers can escape by purchasing a more expensive “ad-free” tier.
With Amazon’s move, pretty much every streaming service now has at least one tier with advertising, from Netflix to Max to Hulu to Peacock to Disney+. It’s just one way in which the streaming model, which has lost enormous amounts of money for virtually every company that has tried it, is slowly but surely turning back into traditional television. Cable companies are also now replacing the TV bundle, where they sold a collection of channels at one price, with a streaming bundle, where streaming networks are tied together at one price.
It’s realistic to expect that, in a few years, TV customers will have a streaming bill instead of a cable bill, one that will cost about the same to watch the same shows littered with the same ads. It makes sense for consumers who are overwhelmed with different charges for different streaming networks. And it makes sense for the networks to combine “carriage” revenue, which used to come from the cable companies that distributed their channels, with advertising revenue.
The writers were on strike because the actual entertainment creators were poised to become the only ones to lose out in this transition. As I wrote when the strike began in May, entertainment writing over the past decade has shifted to a gig-economy model, making it next to impossible to earn a living. This was a function of streaming video popping up as a “new” distribution channel, unrestricted by the contractual agreements of broadcast and cable.
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September 29, 2023
https://prospect.org/justice/2023-09-29-monopolist-secrecy-demands-overwhelming-illegal/
A common demand that recurs across challenges to corporate power, from union strikes to antitrust cases, is forcing companies to “open the books” and unspool their webs of financial secrets for the public to see. In the U.S. v. Google trial, the government’s efforts to pull back the curtain on key company documents critical to its case have been especially difficult. Google’s legal defense team has obstructed at every turn, objecting to the unsealing of documents and pushing for closed-court sessions, which choke off public access entirely. At the outset of the trial, Google was even in hot water for tampering with evidence by deliberately turning off its chat history, which drew a sanction from a California court but not yet from the D.C. district court.
Curtailed public access to the trial has become a defining story in its own right for the first three weeks of the trial. Several attorneys involved in the case and outside legal observers have called the level of secrecy “unprecedented.” Google and Apple in particular are routinely protesting against documents related to their multibillion-dollar default agreements entering the public record. In exchange for default status on Apple devices, among others, Google shares a portion of its revenue. The government argues that this power of default, core to Google’s entire operation, entails exclusionary contracts that block rival search engines from competing. These objections to disclosing documents may be violating securities law, according to a new letter sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week by the American Economic Liberties Project. The supposed confidential nature of the contracts might also even fail to meet legal precedent.
The government has focused on the inner workings of Google’s default contracts in its cross-examination and extracted revealing testimony from Google’s chief economist Hal Varian, Apple executives, and also harmed parties such as Microsoft. We now know based on these testimonies that these agreements are worth billions of dollars each year. Equity research firm Sanford Bernstein estimated it could be around $18 billion to $19 billion, which is not exactly chump change, as Google has suggested in trial. However, the exact value, and the defined terms for revenue-sharing, are still shrouded in mystery, at least in terms of what’s been released in open court. The figures matter for determining the scale of these exclusionary contracts and could potentially undermine Google’s defense that default status is not essential to its success. Product quality is the only reason Google dominates the market, its legal team has argued.
Google, Apple, Samsung, and other parties have claimed the details of their default agreements are confidential and sensitive business matters. They insist releasing them could lead to competitive harm, which is ironic because that’s exactly what Google is being sued for. Both Judge Amit Mehta and the Department of Justice have mostly accepted Google and Apple’s confidentiality rationale, and allowed for extensive closed-door sessions to discuss these matters. This week, though, there’s been somewhat of an effort to keep more testimony in open court, which is suspected to be in response to media scrutiny around the lack of public access.
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Monopolist Secrecy Demands Are Overwhelming--and May Be Illegal
https://prospect.org/justice/2023-09-29-monopolist-secrecy-demands-overwhelming-illegal/
A common demand that recurs across challenges to corporate power, from union strikes to antitrust cases, is forcing companies to “open the books” and unspool their webs of financial secrets for the public to see. In the U.S. v. Google trial, the government’s efforts to pull back the curtain on key company documents critical to its case have been especially difficult. Google’s legal defense team has obstructed at every turn, objecting to the unsealing of documents and pushing for closed-court sessions, which choke off public access entirely. At the outset of the trial, Google was even in hot water for tampering with evidence by deliberately turning off its chat history, which drew a sanction from a California court but not yet from the D.C. district court.
Curtailed public access to the trial has become a defining story in its own right for the first three weeks of the trial. Several attorneys involved in the case and outside legal observers have called the level of secrecy “unprecedented.” Google and Apple in particular are routinely protesting against documents related to their multibillion-dollar default agreements entering the public record. In exchange for default status on Apple devices, among others, Google shares a portion of its revenue. The government argues that this power of default, core to Google’s entire operation, entails exclusionary contracts that block rival search engines from competing. These objections to disclosing documents may be violating securities law, according to a new letter sent to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week by the American Economic Liberties Project. The supposed confidential nature of the contracts might also even fail to meet legal precedent.
The government has focused on the inner workings of Google’s default contracts in its cross-examination and extracted revealing testimony from Google’s chief economist Hal Varian, Apple executives, and also harmed parties such as Microsoft. We now know based on these testimonies that these agreements are worth billions of dollars each year. Equity research firm Sanford Bernstein estimated it could be around $18 billion to $19 billion, which is not exactly chump change, as Google has suggested in trial. However, the exact value, and the defined terms for revenue-sharing, are still shrouded in mystery, at least in terms of what’s been released in open court. The figures matter for determining the scale of these exclusionary contracts and could potentially undermine Google’s defense that default status is not essential to its success. Product quality is the only reason Google dominates the market, its legal team has argued.
Google, Apple, Samsung, and other parties have claimed the details of their default agreements are confidential and sensitive business matters. They insist releasing them could lead to competitive harm, which is ironic because that’s exactly what Google is being sued for. Both Judge Amit Mehta and the Department of Justice have mostly accepted Google and Apple’s confidentiality rationale, and allowed for extensive closed-door sessions to discuss these matters. This week, though, there’s been somewhat of an effort to keep more testimony in open court, which is suspected to be in response to media scrutiny around the lack of public access.
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September 29, 2023
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-29-does-jay-powell-want-to-elect-trump/
The Federal Reserve is at risk of getting itself and the economy into a doom loop where its own actions create the inflation that the Fed supposedly is trying to extinguish and serve to kill the recovery. Exhibit A is mortgage costs. Mortgage interest rates have risen to a 23-year high of 7.31 percent, according to a survey released by mortgage purchaser Freddie Mac. And it isn’t just higher mortgage costs but more expensive car payments and credit card interest rates, as well as higher financing costs to homebuilders and small businesses. All of this increased inflation is the direct result of the Fed’s own policies.
Weirdly, higher interest rates are not counted in the Consumer Price Index. But they are certainly experienced as inflation by consumers and businesses. In addition, there are extraneous sources of price inflation that have nothing whatever to do with the supposed macroeconomic overheating that the Fed’s tight money is intended to squelch. Exhibit A is the rising price of crude oil, now approaching $100 a barrel, up from around $75 a barrel as recently as July. This shows up in higher consumer prices at the gas pump. But it’s not the result of increased motorist demand. It’s entirely the consequence of supply cuts by our enemy Vladimir Putin and our supposed new best friend, Saudi Arabia.
Exhibit B is the exorbitant prices charged by monopolists—that Biden’s all-of-government competition policies are challenging, including the two lawsuits by the Justice Department and the FTC against Google and Amazon. Again, this has nothing whatever to do with macroeconomic overheating. But these price hikes will douse a still-fragile recovery and will contribute to a softer economy in an election year, which will harm Biden and the Democrats. And that increase in measured “inflation” will give the Fed more ammunition to perversely keep money tight, destroying the economy’s soft landing and promoting 1970s style stagflation.
Where higher oil prices are concerned, Putin would surely prefer his pal Trump to President Biden. But what about the Saudis, who are part of an improbable partnership with Israel that Biden is helping to broker. Trump would surely be a lot more indulgent of Netanyahu than Biden. And what about Fed Chair Jay Powell, a Trump appointee whom Biden foolishly reappointed? There are enough variables in the coming election to make your head spin. But let’s not leave out the Fed, whose seats on the Board of Governors are now 4-to-3 Democrats; and Biden’s appointee Michael Barr, the vice chair for supervision, is increasingly a thorn in the side of Fed Chair Jay Powell. Would Powell prefer Trump? He is certainly behaving that way.
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Does Fed Chairman Jay Powell Want to Elect Trump?
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/2023-09-29-does-jay-powell-want-to-elect-trump/
The Federal Reserve is at risk of getting itself and the economy into a doom loop where its own actions create the inflation that the Fed supposedly is trying to extinguish and serve to kill the recovery. Exhibit A is mortgage costs. Mortgage interest rates have risen to a 23-year high of 7.31 percent, according to a survey released by mortgage purchaser Freddie Mac. And it isn’t just higher mortgage costs but more expensive car payments and credit card interest rates, as well as higher financing costs to homebuilders and small businesses. All of this increased inflation is the direct result of the Fed’s own policies.
Weirdly, higher interest rates are not counted in the Consumer Price Index. But they are certainly experienced as inflation by consumers and businesses. In addition, there are extraneous sources of price inflation that have nothing whatever to do with the supposed macroeconomic overheating that the Fed’s tight money is intended to squelch. Exhibit A is the rising price of crude oil, now approaching $100 a barrel, up from around $75 a barrel as recently as July. This shows up in higher consumer prices at the gas pump. But it’s not the result of increased motorist demand. It’s entirely the consequence of supply cuts by our enemy Vladimir Putin and our supposed new best friend, Saudi Arabia.
Exhibit B is the exorbitant prices charged by monopolists—that Biden’s all-of-government competition policies are challenging, including the two lawsuits by the Justice Department and the FTC against Google and Amazon. Again, this has nothing whatever to do with macroeconomic overheating. But these price hikes will douse a still-fragile recovery and will contribute to a softer economy in an election year, which will harm Biden and the Democrats. And that increase in measured “inflation” will give the Fed more ammunition to perversely keep money tight, destroying the economy’s soft landing and promoting 1970s style stagflation.
Where higher oil prices are concerned, Putin would surely prefer his pal Trump to President Biden. But what about the Saudis, who are part of an improbable partnership with Israel that Biden is helping to broker. Trump would surely be a lot more indulgent of Netanyahu than Biden. And what about Fed Chair Jay Powell, a Trump appointee whom Biden foolishly reappointed? There are enough variables in the coming election to make your head spin. But let’s not leave out the Fed, whose seats on the Board of Governors are now 4-to-3 Democrats; and Biden’s appointee Michael Barr, the vice chair for supervision, is increasingly a thorn in the side of Fed Chair Jay Powell. Would Powell prefer Trump? He is certainly behaving that way.
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