Post by t-bob on Aug 13, 2022 16:41:45 GMT -5
August 13, 2022
Vol. 11, No. 1782
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The Trump Files: Materials seized under warrant from Donald trump’s Florida estate included documents marked Top Secret intended to be viewed only in secure government facilities, according to the warrant.
The warrant had authorized the agents involved to investigate possible violations of the Espionage Act which makes it illegal to have unauthorized possession of national security information that could harm the US or help a foreign adversary, also a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation, as well as a statute associated with unlawful removal of government materials.
Trump claimed in a statement that he had personally declassified everything he had.
The seizure included 11 sets of documents including some marked as “classified/TS/SCI” documents — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” according to the report.
Among the documents seized are some related to the pardon of Trump’s friend, Roger Stone.
Evidently not embarrassed to have had those documents in his possession, Trump had encouraged the opening of the warrant that led to their seizure, revealing what he had done. However, the document with the most detailed information, the “probable cause” presented to a judge to apply for the warrant might never be released.
Rusdhie Stabbed: Author Salman Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after Iranian officials had called for his death, was severely stabbed yesterday while speaking at the Chautaqua Institute, an arts and intellectual community in upstate New York.
His representative says Rushdie is on a ventilator, in danger of losing an eye, and might have liver damage. The assailant is identified as a 24-year-old New Jersey man.
Witnesses said Rushdie was stabbed several times and at least once in the neck. Rita Landman, an endocrinologist who was in the audience, told the NY Times that there was a pool of blood under Rushdie’s body, but he appeared to be alive. “People were saying, ‘He has a pulse, he has a pulse, he has a pulse,’” Landman said.
Linda Abrams, from the Buffalo area, told the Times that the attacker kept trying to get to Rushdie even after he was restrained. “It took like five men to pull him away and he was still stabbing,” she said. “He was just furious, furious. Like intensely strong and just fast.”
Rushdie spent about 10 years under guard and in hiding after the publication of his novel “The Satanic Verses” was considered offensive to Islam, and the Supreme Leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, called for his execution in 1989.
Rushdie had just come onstage to deliver the morning lecture at the 4,000 seat Chautauqua amphitheater where he was to the United States as a safe haven for exiled writers and artists under the threat of persecution.
Money, Money: The stock market is rising as severe inflation seems to be easing. The S&P 500 is up more than 16 percent from its low in June, although it’s still 10 percent lower for the year. The bad times aren’t over yet.
Water, Water: With the West in the midst of an historic drought and Nevada’s Lake Mead down by 160 feet in the last two years, California Gov. Gavin Newsom yesterday released a plan for future water supply based on an estimate that current sources will be down by 10 percent by the year 2040.
His plan calls for capturing and storing more water, recycling wastewater, as well as desalinating seawater and salty groundwater.
Newsom called it “an aggressive plan to rebuild the way we source, store and deliver water.”
“The hots are getting a lot hotter. The dries are getting a lot drier,” Newsom said. “We have to adapt to that new reality, and we have to change our approach.”
The Obit Page: Bill Pitman, a guitarist who was backup Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and countless others from the late 1950s to the ’70s, and who picked on the soundtracks of movies and television shows, died in La Quinta, California at age 102.
Pitman was part of the loose association freelance musicians known as The Wrecking Crew. In their prime, they spent days jumping from session to session for the likes of the Beach Boys, Sonny and Cher, the Monkees, the Mamas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel … you name the act.
Pitman said in a documentary, The Wrecking Crew, “You leave the house at 7 in the morning, and you’re at Universal at 9 till noon. Now you’re at Capitol Records at 1. You just got time to get there, then you got a jingle at 4, then we’re on a date with somebody at 8, then the Beach Boys at midnight, and you do that five days a week.”
The Spin Rack: The House passed the Biden administration’s sweeping climate, tax, and healthcare bill passed by the Senate last week. --- Actress Anne Heche has been declared legally dead of burns and a brain injury suffered in the car wreck that left her vehicle and the house she hit in flames. She was 52. Her heart is being kept beating while there’s a determination of whether any of her organs are good for transplant. --- Idaho’s Supreme Court voted 3-2 to allow the state’s new abortion law to criminalize nearly all abortions in that state. The law will allow for abortion only in cases of rape, incest, or to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. --- CNN’s Chief Legal Analyst Jeffery Toobin is leaving the network after 20 years. He’s writing a book about the Oklahoma City bombing. Toobin was fired by The New Yorker in 2020 when he was caught masturbating during a video conference. We’ll leave it at that for the day.