Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets with President Biden at the White House Thursday after Biden announced a new slate of military weapons and $8 billion in additional aid (NYT).
FRIDAY 9/26/24
NYC Mayor Charged – Federal prosecutors have charged New York Mayor Eric Adams (D) with bribery, fraud and campaign finance offenses in what they say was a scheme to solicit illegal contributions from foreign donors, The Wall Street Journal reports.
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Zelenskyy’s Peace Formula – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meets, separately in Washington with President Biden and with Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday, following his address to the United Nations General Assembly. His “Peace Formula” presented to the General Assembly Wednesday calls for upholding the UN Charter guaranteeing Ukraine’s right to sovereignty, for the withdrawal of Russian occupiers and to hold those responsible for war crimes accountable, prevent “ecocide” and prevent a second and third phase of the Russian invasion.
“If someone in the world seeks alternatives to any of these points or tries to ignore any of them,” Zelenskyy said, “it likely means they themselves want to do a part of what Putin is doing – the point they ignore reveals the desire they are hiding.”
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Federal Funding Extended – The House, then the Senate, Wednesday passed a mostly clean extension of current spending levels to December 20, sending the federal budget to President Biden’s desk for spending and sending Congress members home to their campaigns. Roll Call described it as “rapid-fire votes in both chambers” and it extends the budget until after the winner of the November 5 presidential campaign presumably, hopefully, is named.
The House passed the extension, 341-82 under suspension of rules, then the Senate passed it 78-18. Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) called the bill a “straight-forward, bipartisan compromise.”
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Biden's Final UN Address
WEDNESDAY 9/25/24
‘There is so much more I want to get done,’ President Biden told the United Nations in his final address to its General Assembly, Tuesday.
Biden Out – In his ultimate address to the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, President Biden said the world is better off now than four years ago with a more engaged United States (per Politico). He called on Israel and Hamas to reach a long-negotiated ceasefire agreement.
But that prospect continues to dim as Israel continues its bombing campaign on Hezbollah in Lebanon, where the death toll has topped 560, according to The Associated Press. Israeli forces Wednesday shot down a Hezbollah missile launched over Tel Aviv, NPR reports.
Meanwhile, back in New York … “Our task, our test, is to make sure that the forces holding us together are stronger than those pulling us apart, that the principles of partnership that we come here each year to uphold can withstand the challenges, that the center holds once again,” Biden said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the UN General Assembly Wednesday.
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Haitian Group Files Charges Against Trump/Vance – The Haitian Bridge Alliance has filed charges against Donald J. Trump and Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) for repeatedly claiming without evidence that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were capturing and eating their neighbors’ pets, The Columbus Dispatch reports. Ohio law allows private citizens seeking an arrest of prosecution to file an affidavit with a prosecutor or judge for their review.
“Trump and Vance falsely claim Haitians are a danger to Springfield,” Guerline Jozef, executive director of the Haitian Bridges Alliance said in court documents, the Dispatch reports. “Now, many in Springfield face actual harm from threats that have even resulted in closures and lockdowns of government buildings, hospitals, schools and colleges. Trump and Vance caused a massive disruption to a community and city that deserved better.”
The Haitian Bridge Alliance asked the court to either issue Trump and Vance arrest warrants or refer the matter to the prosecutor’s office. The alliance’s attorneys said the behavior of the GOP nominees for president and vice president meets the threshold for probable cause and that police and prosecutors would have filed charges against anyone else for such behavior by now.
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Tightest Race Since ’76? – Since 1876, that is. 538 said Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris has a 57-in-100 chance of winning the November 5 election (down from 62-in-100 last Sunday) to ex-President Donald J. Trump’s 42-in-100. Hold your celebration, Democrats – 538 calls that “essentially a toss-up,” and potentially the tightest presidential race in 148 years. In that earlier election, Democrat Samuel J. Tilden led Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in the popular vote but lost the Electoral College 185 to 184.
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TUESDAY 9/24/24
Biden’s Last Address – President Biden addresses the United Nations General Assembly at its annual meeting in Manhattan for his final time Tuesday, where he will try to “assuage” world leaders nervous about the implications of isolationist Donald J. Trump winning the November 5 election, Roll Call reports.
What will Washington’s role be in addressing multiple world conflicts under a second Trump presidency? The former and would-be future president insists these conflicts wouldn’t have begun in the first place if he had won the 2020 presidential election he insists he actually won.
Zelenskyy’s next address … Amidst fears that a successful Trump administration would apply The Art of the Deal to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses the UN General Assembly on Wednesday, where he will ask to use long-range missiles to strike deeper into Russia. Tuesday morning on ABC’s Good Morning America he said Russia’s war on Ukraine is “closer to an end” than many believe.
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War With Hezbollah in Lebanon – Whatever the Israeli government wants to call it, since pagers and two-way radios Hezbollah leaders were carrying started exploding last week, the skirmishes along the Israel-Lebanese border has become a full-blown war. The Israeli Army has begun striking Beirut, targeting a senior Hezbollah commander, Haaretz reports, while Hezbollah says it fired at several military facilities, including an explosives factory, in Northern Israel. Most of about 50 rockets fired from Lebanon into Northern Israel were intercepted, according to the report.
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Two Debates, or Not Two Debates – Donald J. Trump has declined a second debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, despite claiming he won the first one on September 10. Harris “gladly” accepted CNN’s invitation for a debate on October 23, which Trump says is “too late” because early voting has already begun in several states. But pundits on CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins Monday said they believe Trump, whom is widely considered to have lost that September 10 debate, eventually will capitulate in part because he improved in his second debate with Joe Biden four years ago and because the vice presidential debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance on October 1 would leave his running mate with the last word.
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Truth Social Watch – Stock price of the Trump Media & Technology Company, owner of the ex-president’s social media site Truth Social, dropped to $14 per share last Thursday as investors feared he would sell his shares as soon as allowed, Axios reports. The week earlier, Trump tried to assure investors he would not sell his shares, even though that could net about $3 billion to help pay $355 million in fines in his New York civil fraud case (which his attorneys are appealing) plus $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for her successful civil defamation lawsuit.
On Monday, however, Trump Media fell another $1.40 per share, or 10.33%, to $12.15. That’s off by 30.37% year-to-date leaving a $2.432 billion market cap, of which the ex-prez holds about 60%.
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MONDAY 9/23/24
Diverting a Shutdown – Congress wants to go home for its election year break by Friday, and has until next Monday to pass a budget, or rather a budget extension, before the end of the fiscal year to avoid a federal government (partial) shutdown. We were predicting Congress would have to work through next weekend, and now that prediction appears to have been overly pessimistic.
Which is a roundabout way of saying that House Republicans have introduced a 12-week, 49-page extension that both parties, in both chambers, like – or at least they like it enough to push it through and pass it this week, with a House vote by Wednesday and a Senate vote shortly thereafter, according to Roll Call. The House Rules Committee is to begin the process at its meeting Monday at 4 pm.
Last week the House sunk by 220-202 vote Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) six-month continuing resolution, which had included the superfluous SAVE Act, requiring voters in federal elections to be US citizens.
This latest, more promising CR extends the budget only to December 12, into President Biden’s full-press lame duck period, but it also includes a $231 million in new appropriations for the Secret Service, to provide additional protection for presidential candidates.
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Robinson Staffers Quit – Four key staffers for Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s campaign for governor of North Carolina have quit over a CNN KFile investigation that the candidate called himself a “black Nazi” on pornography website “Nude Africa,” where he also supported reinstation of slavery. CNN reported the posts were made between 2008 and 2012.
The resignations were from Robinson campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, general consultant Conrad Pogorzelski III, finance director Heather Whillier and deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk, according to The Washington Post.
--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa