Hendrick's Gin Wants You to Know It Saved These Rare and Near-Extinct Cucumbers for Capitalism

The price of being rescued from near-extinction is, apparently, $48.

By Jody Serrano
Yesterday 8:00AM

The Gagon Cucumber.

Image: Courtesy of Hendrick’s Gin

I must admit, I’m not a big fan of cucumbers. However, I certainly don’t want to see cucumbers go the way of the dodo. That’s why, when Hendrick’s Gin informed me that it had “brought some of the most rare and peculiar cucumbers from around the globe back from the brink of extinction,” I thought it was cool.

“Good for you, Hendrick’s Gin!” I thought, thinking that these cucumbers were going to a special garden or whatnot to ensure they were protected. Alas, it was foolish of me to think that the folks behind Hendrick’s Gin, the distiller and distributor William Grant & Sons, would do something simply for the good of the cucumbers. Because money.

That’s right, these cucumbers aren’t going to be preserved, they’re going to be sold as “Hendrick’s Curious Cucumber Collection” for $48. That’s the price of being rescued from extinction.

Look, I get it. Even though I’m full of anxiety these days about how our consumerist ways are wrecking the planet, I know that we live in a capitalist society. I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it if Hendrick’s Gin simply announced that its new collection featured rare cucumbers from around the world.

But, saying that you brought these cucumbers “back from the brink of extinction” only to announce that you’re selling them in the same sentence seems kind of hypocritical to me.

According to the Hendrick’s press release, it seems that these cucumbers have been restored to a sufficient enough scale that allows them to be sold. Again, nice! I’m happy that these rare cucumbers are no longer in imminent danger. Yet, to bring back cucumbers that are on “the brink of extinction” and then have your next order of business be to start selling them seems... peculiar. Jurassic Park, anyone?

All in all, don’t try to sell capitalism as saving the planet. There is at least one good thing that came out of Hendrick Gin’s endeavor: a nifty look at lots of strange cucumbers.

The “Cutecumber Lemonade” cocktail made with the cucamelon cucumber.

Image: Courtesy of Hendrick’s Gin

And finally, we see capitalism embodied in a photo. The “Cutecumber Lemonade” cocktail is a spin off one of the distiller’s most popular drinks.

A Hendrick’s ambassador calls it “The Cutecumber Lemonade.”

Cool. Now I don’t care how good your lemonade is, don’t put the cucumbers you just saved in danger again.

RIP
Miso Cebalo (1945-2022)
by André Schulz

9/10/2022 – On Friday last week, Croatian grandmaster Miso Cebalo passed away in Zagreb. In his younger years, Cebalo was one of Yugoslavia’s best bridge players. He was also a linguistic genius. Cebalo was a national player for Yugoslavia, then Croatia, and in later years was active as an author, commentator and coach. Miso Cebalo was 77 years old.


Miso Cebalo was born on 6 February 1945 in Zagreb, which at that time was still the capital of the Independent State of Croatia. In May 1945, Croatia was incorporated into the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.

Cebalo’s father was a good chess player and taught his son the rules when he was five years old. At the age of 13, Miso Cebalo joined a chess club. His second love was bridge, in which he was also one of the best players in the country. He was nominated for both the national chess team and the national bridge team in the 1970s. In 1979 he gave up bridge in favour of chess.

As the author explains in the introductory video, knowing the classic games from the past enriches your chess understanding in general, and helps to improve the level of your own games.

At the age of 20, Cebalo took part for the first time in the National Chess Championship of Yugoslavia, which was held in 1975 in Montenegro, in what was then Titograd (now Podgorica). Afterwards he began to study languages in Zagreb and withdrew somewhat from chess. Besides Croatian, Cebalo spoke Latin, Italian, French and five other European languages. After 1977, Cebalo returned to participate more regularly in tournaments. He was awarded the title of International Master in 1978.

After finishing second (after a play-off against Marjanovic) in the Yugoslav Championship and winning the Zone Tournament in Kavala, Cebalo was awarded the title of Grandmaster. In the following Interzonal Tournament in Taxco de Alarcón, Cebalo achieved shared 6th-7th place.



Photo: Zagreb Chess Club

In 1988, Cebalo won an invitational tournament in Bern. In 1991 he won the Memorial Chicco in Reggio Emilio. In 1998 he was tournament winner at the Asti Open. Cebalo won another tournament at the Pentium Cup 2001 in Milan. In 2009, Cebalo won the title at the 19th Senior World Championship in Condino.

Cebalo played for the Croatian national team at the Chess Olympiads in 1992 (Manila) and 1994 (Moscow) and at two European Team Championships. Between 1988 and 2000 he also took part in eight European Club Championships with various teams.



Photo: Italian Chess Federation

Towards the end of his playing career, Miso Cebalo became more and more active as an author and commentator. He was a regular guest in Biel and also acted as commentator at many tournaments there.

At the 1986 tournament, he managed a victory over Viktor Korchnoi.

In 2011 Miso Cebalo was appointed FIDE Senior Trainer.

Miso Cebalo died last Friday, 2 September 2022 in Zagreb. He was 77 years old.

Steve Hackett Shares Opinion on Frank Zappa: 'He Would Put His Musicians Through Hell'

"...he would suddenly change the key of the tune on the night and expect his musicians to be able to play it"

The_Phoenician
Posted 3 days ago

Steve Hackett opined on the persona and legacy of Frank Zappa, recalling some tales about the exceedingly high standards Zappa held his musicians at.

A mad genius, a well of musical knowledge, a riddle wrapped up in an enigma - all of these descriptions have a good chance of cropping up in conversations about Frank Zappa. However, Steve Hackett thinks his overseas prog contemporary should be best thought of as an "all-round impresario", someone whose music, presentation, and philosophy should be considered together as one holistic piece of art.

Speaking to Classic Album Review in a recent interview, the former Genesis guitarist and prolific solo artist also noted how Zappa had quite a reputation for demanding *a lot* from the musicians he worked with (transcribed by UG):

"When I think of Zappa, these days when he's mentioned, it's in the sort of seminal sense of the great teacher, that he's doing this and what have you. But you know, I have a few anecdotes from friends who are talking about the fact that he would suddenly change the key of the tune on the night and expect his musicians to be able to play it, which would have created havoc. And I think that he obviously wanted these musicians to be working to a very high standard.

"But I tend to think of him as an impresario, an all-round entertainer in the best sense of the word; you had humor, you had music, you had this, you had the show, you had an extraordinary thing that he was doing live on MTV, this long-form piece, nevermind Genesis and 'Supper's Ready'... And it seemed to take in just about everything. And there's streamers going off, and it's this party atmosphere, but it's right on the money. And it's really, really great."

Recalling what Chester Thompson, former Genesis touring drummer, Mothers of Invention member, and Hackett's occasional collaborator, would tell him about working with Zappa, the guitarist went on:
"I know that Chester [Thompson] used to say, he said, 'Yeah, Frank kills himself trying to play his own guitar parts.' And other times he would say, 'Yeah, Frank would carry around a coffee urn, and he'd be drinking coffee literally all day, and cigarettes' - not the greatest diet in the world. But that's what needed to fuel him up. And do that.

"And I gather all those musicians who join that band, they'd say, 'Oh, what else would you like me to concentrate on?' And he'd say, 'All of it.' So he would put his musicians through hell. So if ever I think I'm a slave driver, expecting my lot to come up with three or four albums..."

Steve Hackett's "Genesis Revisited Live: Seconds Out & More" live album is out now via InsideOut. Hackett is embarked on the "Foxtrot At Fifty UK tour". Check out upcoming tour dates here.

Rio Takeover of Giant Copper Mine Opposed by Top Investor


Scott Deveau and Thomas Biesheuvel
Fri, September 9, 2022


(Bloomberg) -- A top investor in Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd. is opposing a proposed takeover by Rio Tinto Plc, arguing the purchase price undervalues the company that’s behind one of the world’s largest copper mines.

Rio Tinto agreed last week to buy out the stake in Turquoise Hill it didn’t already own in a deal valued at about $3.3 billion, giving it more control of the Oyu Tolgoi mine it’s developing in Mongolia.

Pentwater Capital Management, which has been a longstanding critic of Rio’s management of the asset, said in a statement Friday the purchase price ascribes an equity value of C$8.65 billion ($6.66 billion) to the Montreal-based miner, which it argues is a fraction of the free cash flow it expects the company to generate over the next decade.

Turquoise Hill Shareholder Blasts Rio Over Copper Mine Funding

Pentwater owns a nearly 12% stake in Turquoise Hill. Rio already owns 51% of Turquoise Hill, but more than half of the remaining shareholders must back the acquisition for the deal to proceed.

Shares of Montreal-based Turquoise Hill fell 2.7% to C$40.87 at 10:51 a.m. in Toronto. Rio Tinto shares rose 3.5% in London.

The Naples, Florida-based investment firm said it was examining its legal and shareholder rights with respect to opposing the takeover. Pentwater Capital is the second-largest shareholder of Turquoise Hill, according to Bloomberg data.

Pentwater said it believed there is a high probability that copper prices will be in excess of $4 a pound over the next decades as the world transitions to a green economy. The firm said at that price, it believes Turquoise Hill will generate almost C$14.2 billion in free cash through 2030.

“Pentwater further believes that the proposed premium is unacceptable for a mine that Pentwater expects to be the third-largest copper and gold mine in the world with a mine life in excess of 90 years,” the firm said.

Final Offer

The price Rio has agreed to pay represents a 67% premium on Turquoise Hill’s share price before the first offer in March, a time when copper was trading near a record high. Should shareholders reject the offer, Turquoise Hill is set to have to raise equity to fund its share of developing Oyu Tolgoi’s underground operations.

Rio Chief Executive Officer Jakob Stausholm said Monday in a statement that the deal will simplify governance, improve efficiency and that there will be no further price increases.

Oyu Tolgoi is expected to be the world’s fourth-largest copper mine once the underground component is completed, with Turquoise Hill and its partners targeting an eventual production rate of more than 500,000 metric tons of copper a year. Suppliers of the industrial metal have been facing a dearth of new deposits and growing demand for the wiring metal that’s key to economies electrifying in a shift away from fossil fuels.

Pentwater isn’t the only investor to oppose the plan. Sailingstone Capital Partners, a top-five shareholder with a 2.2% stake, said earlier this month it will also oppose the deal.

Still, Sailingstone has sold most of its stake over the past three years for less than the current offer price, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. In 2018, the firm had built a stake of about 14% in Turquoise Hill, only to sell much of its holdings as the stock traded in a range of C$5 to C$15 a share, the data show.

How will Edmonton fix urban heat islands that impact poorer areas?

Lauren Boothby - Yesterday, POSTMEDIA


Despite being one of Canada’s coldest places, Edmonton needs look at how fix potentially dangerous “heat islands” that affect often poorer areas as it plans to respond to climate change in the future, says a city councillor.


A pedestrian makes their way through Forest Heights Park as a smokey haze hangs over Edmonton, Monday, 22, 2022. Smoke from wildfires has prompted an air quality statement for the Edmonton area. As of late Monday morning, Environment Canada said the city's Air Quality Health Index was an eight , or 'high risk' on its 10-point scale. Photo By David Bloom© David Bloom

Scientists at the University of Alberta in research announced last month found stark differences in surface temperatures between local urban and rural areas because of human-caused global warming and a loss of vegetation. Urban hotspots will become more of a problem as global temperatures rise and heat waves — which can have catastrophic consequences — become more common in the future. Just last year, 66 more people died in Alberta than usual after an intense heat wave.

Ground temperatures in numerous areas within Edmonton jumped by between 6 C and 12 C compared to rural areas in the last 20 years, researchers found . Places that are more “built up” with roads, buildings, sidewalks and parking lots, have more concrete and asphalt. Those materials absorb heat, release it slowly, and keep temperatures high.

Areas around the river valley were cooler than others — areas occupied by wealthier Edmontonians. Neighbourhoods where Edmonotonians with lower socio-economic status live, and lone-parent households, were hotter.

Scientist and co-author Sandeep Agrawal told the Canadian Press the city’s urban planning teams need to take hot temperatures into account, not just cold weather, and find ways of preserving trees and other greenery to mitigate the impacts.

Ward Métis Coun. Ashley Salvador agrees.

“I think there’s a really clear connection between urban planning and design of our neighbourhoods, equity and the urban heat island effect,” she told Postmedia in a recent interview. “There’s also variability based on the age of a neighbourhood. A lot of communities that have big, mature trees, you can really feel the difference when you travel between (them).”

Edmonton already has a goal to plant two million new trees.

Salvador said urban heat islands will be part of the discussion for this work. As the city continues with neighbourhood renewal, there’s an opportunity to look at both preserving existing trees on public and private property, and building more trees and vegetation into neighbourhood design, she said.

“When we talk about planting new trees you can look at it from so many angles, not just sustainability and climate resilience, and heat island effect, but also livability,” she said.

“The urban heat island effect, yes, it’s about city property and public trees, but it’s also about the private trees that contribute to that urban tree canopy as well.”








U.S. heat dome brings soaring temperatures to western Canada

Salvador is an urban planner by trade. She notes that many of Edmonton’s mature neighbourhoods have more boulevard trees because this was part of the city’s design philosophy going back to the ’50s and ’60s — a stark contrast to some newer areas.

“Neighbourhoods were not intentionally built with tree boulevards, the streets themselves are actually a lot wider, more in that sort of curvilinear suburban style,” she said. “I think we’re at the point now where we’re realizing how much value trees add to our livability, our climate resilience. We’re trying to get back to that.”

Adding new and protecting existing trees is also part of City Plan, a master document meant to guide all aspects of the city’s work. Salvador said this sets a high bar for policies like construction standards and street design guidelines, and making sure they are aligned to help the city achieve that larger vision.

“That’s what we’re doing now, I would say. We’re in the phase where we’re trying to implement the vision of City Plan into these conversations.”

City prepares for climate change in Edmonton

The U of A’s research was partially funded by the City of Edmonton.

As Edmonton’s climate warms , the city’s urban strategist Lindsey Butterfield said understanding the why, where, and what of these conditions becomes more urgent, as well as solutions.

“This research is going to be really valuable for us and then making those adaptive choices,” she told Postmedia this week.

While the city doesn’t currently have plans to specifically address heat islands, Butterfield said there’s a number of initiatives underway that will make an impact.

Open option parking is one. This policy removed on-site parking requirements in the zoning bylaw, meaning fewer large parking lots may be built. More requirements for landscaping may also be put into zoning rules as the city works on overhauling the bylaw, she said.

Design and construction standards, planning around the urban tree canopy and modernizing the river valley are three others.

“Adaptation isn’t just one thing. It is really about everything in the city contributing to mitigate those climate change impacts,” Butterfield said.

Buttefield said the heat island research is new and the city is still working on unpacking its findings and how to move forward, but it is making her reflect.

“How do we build a rebuildable city? How do we redevelop the parts of the city that aren’t serving our residents as well as they need to?” she said. “It just gives us that data point to look at what do we need to do differently.”

An update on the city’s work around the urban tree canopy is set to return to a council committee early next year.

A public map of the heat islands along with wildfire risks should be released next year, says Chandra Tomaras, the city’s director of environment and climate resilience.

lboothby@postmedia.com

I LIVE IN ONE OF THESE SO CALLED POOR NEIGHBOURHOODS OUR TREES KEEP US COOL BY 5 TO 10 DEGREES IN THE SHADE MANY ARE ELMS THAT ARE OVER 100 UEARS OLD

Ginni Thomas Pressured Multiple Swing States to Overturn Biden Win: Emails

Nick Mordowanec - Sept 1, 2022 - Newsweek 

Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, reportedly attempted to sway 2020 election results in the battleground state of Wisconsin following repeated communication with dozens of Arizona state lawmakers.


New emails reportedly show Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, urging lawmakers in Arizona and Wisconsin to overturn President Joe Biden's election victory. Above, the husband and wife share a laugh at the Heritage Foundation on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC.

© Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The Washington Post reported that she contacted 29 Arizona lawmakers, some multiple times, in November and December of 2020 and urged them to "choose" their own presidential electors while ignoring President Joe Biden's popular vote victory—a contradiction of Arizona state law that stipulates voters choose electors.

Emails to Republican Wisconsin lawmakers state Senator Kathy Bernier and state Representative Gary Tauchen reportedly showed communication at 10:47 a.m. on November 9. It was the same time Arizona lawmakers received a "verbatim copy," according to the Post, which obtained the Bernier email, while the Tauchen email was obtained by the watchdog group Documented and then provided to the Post.

Justice Clarence Thomas And Wife Ginni Under Fire For Alleged Jan. 6 Link

View on Watch  Duration 0:54

Thomas reportedly sent all of the emails through FreeRoots, an online platform that allowed people to send pre-written emails to multiple elected officials.

"Please stand strong in the face of media and political pressure," read the November 9 emails, days after Biden's election victory. "Please reflect on the awesome authority granted to you by our Constitution. And then please take action to ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen for our state."

Ginni Thomas has refused to testify before the January 6 committee. Previously, her attorney, Mark Paoletta, wrote a letter to the committee that was later obtained by The New York Times that stated there was not a "sufficient basis" for her to testify.

Newsweek reached out to Paoletta for comment.

Previous emails uncovered by The Washington Post revealed that Ginni Thomas told two Arizona legislators, "Please do your Constitutional duty!" and encouraged them to choose a "clean slate of Electors" and to "audit" the 2020 presidential vote.

Public outcry escalated for Thomas to be subpoenaed due to revelations that she had emailed John Eastman, a former campaign attorney for Donald Trump. The emails reportedly showed that her efforts to overturn the 2020 election were greater than previously known.

Republican Representative and January 6 committee Co-Chair Liz Cheney reiterated that Thomas could still be subpoenaed, saying that the committee hopes Thomas would testify "voluntarily."

"But the committee is fully prepared to contemplate a subpoena if she does not," Cheney said on July 24.

Attorney and former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks has suggested that even with a subpoena, Ginni Thomas might be able to get out of testifying due to her husband citing spousal privilege and his inability to testify against her.

Newsweek reached out to Bernier, Tauchen and the Supreme Court for comment.

Dem Candidate Pisses Off Party Elders With Abortion Tweet

Ursula Perano - The Daily Beast

Less than a week out from her high-stakes primary election, progressive New York state Sen. Alessandra Biaggi is tripling down on her assertion that members of Congress “past child-bearing age” are too old to effectively fight for abortion rights.


Photo Illustration by Elizabeth Brockway/The Daily Beast/Getty

The comment, on Twitter in July, gained minimal traction at the time.

“At the risk of sounding ageist, it’s still important to ask: when a majority of Congress is past child-bearing age, how fierce can we expect their fight to be?” Biaggi, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney wrote on July 5, explaining in a successive tweet that it’s not that “elders” aren’t needed, but that they needed to “make space” for younger leaders.

But then Hudson PAC, a pro-Maloney group, began circulating copies of the post in campaign materials this week, and Biaggi dug in, calling it one of her “finest tweets.”

“When a generation of elected leaders fail to protect our rights, and respond by sending fundraising emails, it merits asking whether we need new diverse leaders,” she tweeted in response to criticism of her original comment. “Having a blind spot to such a pervasive frustration is not workable.”

The average age in the House is 57 and in the Senate it’s 62.

Her explanation did little to quell the backlash, particularly among lawmakers “past child-bearing age.”

“It’s kind of a slap at older women in office… I can’t figure out why she would say that,” New York Assemblywoman Sandy Galef (D) told The Daily Beast.

Galef, 82, said she fought her way into politics at a time where being a woman in office was more of an anomaly—and that she thinks effective policy making benefits from “people of all ages” being in office.

“It was all about men before… we all fought very very hard to be elected,” Galef added.

Westchester County Democratic Party Chairwoman Suzanne Berger said she knows “many people—men and women—who are offended by it,” but added that she simply doesn’t understand the strategy.

Berger said she thought Biaggi’s initial “child-bearing age” comment was just a political misstep. But as Biaggi continued to double down, the intention became clear.

“Any time you try to exclude a significant portion of the electorate, meaning women over 40, that’s not a winning formula in politics,” Berger said.

New York political strategist Jennifer Cunningham, who started a public Twitter feud with Biaggi over the tweets, also posted that if Biaggi “had any respect for me - or women over child bearing age - you wouldn’t say it in the first place. Politically, [it’s] also one of the dumbest moves I’ve seen in a long time. Maybe when you’re older you’ll understand.”

Biaggi’s campaign was undeterred.

"Alessandra Biaggi believes our government should be as diverse as our country — including racial, economic, gender and age diversity — which is why we need more young people in Congress, just as we need more women, working people and people of color,” Biaggi campaign spokesperson Monica Klein said in a statement.

Some of the head scratching over Biaggi’s strategy was due to the fact that the primary is just days away—and though Biaggi has defeated an incumbent before, it’s no small task.

“As someone who is new to the district and being outspent in all forms here… she really needed or needs all the cards to kinda break her way,” New York Democratic strategist Chris Coffey told The Daily Beast, noting Biaggi is facing an uphill battle in the moderate-leaning district.

Biaggi’s progressive supporters feel differently. Sochie Nnaemeka with the New York Working Families Party, told The Daily Beast she believes Biaggi’s built a strong ground game, and that she’s mobilizing voters around the idea of change.

“The establishment benefits from a demobilized, demoralized electorate,” said, later adding that Biaggi is waging an “uphill battle against the current to give people something to turn out for and to say that, you know, ‘We might vote with hope. We also vote with righteous indignation. We also vote for an agenda.”

The NY-17 congressional race was contentious from the start. After redistricting jumbled up members’ pre-existing territories, Maloney announced he would be running in the district where he lived even though it is currently represented by progressive Rep. Mondaire Jones (D). Jones was left with two options: run against Maloney, or run somewhere else.

Jones chose the latter—opting to run in NY-10’s crowded but open primary. That prompted some immediate backlash to Maloney, the chair of congressional Democrats’ national campaign arm in charge of protecting incumbents, for potentially edging out a young, Black Democrat from a safer path toward re-election.

His sharp elbows are hardly the only criticism Maloney has faced during his tenure at the DCCC. Just this week, he was called out for using his perch at the DCCC to fundraise for his own campaign. His decision to meddle in GOP primaries this cycle has also attracted the ire of his fellow House Democrats who slammed the tactic of spending money to prop up GOP primary candidates who are further right—but potentially easier to beat—as an objectively risky strategy for the party.

But Coffey doubts the DCCC-related criticism would penetrate the conversation among voters in the district. The DCCC is hardly a household name and party primary strategies are often a muddy amalgamation of insider baseball.

“Too in the weeds,” Coffey called it.

Maloney’s campaign is remaining optimistic. Spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg told The Daily Beast in a statement that the campaign is confident Maloney “will win this election because of his record of results and strong relationships across the Hudson Valley.”

Coffey, though doubtful about Biaggi’s prospects, conceded that the race is still up in the air. There’s been minimal public polling—and New York City politics has seen a number of surprising upsets in the past few years.

“It’s not over,” he said. And you never know.”

Beto O’Rourke drops f-bomb on rally heckler after Uvalde sneer
Brian Niemietz -


A Beto O’Rourke rally in Texas took an R-rated turn Wednesday night when a heckler chuckled about gun violence.

O’Rourke, who’s challenging incumbent Greg Abbott in the Lone Star’s gubernatorial race, covered a wide range of topics during his address to supporters and critics at Mineral Well Town Hall near Fort Worth. When he spoke about Texans being able to purchase unlimited ammunition and AR-15 rifle, “originally designed for use on the battlefields in Vietnam” at least one person in the back of the room let loose with a dismissive chuckle.

(WARNING: GRAPHIC LANGUAGE)

“It may be funny to you, motherf---er, but it’s not funny to me, OK?” the Democratic candidate fired back.

The crowd erupted with a standing ovation for the 49-year-old El Paso native.

“We’re going to make sure that our kids who are starting their school year right now, that they don’t have to worry,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke tweeted after rally that the May 24 mass shooting that killed 19 students and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, would not be forgotten if he’s elected.

“Nothing more serious to me than getting justice for the families in Uvalde and stopping this from ever happening again,” he wrote.

Several antagonists at the rally were being addressed by police after the disruption. according to video posted by the BetoMedia fan site. That site claimed multiple antagonists laughed at O’Rourke’s description of the kinds of weapons frequently used in mass shootings in the U.S.

O’Rourke and Abbott are set to debate on Sept. 30, the Texas Tribune reports. O’ Rourke, who narrowly lost a Senate rate against Ted Cruz in 2018, is reportedly pushing Abbott to agree to a second debate.

Beto O’Rourke confronts Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over school massacre: ‘It’s on you’

Abbott currently finds himself at odds with New York Mayor Adams, who had choice words for the Texas governor on Wednesday after several busloads of migrants shipped out of the Lone Star State arrived in New York City.

“He is an anti-American governor that is really going against everything we stand for,” Adams said.

Abbott accused Adams of “rank hypocrisy” during a Wednesday visit to Fox News, where he argued that Adams is now getting a taste of what his border state deals with on a regular basis.

The Classified-Files Scandal Is the Most Trumpy Scandal of All

Quinta Jurecic - Atlantic

The iron law of scandals involving Donald Trump is that they will always be stupid, and there will always be more of them. Trump scandals—the Russia investigation; Trump’s first impeachment, over his efforts to blackmail Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; the insurrection on January 6—have something else in common: All these catastrophes result from Trump’s refusal to divorce the office of the presidency and the good of the country from his personal desires.

© James Devaney / GC Images / Getty; The Atlantic

Now Trump’s apparent squirreling away of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and his outrage over the Justice Department’s investigation of that conduct, speaks once more to his vision of his own absolute authority—even after he has departed the presidency. It’s a vision that places Trump himself, rather than the Constitution and the rule of law, as the one true source of legitimate political power.

A great deal remains unclear about the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago—among other things, why and how the material arrived at the estate in the first place instead of remaining in the custody of the National Archives, where it belonged. Reporting, though, suggests that Trump may have understood those documents—material that, under the Presidential Records Act, belongs to the American people—to be his own, to do whatever he liked with. “It’s not theirs; it’s mine,” Trump reportedly told several advisers about the misplaced documents. One “Trump adviser” told The Washington Post that “the former president’s reluctance to relinquish the records stems from his belief that many items created during his term … are now his personal property.” Another adviser to the former president said to the Post, “He didn’t give them the documents because he didn’t want to.”

[Graeme Wood: Not even the president can declassify nuclear secrets]

This childlike logic reflects Trump’s long-running inability to distinguish between the individual president and the institutional presidency, a structure that existed before him and that persists even after he unwillingly departed the White House. In his view, he is the presidency (which … is not what legal scholars typically mean when they talk about the “unitary executive.”) The same logic surfaces in the bizarre arguments made by Trump’s defenders that Trump somehow declassified all the sensitive documents held at Mar-a-Lago before he left office. Under the Constitution, the president does have broad authority over the classification system. But as experts have noted, it makes little sense to imagine a president declassifying information without communicating that decision across the executive branch so that everyone else would know to treat the material in question as no longer classified—unless, that is, you understand presidential power not as an institution of government, but as the projection of a single person’s all-powerful consciousness onto the world.

The approach of separating the presidency from the individual president evolved for a good reason: The vision of the man inextricable from the office he holds tips quickly into monarchy. Again and again during his presidency, Trump did his best to transform executive power into a resource from which to extract personal benefit. He likewise sought to use that power to extend his own time in office—either by seeking damaging information to harm the political chances of an opponent, as in the Ukraine scandal that led to his first impeachment, or by attempting to overturn an election outright on January 6. That tendency to collapse the institutional presidency into a reflection of his own desires often took the form of clashes between Trump and federal law enforcement, as officials tried with varying success to resist Trump’s efforts to turn the Justice Department and the FBI into a Praetorian Guard tasked with going after the president’s political enemies and protecting his friends.

The idea that law enforcement cannot and should not be the tool of the leader’s individual whims is central to the divide between the president and the institutional presidency, and therefore to the idea of “rule of law.” The concept’s roots trace back to the origins of liberal political theory: As John Locke wrote, governmental power “ought to be exercised by established and promulgated laws, that both the people may know their duty, and be safe and secure within the limits of the law, and the rulers, too, kept within their due bounds.” Authority, in this view, stems not from the person of the ruler but from the broader structure of law and the consent of the people.

In his terse public comments about the Mar-a-Lago search, Attorney General Merrick Garland has emphasized this understanding of law and power, which runs so counter to Trump’s. “Faithful adherence to the rule of law is the bedrock principle of the Justice Department and of our democracy,” Garland said in his August 11 press conference announcing that the department would move to unseal the warrant for Trump’s estate. “Upholding the rule of law means applying the law evenly, without fear or favor.”

Trump, obviously, disagrees with this characterization. In posts on his social-media platform, Truth Social, he has returned to familiar tropes, calling the search warrant and related investigation a “hoax,” a “scam,” and a “witch hunt.” During his presidency, attacks such as these on the Russia investigation followed naturally from his own understanding of absolute presidential power. After all, if the president’s authority is total and unbound by law, then how can the DOJ investigate him? As Trump liked to say during his time in office, “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”

[David Frum: Stuck with Trump]

The additional twist of the Mar-a-Lago scandal, though, is that Trump is now implicitly claiming that total authority even out of office. If, before, Trump was furious that Special Counsel Robert Mueller could investigate him even when he was the president, now he is outraged that the DOJ would investigate him even though he is Trump. Supporters of Trump incensed by the search of Mar-a-Lago, Adam Serwer writes, “simply believe that Trump should not be subject to the law at all.”

Following the Mar-a-Lago search, Trump’s Republican supporters in Congress have called to “defund the FBI.” Meanwhile, the former president’s aggressive denunciation of the agency and the Justice Department has coincided with a flood of threats against law enforcement, including the magistrate judge who approved the Mar-a-Lago warrant. A bulletin from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security announced that, following the Mar-a-Lago search, the agencies “have observed an increase in violent threats posted on social media against federal officials and facilities.” Last week, a man attacked the FBI field office in Cincinnati; recent posts on Truth Social under the name of the attacker, Ricky Shiffer, had called for people to “get whatever you need to be ready for combat” following the FBI’s arrival at Mar-a-Lago. On Monday, prosecutors brought a case against another man, Adam Bies, who had posted threats against federal agents days after the search of Trump’s estate.

Such threats reveal the disturbing logic behind the GOP calls to defund the agency. The goal is not to critique law-enforcement overreach, but rather, as Zeeshan Aleem argues in MSNBC, to make the bureau “completely subordinate to the authoritarian political project.” And this project is authoritarian, because it locates total power in one person—even, it seems, when he has been voted out of office. This vision of Trump’s authority sets up a parallel structure of political legitimacy that competes with the Constitution.

This is the logic of insurrection. “HEY FEDS,” Bies apparently wrote on the social-media platform Gab two days after the Mar-a-Lago search. “We the people cannot WAIT to water the trees of liberty with your blood.” Meanwhile, Representative Bennie Thompson—the chair of the House committee investigating the insurrection—warned that such apocalyptic comments “are frighteningly similar to those we saw in the run-up to the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol.”

After all, if power flows not from structures of law and consent but from the will of a single person, then the measure of whether violence is justified and legitimate no longer turns on whether force is channeled through the proper processes of state authority. Rather, it boils down to a single question: Is that violence wielded on behalf of Trump? Or against him?

Rick Scott's Fraud Settlement Resurfaces as Senate GOP Runs Low on Cash

Jason Lemon - 

Critics of Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), resurfaced a past Medicare fraud settlement from his tenure as CEO of a hospital corporation, as his committee reportedly is running short on cash and pulling ads in support of GOP Senate candidates with less than three months until the midterm election.


Senator Rick Scott (R-Florida) faces criticism as the NRSC, which he chairs, reportedly runs low on funds ahead of the 2022 midterm election. Above, Scott walks to the Senate Republican Luncheon in the U.S. Capitol Building on August 2 in Washington, D.C.© Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The NRSC is the primary organization working to raise funds and support Republican candidates in the party's bid to take back the majority in the upper chamber of Congress. Scott has led the committee since January 2021, but The Washington Post reported on Friday that campaign advisers are asking "where all the money went and to demand an audit of the committee's finances" as the NRSC pulls ads and runs low on funds.

Many on Twitter pointed to Scott's past Medicare fraud scandal during his time as CEO of Columbia/HCA. When Scott was deposed in 2000 amid the investigation, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 75 times.

Columbia/HCA later reached a settlement with the Justice Department of $840 million in 2000, and another settlement of $881 million in 2002, with the combined fines totaling $1.7 billion. At the time, this was the record health care fraud settlement, although it has since been surpassed, according to PolitiFact.

"Rick Scott oversaw the biggest Medicare fraud in history, so the GOP in its genius put him in charge of its national campaign fund and now is wondering where all its money went. Incredible," writer Gary Legum posted to Twitter, commenting on the Post's reporting.

"There's clearly been some shift in momentum over the summer. But fundraising collapses like this don't happen in a week or a month. Did Rick Scott defraud the NRSC like he did Medicare? How on earth can they be out of money after a year of gop surge?" Talking Points Memo founder Josh Marshall tweeted.

"Rick Scott has gotten amazingly far in politics for a guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history but I'm not sure why you'd put the guy who perpetrated the largest Medicare fraud in history in charge of a large sum of money," writer and editor Matthew Yglesias tweeted.

The Post reported that the NRSC has rapidly burned through its funds, despite its record fundraising. The committee raked in $173 million this election cycle, the report said, citing Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosures. Despite that massive haul, the NRSC had less than $29 million on hand at the end of June.

An NRSC spokesperson told the Post that the committee planned to spend more money in support of Republican Senate candidates at more crucial moments.

"Our goal was to keep our candidates afloat and get them to this point where they're still in the game in all our top states," committee spokesperson Chris Hartline said. "So when the big spending starts now we have a fighting chance."

Newsweek reached out to Scott's press representatives and Hartline for comment.

The senator has previously faced criticism from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, over suggesting that Republicans would raise taxes and cut funding to Social Security and Medicare. McConnell knocked the proposals in February, assessing that it "raises taxes on half the American people and sunsets Social Security and Medicare within five years." The top Senate Republican said that the GOP "will not have" such a plan "as part of our agenda" if the the party retakes the majority in the midterms.

Meanwhile, Democrats now appear well-positioned to maintain, and possibly expand, their majority in the Senate, despite President Joe Biden's abysmal approval rating and recent historic precedent. Earlier in the year, analysts largely believed Republicans would retake control of the Senate, as they only needed to pick up one seat.

Even McConnell admitted that prospects that his party will retake the majority are dimming.

"I think there's probably a greater likelihood the House flips than the Senate. Senate races are just different—they're statewide, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome," he said in Kentucky on Thursday, NBC News reported.