DeSantis Sued Over Flights

Venezuelan immigrants in the U.S. legally as they seek asylum have filed a class action lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other state officials, NPR reports, for flying them from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under false pretenses. Calling the two flights a “pre-meditated political stunt,” some of the immigrants say they were “terrified” after being lured on to the airplanes with promises of food and shoes. DeSantis’ office says the flights were “done on a voluntary basis,” according to CNN.

Your thoughts on these flights, Vladimir Putin’s “partial military call-up,” and no cake for eating by Donald J. Trump’s attorneys in Mar-a-Lagogate are welcome in the Comment box below or by email to editors@thehustings.news.

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NY AG Sues Trump for “Massive Fraud”

(WED 9/21/22)

New York State Attorney General Letitia James (center, above) announced a $250-million-plus civil suit against ex-President Trump, his family and his company. The suit seeks to permanently bar Donald J. Trump, sons Don Jr. and Eric, and daughter Ivanka from doing business in the state, James announced in a press conference Wednesday. 

The former president also would be barred for five years from entering any commercial real estate acquisition in the state and from applying for any loans from New York-registered financial institutions.

The suit alleges Trump falsely inflated his net worth by billions of dollars over the years. The investigation covered 2011-2021. Of her many examples of alleged over-value, one included the former president’s own apartment at Trump Tower Manhattan, which was listed at 30,000 square-feet, roughly three times its actual size. As a result, the likely value of $127 million was inflated to $317 million in 2012, still more than any apartment sold in Manhattan.

Mar-a-Lago revenue should have been valued at less than $25 million per year, and no higher than $75 million per year – Trump valued his Florida residence and private club at $739 million, she said. No word on the value of Trump’s golden escalator.

The suit also includes these remedies:

• An independent monitor to oversee compliance, financial reporting, valuations and disclosure to tax authorities for no less than five years. 

•Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP)-compliant audited statements, showing Trump’s net worth, for five years.

•Replacement of current trustees of Donald Trump’s revocable trust with independent trustees.

The suit also seeks to permanently bar former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg and controller Jeffrey McConney from serving in financial control of any New York corporation or similar entity in the state. James said former Trump fixer Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress sparked her office’s investigation. Such alleged white-collar fraud is not “victimless” crime, she said.

“When the well-connected break the law it reduces resources to working people, to regular people, to small businesses and to taxpayers,” James remarked. 

“Claiming you have money that you do not have is not the Art of the Deal. It is the art of the steal.”

•••

Biden Speaks to UN – President Biden did not have to alter his speech much, before the 77th meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in light of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bellicose statement about extending his attack on Ukraine.

“This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state,” Biden said, “plain and simple. And Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe, that should make your blood run cold.”

Biden equated the fight for Ukraine’s sovereignty as a democratic nation with the struggle to maintain democracy everywhere, including the U.S.

“The only country standing in the way of that is Russia,” he said. While Biden was expected to alter his remarks after Putin announced his “partial military call up” CNN reports the president’s speech written before that announcement held up.

Extending the UN Permanent Security Council: Biden noted that 141 nations share the United States’ condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. He called on the UN to expand its permanent Security Council, which since its inception consists of China, France, the Russian Federation (previously Soviet Union), the United Kingdom and the U.S. Currently, any single country among these five may veto a UN resolution.

Global food security: Biden also announced $2.9 billion in federal funding to strengthen global food security. He disputed Putin’s statement that current global food insecurity is the result of Western sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. 

“Our sanctions explicitly allow Russia the ability to export food and fertilizer,” Biden said.

•••

Putin’s Not Bluffing? – Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “partial military call-up” mobilizing up to 300,000 reservists – falling just short of a draft -- to hold its border with Ukraine, the AP and NPR report. This has set Russians “scrambling” to buy airline tickets out of their country. In his seven-minute address Wednesday, Putin “also warned the West he isn’t bluffing about using all the means at his proposal to protect Russia’s territory,” a veiled reference to the country’s nuclear capability. 

But Russian nukes, as always, are held in-check by Western nations’ capabilities, Sergey Radchenko, professor of Russian history at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told NPR’s Morning Edition, so Putin’s claim his sabre-rattling is not a bluff hints it is indeed a bluff. And U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink tweeted that Russia is showing “weakness” and “failure” after its escalation of the war. She vowed that the U.S. will never recognize Russia’s scheme to claim Ukrainian territory.

Radchenko said plans announced Tuesday by eastern and southern regions of Ukraine currently controlled by Russia to hold votes on becoming an integral part of Russia – which Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelenskyy has called a “sham” – is a ploy for Putin to claim that it is Ukraine doing the invading when the country tries to take back those territories.

Biden’s UN Speech: Coming up Wednesday morning, President Biden speaks before the United Nations General Assembly (which Putin will not attend, despite Russia’s membership). The White House is scrambling to rewrite Biden’s speech in light of Putin’s announcement from Moscow, MSNBC’s Morning Joe reports.

•••

No Cake in Mar-a-Lagogate – Special Master Raymond Dearie, the candidate of the two candidates named by Donald J. Trump’s attorneys who was agreed to by the Justice Department, “appeared skeptical” about the former president’s claim he “declassified” classified documents recovered in the FBI’s August 8 search of Mar-a-Lago, as Time put it Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, Judge Dearie told Trump’s attorneys “You can’t have your cake and eat it.” 

Upshot: Trump’s attorneys have avoided arguing that Trump had declassified the documents for fear of breaching ethics standards with an untruth.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

The Right on Putin

No question that “traditional” Republicans, especially the never-Trumpers, are with President Biden on U.S. support for Ukraine and against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of the country. After all, when 57 House Republicans and 11 GOP senators voted against last April’s $11.7-billion package of additional aid to Ukraine, that left 155 House Republicans and 39 GOP senators who voted in-favor. 

But the MAGA wing that still dominates the party remains ambivalent, at best, toward Zelenskyy, who as Ukraine’s newly elected president in 2019 was asked by then-President Trump in his “perfect call” to help find dirt on future First Son Hunter Biden. More recently, just last August, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbån, the sole NATO nation ally to Putin and a fierce critic of Zelenskyy addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. 

The MAGA-right have been relatively quiet on Putin since. We want to know your take, especially from those of you on the right. What are your thoughts on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bellicose speech announcing a “partial military call-up”? Is it time for all American conservatives to back Ukraine against Russia?

While we’ve got you here, what about the special master, Judge Raymond Dearie’s indication he will not carry the water for former President Trump on classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago? 

Hit the Comment box below or email editors@thehustings.news.

--TL

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Trump’s Golden Ruling 

By Ken Zino

I’m hardly surprised given the smell of sulfur surrounding all things Trumpion that federal Judge Aileen M. Cannon -- appointed by Trump -- has ruled in favor of the ex-prez’s attorneys’ demand for a special master.

Trump, once again aided and abetted by the Golden Rule (he who has the gold rules) is delaying and obstructing an investigation that at a minimum raises grave national security concerns. In the latest Through the Looking Glass legal move, by Aileen -- not Alice – Cannon, the judge said she had no idea if there are any classified documents involved even though Trump’s lawyers had not presented any evidence whatsoever that the documents in question were not classified. DOJ did illustrate the classified nature of the documents with photographic precision along with sworn depositions. Canon refused to change any part of a ruling she issued last week that prohibited (Barr-ed so to speak) the department from using the documents, including 100 documents clearly marked classified in its investigation, until that special master arbiter had completed a review.

So over to Raymond J. Dearie, a semi-retired judge and now special master from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York to read and sort through 11,000 records or documents that illegally left the White House and turned up in the long-delayed August 8 search of Mar-o-Lago after more than a year of DOJ maneuvering to get the National Security documents returned. 

The Department of Justice without doubt will appeal this ludicrous ruling. For the moment, the deny, delay … obfuscate Trumpion strategy is, like old man river, rolling along. 

_____________________________________

Cannon for SCOTUS? (FRI 9/16/22)

U.S. District Court Judge and potential Supreme Court nominee if Donald J. Trump grabs the 2024 presidential election Aileen Cannon famously – infamously? – was elevated to the Southern District of Florida by Trump after Trump lost his 2020 re-election bid. Her rulings in the Justice Department investigation of classified government documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago (conveniently located in the Southern District of Florida) uphold the ex-president’s lifelong ability to slow any legal proceedings against him and his businesses, to a crawl.

This headline will send chills up the spines of the left and the never-Trump right, but whether you agree or disagree with this assessment, we want to hear from you. Hit the Comment box below, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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…meanwhile…

(TUE 9/20/22)

Mortgage Rates Hit 6% -- The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee is expected to raise interest rates by 75 basis points (0.75%), when it meets Tuesday and Wednesday, Punchbowl News reports. The Fed has been imposing big increases in the interest rate since inflation hit 40-year record highs, and Chairman Jerome Powell (pictured above) will likely signal more big increases until inflation comes down significantly from its current 8.3% annual rate. The mortgage rate is running at 6% for the first time since the inauspicious year 2008. 

Note: Warnings of a coming recession among some economists (and most Republicans, looking to save their prospects in the midterms) are offset by other economists (and the Biden White House) who point to record-low unemployment and high job growth. The economic anomaly is that we’re still suffering the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic (despite Biden’s claim on 60 Minutes that it’s over) as well as the effects of the cutoff of Russian oil to Europe, where Germany and the United Kingdom in particular, are suffering higher inflation rates and face almost certain recession and a cold winter. 

This is not to downplay the economic suffering of the American working- and middle-classes, but if Vladimir Putin has had any personal success in his brutal attack on Ukraine, it’s that he has hijacked potential economic recovery in the West following shutdowns from the pandemic. 

•••

Texas Sheriff Investigates DeSantis’ Flights – Bexar County, Texas Sheriff Javier Salazar (D) has opened an investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) political stunt he played out on Fox News in which 50 Venezuelan migrants were flown from San Antonio to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts last week. The migrants had turned them in to U.S. Border Patrol after crossing from Mexico and were granted “temporary protected status,” and Salazar is looking into whether they were “lured from the Migrant Resource Center” under “false promises” for work and assistance, according to The Washington Post.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

_____________________________________

This Week in NYC and DC (MON 9/19/22)

(United Nations HQ, New York City)

The White House – Joe and Jill Biden attended Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London Monday as the United States had a chance to react to the president’s comments on CBS News’ 60 Minutes Sunday night that U.S. troops would defend Taiwan if China conducted an “unprecedented attack.” 

“So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, U.S. forces, U.S. men and women would defend Taiwan in the case of a Chinese invasion?” 60 Minutes’ Scott Pelley asked.

“Yes,” Biden replied.

Chinese spokesman Liu Pengyu said in a series of tweets that Biden’s remarks “sends wrong signals to Taiwan independence’ separatist forces, and severely jeopardizes China-U.S. relations and peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait,” CBS News reports. 

Biden also told Pelley that he hasn’t decided whether to run for re-election in 2024, and said that he was not briefed about the top-secret documents found at Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, nor was he aware of the FBI’s search warrant ahead of time.

•••

This Week – The United Nations 77th General Assembly begins Monday at its New York City headquarters, the first in-person meeting since 2019. President Biden is expected to give his speech Wednesday on the war in Ukraine and on climate change, a day later than the U.S. president’s usual place on the schedule, because of his attendance at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.

The House of Representatives and Senate are in-session Monday through Thursday; the Senate only is in session on Friday.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

_____________________________________

...meanwhile... (FRI-SUN 9/16-18/22)

(Judge Cannon)

Judge Picks Dearie -- This all seems to have gone to Donald J. Trump’s plans, with a federal judge he appointed after losing the 2020 election refusing to allow the Justice Department to review documents seized from his Mar-a-Lago home August 8 until a special master requested – demanded – by the ex-president’s attorneys has examined them first. That special master appointed by Judge Aileen Cannon Thursday, senior New York Federal Judge Raymond Dearie, was proposed by Trump’s attorneys and deemed acceptable by the Justice Department. 

The Justice Department is not allowed to use the sensitive documents in its investigation while Dearie reviews them and is expected to appeal Cannon’s ruling before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th District, in Atlanta, The Washington Post reports. 

DOJ had argued that the special master should not be allowed to review the classified documents seized, but Cannon in her ruling said that it is a “matter of dispute” whether the documents marked classified are, in fact, classified. Trump’s attorneys have suggested that the documents may not be classified, but have not asserted that Trump personally declassified them, WaPo says. Trump also has not given any indication why he kept the papers.

Timing is key: Cannon has given Dearie to November 30 to complete his review, which pushes the case well into next year, when the GOP hopes to have majorities in both chambers of Congress and can begin some counter-investigations of its own. By then, too, Trump may very well have announced his bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and will continue to accuse the DOJ under the Biden White House of conducting yet another “witch hunt.”

ICYMT1/6CD (In Case You Missed This 1/6 Committee Development): Ex-President Trump’s ultimate chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has agreed to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the Capitol.

--Todd Lassa

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COMMENTS: editors@thehustings.news

Democracy’s End Will be Televised

Recent warnings about the likelihood of future January 6-like riots across the nation, including one from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) should not be ignored, Charlie Sykes writes in The Bulwark Monday. Sykes points to an Associated Press story from last Friday outlining ex-President Trump’s growing embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories including photo of The Donald published on his Truth Social platform last Tuesday in which he wears a pin with the words, “The Storm is Coming.”

According to QAnon lore, AP says, “storm” refers to Trump’s “final victory in which he returns to power” and his opponents will be “tried and potentially executed on television.” Trump has published “dozens of Q-related posts” recently, “in contrast to 2020” when he claimed he did not know much about the group.

Read Sykes’ commentary here: https://morningshots.thebulwark.com/p/this-storm-is-coming (subscription required).

--TL

_____________________________________

Rubio Defends Cannon (FRI 9/16/22)

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is defending U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon’s rulings on the Justice Department’s investigation of sensitive government documents seized from ex-President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence and private club, saying “attacks against her are just the latest example of hypocrisy from leftists and their media enablers who believe the only time it is acceptable to attack a judge is that if that judge rules against what they want,” per Salon.

Rubio, according to the online magazine, “appears to have served as Cannon’s sponsor” and asked her to apply for the judicial nomination in 2019, after the senator helped create a bipartisan judicial advisory commission that vetted her background. Cannon, who was born in Colombia to a mother who fled Fidel Castro’s Cuba, according to Wikipedia, was confirmed by a bipartisan Senate on November 12, 2020.

Thanks largely to Cannon, the investigation many pundits thought would end Trump’s political career, may at the very least instead help propel the former president to the 2024 Republican Party nomination. 

What do you think? Add your opinion to the Comments box below or email editors@thehustings.news.

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‘Wildly Out of Step’

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) says he would not lift the filibuster to clear the way for Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) proposal to restrict abortions nationwide after 15 weeks, The Guardian reports. Democrats are looking at Graham’s proposed legislation, which would criminalize doctors providing abortions, as a “gift” for the November midterms; a Pew Research poll finds 57% of Americans disapprove of the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade. 

The White House says the bill would be “wildly out of step with what Americans believe.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosoi (D-CA) called Graham’s bill “the latest, clearest signal of extreme MAGA Republicans’ intent to criminalize women’s health freedom in all 50 states and arrest doctors for providing basic care.”

What do you think? Hit the Comments box below or in the right column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news.

_____

…meanwhile…

(THU 9/15/22)

Economy Back on Track? – After 20 straight hours of negotiations with labor leaders for freight rail engineers, conductors and other workers, the White House has announced a tentative agreement to preclude a strike set for midnight Friday. The tentative agreement potentially averts another supply chain crisis that could have stopped 30% of cargo shipments in the U.S., NPR reports.

Though the strike deadline forcing the non-stop negotiations was announced just this week, the labor dispute over work schedules as much as pay has been ongoing for years, according to NPR’s Morning Edition. The agreement still faces a vote by labor union members.

Note: The same week Republicans have hit President Biden for touting his programs’ effects on the U.S. economy in the face of disappointing inflation news, the White House has a new “win” to take to the midterms, though consumers-voters will know of this tentative victory only by what would not happen to the economy.

•••

DeSantis Sends Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent two full airplanes full of migrants from his state to Martha’s Vineyard, the New York Post reports. Florida’s Department of Transportation has $12 million set aside for such flights by the state legislature. 

Wednesday’s flights transported about 50 migrants, most of them from Venezuela, according to NPR, and some of whom were apparently not completely aware of what was happening. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (like DeSantis, a Republican) said the arrivals were provided short-term shelter, according to Fox News Digital. 

DeSantis’ communications director, Taryn Fenske, released this statement: “States like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the case of those individuals who they have invited to our country by incentivizing illegal immigration through their designation as ‘sanctuary states’ and support the Biden administration’s open border policies.”

Note: DeSantis clearly has scored a high-profile victory in his effort to grab the 2024 GOP presidential nomination ahead of fellow Floridian Donald J. Trump. Wouldn't it have been cheaper to simply bus them to another favorite target of DeSantis' Culture War, Walt Disney World?

--Edited by Todd Lassa

_____________________________________

TUESDAY’S PRIMARIES (WED 9/14/22)

New Hampshire: Incumbent Republican Gov. Chris Sununu easily won his party’s primary, and is heavily favored over the Democratic candidate, Tom Sherman, who won his primary unchallenged. Earlier this year, GOP officials urged Sununu to pack up the governor’s mansion and run for U.S. Senate instead, to offer a strong challenge to incumbent Democrat Maggie Hassan, who is seen as highly vulnerable. 

Hassan instead will defend her seat against an election denier, Don Bolduc, who beat establishment candidate Chuck Morse in the GOP primary. 

Rhode Island: Incumbent Democratic Gov. Dan McKee narrowly beat ex-CVS executive Helena Foulkes, who earned a last-minute endorsement from The Boston Globe, the AP reports. McKee became governor in early 2021, replacing two-term Gov. Gina Raimondo, when she was tapped by the Biden administration for Commerce secretary. McKee’s Republican challenger is Ashley Kalus, who moved from Illinois to Rhode Island after a dispute over a cancelled contract with her COVID-19-testing firm, the AP reports. 

In the race for Rhode Island’s 2nd Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Jim Langevin is retiring after more than 20 years, his endorsee, state treasurer Seth Magaziner won a crowded primary and faces unchallenged Republican Allan Fung, former mayor of Cranston. 

For the 1st Congressional District, six-term Rep. David Cicilline ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, as did his Republican challenger for the midterm election, Allan Waters, the AP reports.

Delaware: Republican Lee Murphy challenges incumbent Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester for the state’s at-large Congressional District November 8.

•••

Another Trumper’s Phone Seized: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell told his podcast audience that FBI agents approached him at a Mankato, Minnesota Hardee’s restaurant and seized his smartphone after questioning him about Mesa County (Colorado) Clerk Tina Peters, Dominion Voting Systems and Ohio educator Doug Frank, who claims voting machines have been manipulated, the AP reports. The MyPillow Guy, as he’s best-known, showed his audience in the video version of The Lindell Report, a letter signed by a U.S. attorney in Colorado that said prosecutors were conducting an “official criminal investigation of a suspected felony,” and mentioned a grand jury. 

The Justice Department did not respond to the AP about the investigation, though an FBI spokeswoman confirmed via email that a warrant had been served at the Hardee’s. 

•••

Kenneth Starr Dies: Kenneth Starr, the “widely respected appeals court judge and solicitor general” (per The New York Times' obituary) who was appointed special counsel in the investigation of President Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky scandal, died Tuesday at a Houston hospital from complications of surgery related to an undisclosed illness. He was 76. 

•••

CORRECTION: An earlier version of "Another Trumper's Phone Seized" incorrectly stated the state from which Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters works and resides.

--Edited by Todd Lassa

_____

Graham’s Abortion Bill

What is Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) thinking, exactly, in proposing a bill to ban abortions across the U.S. after 15 weeks? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already pushed back on CNN while other Republican senators, up for re-election this year have been “scrubbing” their websites of hardline rhetoric on the issue as the Democrats look healthier in the midterms over the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center decision overturning Roe v. Wade. 

In his email newsletter The Point! CNN’s Chris Cillizza posits that Graham is giving his fellow Republicans up for re-election this year “talking points” to counter the growing popularity of the other party in a midterm they were supposed to use. Cillizza does have, eh, a point, in that those with the scrubbed social media rhetoric can counter by claiming a different position. 

Perhaps Graham is simply counting on the sustained numbers of MAGA supporters who will pull the voting booth lever for the Republican candidate, regardless of stated platform. 

In any event, Politico says Graham’s bombshell Tuesday diverted attention from the unexpectedly bad inflation news that forced the Biden White House to downplay its day of celebration for the partisan Inflation Reduction Act.

What do you think? Hit the Comments box below or in the left column if that’s how you lean, or email editors@thehustings.news.

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Problems Loading Us?

You may have had problems reaching The Hustings’ homepage recently. First, our sincere apologies and second, our sincere thanks for persisting so you could read this. Our web host’s server has experienced problems since last week. This began, ironically, as The Hustings initiated some upgrades and updates in order to speed up the loading of our pages. 

Comment on the Justice Department’s subpoenas from Donald J. Trump’s inner circle, and his attorneys’ response to DOJ’s appeal of the special master ruling, in the box below or in the right column, or email editors@thehustings.news, and identify yourself as left or right in the subject line. 

Scroll down to read and comment on these issues:

•”Barr Blasts Special Master Ruling.”

•”Biden Takes Midterm Campaign to Swing States.”

Scroll down a bit more to read Ken Zino’s commentary on President Biden’s recent campaign rhetoric, “Biden in Like a Lamb, Now an Anti-Fascism Lion.”

_____

…meanwhile…

(Chart: 12-month percentage change in the CPI on selected categories)

(TUE 9/13/22)

CPI Slips Slightly, Not Enough: The Consumer Price Index slipped just a bit in August to an annual rate of 8.3%, from 8.5% annually in July, the Commerce Department said Tuesday. It is not enough for Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Averages fell nearly 4% by late afternoon, anticipating a likely three-quarter interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve when they meet next week. The CPI reached a four-decade high of 9.1% annually for June.

Leading price increases in August were shelter, food (+0.8%), food at home (+0.7%) and medical care, partly offset by a 10.6% drop in the gasoline index. The energy index was off 5.0%. 

Used cars and trucks dropped by 0.1% to an annual inflation rate of 7.8%, though new vehicle prices rose 0.8% for the month, to a 10.1% annual rate.

AAA reports…The national average for a price of regular unleaded gasoline was $3.707 per gallon on Tuesday, down from $3.779 one week ago. This compares to a record-high $5.016 per gallon per AAA data for June 14.

•••

DOJ Issues More than 30 Subpoenas, Seize Two Phones in 1/6 Probe: The Justice Department issued more than 30 subpoenas in its January 6 Capitol insurrection inquiry in the last week, according to joint reporting by The New York Times and CNN, and seized electronic devices of Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn and campaign strategist Mike Roman in the swing states’ “fake electors” attempt. Among subpoena recipients was ex-President Trump’s former social media director, David Scavino. 

Former New York City police commissioner and friend of former America’s Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Bernard Kerik, who promoted baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, was issued a subpoena by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. Kerik has been implicated in alleged plans to overturn the election for Trump in Congress’ official Electoral College count on January 6.

--Todd Lassa

_____

Special Master of Trump’s Domain

Justice Department prosecutors wrote in a special filing late Monday they would accept one of the Trump attorney’s two candidates for special master in the Mar-a-Lago government document case, former New York chief federal judge Raymond J. Dearie, The Wall Street Journal reports. They also supported DOJ’s two candidates in the filing; retired federal judges Barbara S. Jones and Thomas B. Griffith. 

But Trump attorneys earlier Monday continued to argue against a pause in Federal District Judge Aileen M. Cannon’s ruling calling for a federal master and preventing the FBI from examining the documents in the interim, CQ Roll Call reports. Trump’s attorneys dispute whether the documents are classified. 

Comment in the box below or in the left column, or email editors@thehustings.news, and identify yourself as right or left in the subject line. 

Scroll down to read about an ongoing argument on how the GOP should fund its Senate campaigns …

•“McConnell vs. Scott,” on the former’s well-funded Senate Leadership Fund and the latter’s spendthrift National Senate Republican Committee.

•“GOP Senate Campaign Goes for Broke.”

Scroll down a bit further to read Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s commentary on President Biden’s campaign style vs. Donald J. Trump’s, “Not Normal.”

_____

…meanwhile…

(MON 9/12/22)

Ukrainian Momentum: Ukrainian troops on Saturday recaptured the eastern city of Izium, a strategically important railway hub that Russian troops have held since last spring, The New York Times reported Sunday. Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, confirmed on CBS News that her country has pushed fleeing Russian troops out of 1,200 square miles of the northeast region of Kharkiv in the last eight days, more than the invading forces had captured since April. 

“We have to win, and this counter-offensive shows we can win,” Marakova told CBS’ Face the Nation. She agreed with military assessments that Ukrainian forces can push Russia back to the borders before the end of the year “because of the resolve of the armed forces.”

•••

Better Call Saul: From Sunday’s New York Times’ story about myriad Trump lawyers who have to lawyer-up themselves after working for the former president, this “dark joke”: “MAGA actually stands for ‘making attorneys get attorneys.’”

•••

THIS WEEK ...

The White House: President Biden visits Boston Monday, where he will deliver remarks on Bipartisan Infrastructure already underway and “tangible results for communities and the country.” Biden announces his “Cancer Moonshot” goal of finding a cure, to be held at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum on the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s announcement of his goal to put an American on the moon before the end of the 1960s.

On Tuesday Biden visits the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.

On Saturday the president and Jill Biden travel to the United Kingdom for Queen Elizabeth II's funeral, to be held next Monday.

Congress: The Senate is in session Monday, with both chambers in session Tuesday through Friday.

Inflation Rate: The Labor Department publishes the August Consumer Price Index Tuesday. Expectations are the rate will fall somewhat from the annual rate reported for July of 8.5%, which itself decreased from June's annual rate of 9.1%.

--TL

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