Month: September 2022

Revenge of the Abortion Voters?


pro-choice protesters with sign that says "aid and abet abortion"

Republicans seemed so close to a massive midterm victory in 2022. Then the reality of their anti-abortion ideology started to drop. Now, Democrats are gaining ground again, and the outcome of this November’s election seems much less clear.

With gas prices high, inflation still rising, and Democrats still tainted by bad COVID policy, polls in late 2021 and the first half of 2022 showed American swing voters leaning heavily Republican. For instance, Gallup polling on independent voters found Democrats’ nine-point advantage over Republicans at the start of 2021 shifted to a five-point Republican advantage by the end of the year. In March, independents surveyed by The Wall Street Journal favored Republicans by 12 percentage points, and 46 percent of respondents overall said they would back a Republican candidate for Congress, while only 41 percent would back a Democrat. And in a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll conducted in April, 47 percent of respondents said they would vote for a Republican candidate if the election were held then, compared to just 44 percent who favored Democrats. “Republicans have strong support among independents who break toward the GOP by 7 points, and only one in 10 say they’re still undecided on which party to support,” PBS reported.

Things look different now. And abortion may explain this shift.

In June, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) and upending the basis for legal abortion across America. Some Republican-controlled state legislatures rushed to pass new anti-abortion laws, while previously passed bans triggered by Roe‘s overturning also started taking effect.

Dobbs and its aftermath may have heartened hard-core pro-life factions. But early signs suggest it’s not playing so well with the U.S. populace at large—a populace that remains moderately but significantly pro-choice.

Before Dobbs, “Republicans were cruising, and Democrats were having a hard time,” Republican pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio (who conducted the Wall Street Journal‘s poll in conjunction with Democratic pollster John Anzalone) said. “It’s almost like the abortion issue came along and was kind of like a defibrillator to Democrats.”

In the most recent Wall Street Journal poll, Democrats—down five points against Republicans back in March—hold a slight advantage. Respondents favored a Democratic congressional candidate over a GOP candidate 47 percent to 44 percent. This is “a lead that is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points,” the Journal points out. But it represents a six-point rise for Democrats since the March poll.

And the difference is more stark when considering only independent voters. Where Republicans led by 12 points among independents back in March, Democrats now lead by three points (38 percent to 35 percent). White, suburban women—a notoriously swing-voting group—now prefer a Democratic congressional candidate 52 percent to 40 percent.

Since the Dobbs decision came out, Democrats have been massively outpacing Republicans in new voter registrations in many states with restrictive abortion laws, with new voter registrations among women far outpacing those among men. The latest Wall Street Journal poll provides yet another sign that the issue of abortion will be motivating voters—and benefiting Democrats.

Asked about the most important issue in deciding their vote for Congress this November, 13 percent said abortion. It ranked only under the economy (16 percent) in issues of importance, outranking 35 other issues from inflation (11 percent) to immigration (7 percent), preserving democracy (5 percent), crime (2 percent), race issues (1 percent), and jobs (1 percent).

Asked how various issues would impact their likelihood to vote, 48 percent said the Supreme Court overturning Roe made them “much more likely” to vote, and 9 percent said it made them “somewhat more likely” to vote.

And when asked whether Democrats or Republicans would be better at handling “abortion policy,” nearly half (48 percent) of respondents said Democrats, while just 27 percent said Republicans. (Sixteen percent said neither, and 6 percent said both equally.)

The Journal poll—conducted August 17–22 among 1,313 registered voters (more of whom were likely to describe themselves as conservative than liberal)—suggests that this fall’s battle for control of Congress may be more competitive than anticipated and provides yet another sign that voters aren’t totally enamored with Republican extremism on abortion.

Earlier signs include voters in the notoriously conservative state of Kansas rejecting in large numbers an anti-abortion ballot measure at the start of August.

The situation has gotten so iffy that some Republican candidates—including Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, and Michigan congressional candidate Tom Barrett—have scrubbed their websites of more extreme anti-abortion language.

The post Revenge of the Abortion Voters? appeared first on Reason.com.

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Manhattan D.A. To Prosecute Domestic Violence Victim for Murder After Saying It Wasn’t Murder


Tracy McCarter

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was still a candidate for his position, there was a defendant he took a special interest in. “I #StandWithTracy,” he tweeted in September 2020. “Prosecuting a domestic violence survivor who acted in self-defense is unjust.”

There was a subtext to that message. He was referring to Tracy McCarter, a woman who was charged with murder for killing her estranged—and allegedly highly abusive—husband. It was Cy Vance, who Bragg was seeking to replace in office, who brought that charge against her. The translation: As your district attorney, I won’t, and would never, prosecute such a case.

Bragg assumed office in January of this year. As of Tuesday, McCarter is officially headed to trial for murder.

It’s not the first time Bragg has failed to apply the principles he won office promising to uphold. There was the case of Jose Alba, 61, a bodega worker who killed an irate customer: In early July, Austin Simon, 35, came behind Alba’s workstation, attacked him after his girlfriend’s payment was declined, and seemingly attempted to drag Alba out from behind the counter to continue the confrontation. Alba ultimately took a knife and stabbed Simon, who later died from his injuries.

Based on the store’s surveillance footage, it appeared to be a fairly classic case of self-defense. Yet Bragg’s office charged Alba with second-degree murder, sent him to Rikers Island—one of the most notoriously violent jails in the country—and initially sought a $500,000 bond to ensure he stayed there. This despite running on a platform infused with planks pledging not to overcharge and overincarcerate, and a promise to reform bail policies for pre-trial detention.

After a national outcry, Bragg dropped the charges. But McCarter has not been fortunate enough to attract the same outpouring of attention, notwithstanding the fact that her case also looks like a textbook definition of self-defense, and notwithstanding the fact that Bragg specifically leveraged her misery to distinguish himself from his predecessor.

McCarter was arrested in March 2020 after stabbing her husband, James Murray, who reportedly entered her home, where he did not live, heavily intoxicated, and allegedly threatened her life. She was found trying to administer CPR while screaming for assistance, and her neighbors say Murray had been on a bender in the building. But the grand jury that approved a murder charge against McCarter didn’t hear about Murray’s drunkenness that day, or his detailed history of violent behavior and abuse, because prosecutors declined to share it.

Bragg, however, could have charted a new course. As the D.A., he has power over which cases he does and does not want to prosecute. As I wrote in July:

Prosecutors enjoy wide discretion on the job—a discretion that Bragg exercises liberally when it suits him. Upon ascending to the top of the D.A.’s office, Bragg announced that he wouldn’t prosecute certain crimes, like sex work and marijuana possession. That’s not because the New York Legislature had a change of heart on those issues; it’s because Bragg has the power not to enforce certain crimes as he sees fit.

Yet not unlike Alba, McCarter encountered a different Bragg from the outset of his time in office. She encountered the tough-on-crime Bragg, who initially fought to make sure she could not leave New York City for psychiatric treatment as a condition of her bail. It was an odd move, particularly when considering this is the same defendant who Bragg insisted should never have been charged with any crime in the first place, much less be subjected to restrictive pre-trial conditions.

“Bragg has demonstrably failed at living up to his campaign promises. He’s very much turning out to be the opposite of what he ran on,” says Olayemi Olurin, a public defender with the Legal Aid Society of NYC (and a friend of mine). “He drew attention to this case himself…and here he is in office with all the ability to drop the charges.”

The latter point bears repeating. Bragg had a very public about-face in the case of Alba, who has since announced he is moving to the Dominican Republic. (Can you blame him?) But Bragg’s office has only extended haphazard gestures of mercy toward McCarter. Earlier this week, a judge declined Bragg’s request to downgrade the charges from murder to manslaughter—because prosecutors once again did not bother to furnish evidence of her domestic abuse. That evidence includes a 2009 police report detailing Murray’s arrests, written correspondence from 2018 in which Murray admits to physical abuse, and a 2019 video of a naked, intoxicated Murray attacking McCarter.

“They affirm, without reference to exhibit or documentation, that she is a survivor of domestic violence,” wrote Acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Diane Kiesel. Again, that’s not because those exhibits don’t exist.

But prosecutors’ laziness with that motion just begs the same question once again: Why are they fighting to uphold any charge when they could seek to have it dismissed, as they did in Alba’s case? Bragg could, for instance, reconvene a grand jury and actually present the evidence of domestic violence; it is also not unheard of for prosecutors to botch a grand jury hearing if they do not think the case is worth pursuing. So too could Bragg file a request to vacate the charge entirely. Instead, the same prosecutor who publicly called the killing “self-defense” must now ensure it is called murder in court, after admitting again this week—in court—that his office does not think it was a murder.

The ludicrousness of that proposition perhaps makes a bit more sense in the context of political expediency, something that Bragg has navigated clumsily since entering office. “I don’t think charges should be brought against Jose Alba, and I think the good thing is for them to be dismissed,” says Olurin. Yet Alba’s case generated a rare sort of public backlash, particularly in conservative circles, attracting primetime segments on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program. “These progressive prosecutors are very attuned to media attention,” she adds.

They are, after all, politicians. But while McCarter may have been useful on the campaign trail, she has proven decidedly less so after the fact.

The post Manhattan D.A. To Prosecute Domestic Violence Victim for Murder After Saying It Wasn't Murder appeared first on Reason.com.

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Remy: 2 Become 1 (Spice Girls Inflation Parody)


Remy: 2 Become 1 (Spice Girls Inflation Parody)

Slam your value down and print another round.

Parody of The Spice Girls’ “2 Become 1,” written and performed by Remy; video produced by Meredith and Austin Bragg

LYRICS:

Wars that go on for forever
Checks we send out to whoever
I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it…

Accountant is even more stressed than
A Uyghur at Panda Express, saying
We can’t achieve it! We can’t achieve it!

We can’t spend money we don’t have, that’s crazy
You must be new—don’t feel blue
Cuz tonight is the night when one becomes two

We spent more cash than we ever spent the cash before
(We hadn’t saved so we borrowed baby)
We couldn’t pay the tab, so we just printed more
(Now grapes cost $10, baby)

Set your printer free
It’s the only way to be

You thought the future’d be The Jetsons
Turns out it’s more like The Epsons
We must avoid it! We can just coin it

I’m known as Chris Brown in these places
‘Cause I’m pounding women’s faces
Hey man, don’t sweat it—we’re not indebted!

It doesn’t work like that!
No one really thinks it’s possible to reduce inflation by printing money—
Shh—no one knows, no one knows
Cuz tonight is the night when two becomes four

We spent more cash than we ever spent the cash before
(Bought this guy a brand new car, baby)
We couldn’t pay the tab, so we just printed more
(Spaghetti sauce costs $10, baby)

Let that printer go
We’re not serious people

The post Remy: 2 Become 1 (Spice Girls Inflation Parody) appeared first on Reason.com.

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Revenge of the Abortion Voters?


pro-choice protesters with sign that says "aid and abet abortion"

Republicans seemed so close to a massive midterm victory in 2022. Then the reality of their anti-abortion ideology started to drop. Now, Democrats are gaining ground again, and the outcome of this November’s election seems much less clear.

With gas prices high, inflation still rising, and Democrats still tainted by bad COVID policy, polls in late 2021 and the first half of 2022 showed American swing voters leaning heavily Republican. For instance, Gallup polling on independent voters found Democrats’ nine-point advantage over Republicans at the start of 2021 shifted to a five-point Republican advantage by the end of the year. In March, independents surveyed by The Wall Street Journal favored Republicans by 12 percentage points, and 46 percent of respondents overall said they would back a Republican candidate for Congress, while only 41 percent would back a Democrat. And in a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll conducted in April, 47 percent of respondents said they would vote for a Republican candidate if the election were held then, compared to just 44 percent who favored Democrats. “Republicans have strong support among independents who break toward the GOP by 7 points, and only one in 10 say they’re still undecided on which party to support,” PBS reported.

Things look different now. And abortion may explain this shift.

In June, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade (1973) and upending the basis for legal abortion across America. Some Republican-controlled state legislatures rushed to pass new anti-abortion laws, while previously passed bans triggered by Roe‘s overturning also started taking effect.

Dobbs and its aftermath may have heartened hard-core pro-life factions. But early signs suggest it’s not playing so well with the U.S. populace at large—a populace that remains moderately but significantly pro-choice.

Before Dobbs, “Republicans were cruising, and Democrats were having a hard time,” Republican pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio (who conducted the Wall Street Journal‘s poll in conjunction with Democratic pollster John Anzalone) said. “It’s almost like the abortion issue came along and was kind of like a defibrillator to Democrats.”

In the most recent Wall Street Journal poll, Democrats—down five points against Republicans back in March—hold a slight advantage. Respondents favored a Democratic congressional candidate over a GOP candidate 47 percent to 44 percent. This is “a lead that is within the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points,” the Journal points out. But it represents a six-point rise for Democrats since the March poll.

And the difference is more stark when considering only independent voters. Where Republicans led by 12 points among independents back in March, Democrats now lead by three points (38 percent to 35 percent). White, suburban women—a notoriously swing-voting group—now prefer a Democratic congressional candidate 52 percent to 40 percent.

Since the Dobbs decision came out, Democrats have been massively outpacing Republicans in new voter registrations in many states with restrictive abortion laws, with new voter registrations among women far outpacing those among men. The latest Wall Street Journal poll provides yet another sign that the issue of abortion will be motivating voters—and benefiting Democrats.

Asked about the most important issue in deciding their vote for Congress this November, 13 percent said abortion. It ranked only under the economy (16 percent) in issues of importance, outranking 35 other issues from inflation (11 percent) to immigration (7 percent), preserving democracy (5 percent), crime (2 percent), race issues (1 percent), and jobs (1 percent).

Asked how various issues would impact their likelihood to vote, 48 percent said the Supreme Court overturning Roe made them “much more likely” to vote, and 9 percent said it made them “somewhat more likely” to vote.

And when asked whether Democrats or Republicans would be better at handling “abortion policy,” nearly half (48 percent) of respondents said Democrats, while just 27 percent said Republicans. (Sixteen percent said neither, and 6 percent said both equally.)

The Journal poll—conducted August 17–22 among 1,313 registered voters (more of whom were likely to describe themselves as conservative than liberal)—suggests that this fall’s battle for control of Congress may be more competitive than anticipated and provides yet another sign that voters aren’t totally enamored with Republican extremism on abortion.

Earlier signs include voters in the notoriously conservative state of Kansas rejecting in large numbers an anti-abortion ballot measure at the start of August.

The situation has gotten so iffy that some Republican candidates—including Blake Masters, a Republican candidate for Senate in Arizona, and Michigan congressional candidate Tom Barrett—have scrubbed their websites of more extreme anti-abortion language.

The post Revenge of the Abortion Voters? appeared first on Reason.com.

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Watch: WH Press Secretary Declares “If You Disagree With The Majority That Is Extreme Thinking”

Watch: WH Press Secretary Declares “If You Disagree With The Majority That Is Extreme Thinking”

Authored by Steve Watson via Summit News,

Hours before Joe Biden broadcast seemingly from the gates of hell and declared anyone who disagrees with him to be a violent extremist, his Press Secretary told reporters that those who do not agree with “the majority” are exhibiting “an extreme way of thinking” and must be treated as a threat.

During an exchange on abortion laws, Karine Jean-Pierre stated “When you are not with where the majority of Americans are, then, you know, that is extreme. That is an extreme way of thinking.”

Reporters pushed for more clarification on what exactly ‘extreme’ is and who the label applies to:

Branding your political opponents as extremists is unifying:

Of course, extremists on the left are not part of the conversation:

The previous day, Jean-Pierre told reporters that “The president thinks there is an extremist threat to our democracy,” adding “The way that he sees is the MAGA Republicans are the most energized part of the Republican party – that extreme, this is an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our rights.”

Everything that Republicans propose is now apparently extreme.

Just minutes before Biden’s fist clenched address, Jean-Pierre stated that cutting taxes on the middle classes is “extreme”:

This aggressive push comes in the wake of Biden labelling half the country “semi-facist” and telling them that they’re going to need more than guns to take on his government.

*  *  *

Brand new merch now available! Get it at https://www.pjwshop.com/

In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. We need you to sign up for our free newsletter here. Support our sponsor – Turbo Force – a supercharged boost of clean energy without the comedown. Also, we urgently need your financial support here.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/02/2022 – 13:24

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John Harwood Out At CNN

John Harwood Out At CNN

Joining the long line of losers leaving the sinking ship, Democrat-apologist (and so-called reporter) John Harwood has just announced today is his last day at CNN…

Having consistently spread and ‘confirmed’ every hoax and headline promulgated from the leftist opinion issuers, the big question is where will Harwood end up now?

As he states in his tweet, he doesn’t know (suggesting he was fired and did not quit) – so perhaps its time to reach out to John Podesta again… just as he did ahead of the GOP Primaries in 2015?

One could probably fill a book on Harwood’s bias against conservatives in loyal defense of Democrats. One might say he’s a “liberal hack.”

Maybe he and Stelter will hug it out?

Harwood’s departure comes weeks after CNN ousted Brian Stelter, which was followed by a company-wide warning by new boss Chris Licht to prepare for “more changes.“

“I want to acknowledge that this is a time of significant change, and I know that many of you are unsettled,” said Licht during a late August editorial call, according to the Hollywood Reporter. “There will be more changes and you might not understand it or like it all.”

According to a June Axios report, Licht has been preparing to boot on-air personalities who can’t break free of their crippling Trump Derangement Syndrome.

CNN’s new boss, Chris Licht, is evaluating whether personalities and programming that grew polarizing during the Trump era can adapt to the network’s new priority to be less partisan.

Why it matters: If talent cannot adjust to a less partisan tone and strategy, they could be ousted, three sources familiar with the matter tell Axios.

Details: Licht wants to give personalities that may appear polarizing a chance to prove they’re willing to uphold the network’s values so that they don’t tarnish CNN’s journalism brand.

  • For on-air talent, that includes engaging in respectful interviews that don’t feel like PR stunts. For producers and bookers, that includes making programming decisions that are focused on nuance, not noise. -Axios

Who’s next? Maybe whoever changed the background color during Biden’s speech?

Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/02/2022 – 13:05

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Trump Lawyer Claims She ‘Diligently Searched’ Mar-a-Lago In May, Days Before DOJ Subpoenaed Trump

Trump Lawyer Claims She ‘Diligently Searched’ Mar-a-Lago In May, Days Before DOJ Subpoenaed Trump

Authored by Rita Li via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A lawyer for former President Donald Trump said she had entirely searched “each and every room” at Mar-a-Lago early in May, less than a week before the Department of Justice issued Trump a grand jury subpoena to recover alleged top secret records he removed from the White House.

An aerial view of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 15, 2022. (Marco Bello/Reuters)

Alina Habba, the attorney representing Trump in a tax fraud probe, told a New York state court in a May 6 filing (pdf) that she personally conducted a search of Trump’s private residence and office at Mar-a-Lago the previous day, looking for financial documents onsite. It was in reaction to a separate subpoena issued by New York Attorney General Letitia James who was then investigating the Trump Organization’s dealings.

“On May 5, 2022, I diligently searched each and every room of Respondent’s private residence located at Mar-a-Lago, including all desks, drawers, nightstands, dressers, closets, etc.,” Habba said in the months-old court document that recently resurfaced.

The search in Palm Beach was under the authority of Trump with access to “any and all documents responsive to the Subpoena,” as per the former president’s sworn affidavit included in the filing. Habba scoured residences and offices at the Trump National Golf Club Bedminster the same day.

Six days later, the DOJ subpoenaed the 45th president (pdf) over his handling of alleged highly classified records, asking on May 11 for “any and all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings.”

Although Habba said she “was unable to locate any documents responsive to the subpoena” related to her separate legal case, questions remain about whether the attorney had spotted or handled any documents that the DOJ later uncovered in many of the same places at Trump’s club. According to a new filing (pdf), certain documents that the FBI found during the Aug. 8 Mar-a-Lago raid had “colored cover sheets indicating their classification status.”

“Notwithstanding counsel’s representation on June 3, 2022, that materials from the White House were only located in the Storage Room, classified documents were found in both the Storage Room and in the former President’s office,” the DOJ disclosed on Tuesday.

“In the storage room alone, FBI agents found 76 documents bearing classification markings,” the papers read.

Read more here…

Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/02/2022 – 12:51

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Surprise: Stocks Tumble After Gazprom “Completely Halts” Nord Stream Gas Supplies Due To “Unexpected” Leak

Surprise: Stocks Tumble After Gazprom “Completely Halts” Nord Stream Gas Supplies Due To “Unexpected” Leak

After a 3-day halt, Russian energy giant Gazprom was expected to resume critical supplies of nat gas to Europe via Nord Stream 1 tomorrow, but it appears that Putin who is enjoying the game of cat and mouse a little too much, had other plans and as a result, Russian gas flows toward Europe won’t be coming back any time soon, as moments ago Gazprom announced that it had “completely halted” transport of gas to Nord Stream until a previously undetected oil leakage is rectified.

That could takes hours, days… or months.

  • GAZPROM ISSUES STATEMENT ON NORD STREAM 1 MAINTENANCE
  • GAZPROM: TRANSPORT OF GAS TO THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE HAS BEEN COMPLETELY HALTED UNTIL FAULTS ARE RECTIFIED
  • GAZPROM: DURING ROUTINE MAINTENANCE WORKS OIL LEAKAGE WAS DETECTED
  • GAS SUPPLIES TO NORD STREAM FULLY STOPPED
  • GAZPROM STATEMENT GIVES NO TIME FRAME FOR RESTART OF GAS SUPPLY THROUGH NORD STREAM 1

The “shocking development” is a massive blow to Europe, which is scrambling to fill up its gas storage ahead of winter and which has been trying to guess Moscow’s next steps in the energy war for weeks.

To quote Walter Sobchak, “Mark it zero” for the foreseeable future.

That means that Europe will now be forced to rely even more on… well… Russian gas, in the form of much more expensive LNG resold by China. And after tumbling by more than 50% in the past few days, we fully expect European gas prices are about to go super parabolic and take out all time highs as soon as trading returns on Monday.

As Bloomberg puts it, “it marks a dramatic escalation in Europe’s energy crisis — and comes just as prices were easing. If the shutdown persists, it puts households, factories and economies at risk, weakening Europe’s hand as it backs Ukraine in the war against Russia.” Said otherwise, millions of virtue signalers will be cold, hungry and in the dark this winter but at least they will have an Ukraine flag in their twitter bio.

The news promptly sent spoos sliding back under 4000 as any hope Europe’s energy hyperinflation was finally over were just steamrolled by the Russian president.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/02/2022 – 12:29

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European Energy Prices Fall As Nord Stream To Resume Gas Flow Saturday

European Energy Prices Fall As Nord Stream To Resume Gas Flow Saturday

Europe is bracing for more Russian natural gas supply cuts through the fall into frigid winter, but Friday brought rare good news as Nord Stream operator data shows that flows will be back on for Saturday.

Bloomberg confirmed Friday that “Russia looks set to resume gas supplies through a key pipeline to Europe, a relief for markets even as fears persist about more halts this winter. Prices plunged as much as 16%.”

Image source: Gazprom

Yet Germany especially is still alarmed and fearful as Berlin officials are warning the public the country cannot rely on Russian gas at all to get through the colder months. Gazprom has already notified customers that its only functioning turbine at Nord Stream’s entry point (the Portovaya compressor station – near Russia’s Vyborg on the shores of the Gulf of Finland) will require technical maintenance every 1,000 hours.

Per a Kremlin announcement, reported in Bloomberg: 

That’s about every 42 days, with the next checks due in mid-October. Only one turbine is capable of pumping gas into the pipeline at the moment, without any back-up, which means the “safety of the whole system is under threat,” the Kremlin said Friday.  

Resumption of flows for Saturday remains on-schedule, according to Gazprom’s newly published data, after concerns that the Russian energy giant would use “maintenance” as a continued excuse to keep operations at a halt: 

Shipment orders, published by the pipeline’s operator, indicate that flows are expected to restart from 2 a.m. Berlin time on Saturday at 20% of normal capacity, the same level as before the work. Orders don’t guarantee actual flows, and normally it takes time for supplies to recover to planned levels. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak signaled on Thursday the country is sticking to schedule, according to Tass news service. 

It was only on Tuesday of this week that Moscow last threatened that Nord Stream would close, naming sanctions and maintenance as the cause. 

“There are guarantees that, apart from technological problems caused by sanctions, nothing hinders the supplies,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. This immediately elicited another charge of “weaponized energy” issued by National Security Council spokesman John Kirby – a familiar refrain at this point. 

A German official, Markus Soeder, premier of the German state of Bavaria, seconded the White House assessment while admitting Berlin essentially has zero leverage as Moscow ratchets up the pressure. He said Russia “is playing a game with Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. I think it’s a kind of game. Our problem right now is that we are not in a position to adequately respond to this game.”

Meanwhile, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, responded fiercely the the latest G7 oil price cap plan as follows: “The time has come for the EU to impose a price cap on pipeline gas from Russia, said Aunty Von Der what’s her name Leyen. It will be the same as with oil. There will be no Russian gas in Europe,” he stated. 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 09/02/2022 – 09:44

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Manhattan D.A. To Prosecute Domestic Violence Victim for Murder After Saying It Wasn’t Murder


Tracy McCarter

When Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was still a candidate for his position, there was a defendant he took a special interest in. “I #StandWithTracy,” he tweeted in September 2020. “Prosecuting a domestic violence survivor who acted in self-defense is unjust.”

There was a subtext to that message. He was referring to Tracy McCarter, a woman who was charged with murder for killing her estranged—and allegedly highly abusive—husband. It was Cy Vance, who Bragg was seeking to replace in office, who brought that charge against her. The translation: As your district attorney, I won’t, and would never, prosecute such a case.

Bragg assumed office in January of this year. As of Tuesday, McCarter is officially headed to trial for murder.

It’s not the first time Bragg has failed to apply the principles he won office promising to uphold. There was the case of Jose Alba, 61, a bodega worker who killed an irate customer: In early July, Austin Simon, 35, came behind Alba’s workstation, attacked him after his girlfriend’s payment was declined, and seemingly attempted to drag Alba out from behind the counter to continue the confrontation. Alba ultimately took a knife and stabbed Simon, who later died from his injuries.

Based on the store’s surveillance footage, it appeared to be a fairly classic case of self-defense. Yet Bragg’s office charged Alba with second-degree murder, sent him to Rikers Island—one of the most notoriously violent jails in the country—and initially sought a $500,000 bond to ensure he stayed there. This despite running on a platform infused with planks pledging not to overcharge and overincarcerate, and a promise to reform bail policies for pre-trial detention.

After a national outcry, Bragg dropped the charges. But McCarter has not been fortunate enough to attract the same outpouring of attention, notwithstanding the fact that her case also looks like a textbook definition of self-defense, and notwithstanding the fact that Bragg specifically leveraged her misery to distinguish himself from his predecessor.

McCarter was arrested in March 2020 after stabbing her husband, James Murray, who reportedly entered her home, where he did not live, heavily intoxicated, and allegedly threatened her life. She was found trying to administer CPR while screaming for assistance, and her neighbors say Murray had been on a bender in the building. But the grand jury that approved a murder charge against McCarter didn’t hear about Murray’s drunkenness that day, or his detailed history of violent behavior and abuse, because prosecutors declined to share it.

Bragg, however, could have charted a new course. As the D.A., he has power over which cases he does and does not want to prosecute. As I wrote in July:

Prosecutors enjoy wide discretion on the job—a discretion that Bragg exercises liberally when it suits him. Upon ascending to the top of the D.A.’s office, Bragg announced that he wouldn’t prosecute certain crimes, like sex work and marijuana possession. That’s not because the New York Legislature had a change of heart on those issues; it’s because Bragg has the power not to enforce certain crimes as he sees fit.

Yet not unlike Alba, McCarter encountered a different Bragg from the outset of his time in office. She encountered the tough-on-crime Bragg, who initially fought to make sure she could not leave New York City for psychiatric treatment as a condition of her bail. It was an odd move, particularly when considering this is the same defendant who Bragg insisted should never have been charged with any crime in the first place, much less be subjected to restrictive pre-trial conditions.

“Bragg has demonstrably failed at living up to his campaign promises. He’s very much turning out to be the opposite of what he ran on,” says Olayemi Olurin, a public defender with the Legal Aid Society of NYC (and a friend of mine). “He drew attention to this case himself…and here he is in office with all the ability to drop the charges.”

The latter point bears repeating. Bragg had a very public about-face in the case of Alba, who has since announced he is moving to the Dominican Republic. (Can you blame him?) But Bragg’s office has only extended haphazard gestures of mercy toward McCarter. Earlier this week, a judge declined Bragg’s request to downgrade the charges from murder to manslaughter—because prosecutors once again did not bother to furnish evidence of her domestic abuse. That evidence includes a 2009 police report detailing Murray’s arrests, written correspondence from 2018 in which Murray admits to physical abuse, and a 2019 video of a naked, intoxicated Murray attacking McCarter.

“They affirm, without reference to exhibit or documentation, that she is a survivor of domestic violence,” wrote Acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Diane Kiesel. Again, that’s not because those exhibits don’t exist.

But prosecutors’ laziness with that motion just begs the same question once again: Why are they fighting to uphold any charge when they could seek to have it dismissed, as they did in Alba’s case? Bragg could, for instance, reconvene a grand jury and actually present the evidence of domestic violence; it is also not unheard of for prosecutors to botch a grand jury hearing if they do not think the case is worth pursuing. So too could Bragg file a request to vacate the charge entirely. Instead, the same prosecutor who publicly called the killing “self-defense” must now ensure it is called murder in court, after admitting again this week—in court—that his office does not think it was a murder.

The ludicrousness of that proposition perhaps makes a bit more sense in the context of political expediency, something that Bragg has navigated clumsily since entering office. “I don’t think charges should be brought against Jose Alba, and I think the good thing is for them to be dismissed,” says Olurin. Yet Alba’s case generated a rare sort of public backlash, particularly in conservative circles, attracting primetime segments on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program. “These progressive prosecutors are very attuned to media attention,” she adds.

They are, after all, politicians. But while McCarter may have been useful on the campaign trail, she has proven decidedly less so after the fact.

The post Manhattan D.A. To Prosecute Domestic Violence Victim for Murder After Saying It Wasn't Murder appeared first on Reason.com.

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