May 2, 2023

Deadbeat Alert! Rudy Says He Can't Afford To Search Own Records

Debts appear to be mounting for Rudy Giuliani, as two judges over recent weeks have heard claims that the Trump attorney can’t pay his bills.

Giuliani argued this week, for instance, that he can’t afford to conduct some document searches as part of a defamation suit filed against him by Georgia polls worker Ruby Freeman.

In a declaration submitted in the case, Giuliani said that he would have to pay more than $320,000 “to become current on my arrearage” with legal document host TrustPoint One and to “have access to the documents as well costs incurred in searching the documents again for additional files requested by Plaintiffs.”

“I do not have the funds to pay this amount at this time,” he said in the declaration.

Attorneys for Giuliani said that they want Freeman, who the former NYC mayor falsely accused of being involved in an extensive voter fraud scheme, to cover the costs of the search.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/deadbeat-alert-rudy-says-he-cant-afford-to-search-own-records

May 2, 2023

Discreetly, Berlin Confronts Russian Spies Hiding in Plain Sight

For years, Germany seemed to tolerate even flagrant Russian operations on its soil. But a new Cold War-like chill has now made the snooping difficult to ignore.

Every day as he settles into his desk, Erhard Grundl, a German lawmaker, looks outside his office window into the embassy he knows may be spying on him.

“I come into the office, and on a windy day, I see the Russian flag waving. It feels a bit like Psalm 23: ‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,’” he said, chuckling. “I’m not religious, but I always think of that.”

In the shadow of Berlin’s glass-domed Reichstag, beyond the sandstone columns of Brandenburg Gate, German parliamentary buildings sit cheek by jowl with Russia’s sprawling, Stalinist-style diplomatic mission. For years, a silent espionage struggle played out here along the city’s iconic Unter den Linden avenue.

Members of Parliament like Mr. Grundl were warned by intelligence offices to protect themselves — to turn computer screens away from the window, stop using wireless devices that were easier to tap, and close the window blinds for meetings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/world/europe/germany-russian-spies.html?unlocked_article_code=enQP_zGQmiEa7015upNd3XCO8PLemOLaMzRxrIricJHW0h4Mqm7kbTTo_MM4ea_inQZQs0Fsk37b1YTZzOsMDhsd-R-9UkSkYB6WUCJBwxPYG241N7i3aGF8SLxEoYOG0p0wMPlAVNUBFVh1Im--XpbNybjQlTy3WTec9DJOqBco7gJjtHv6CeCZktaOz1_iDwPtVTtMkzDF8kXURdF2sgNhK1BQuZohIBxwLQAkgDv6ldbH2O2LV44IIO2bL-I2w-N8gInAGf_I_LUqhr9zcLyn5g1Ri0FAEkXY7bJ9zjGdIQGfRCmyHpzVre-nzl2hKN2gEW_VimWFcuKiKdd1ljLuJtU&smid=url-share

May 2, 2023

Florida lawmakers eye ban on fertilizer use restrictions

The measure would prohibit at least 117 local governments from “adopting or amending a fertilizer management ordinance” during the 2023-24 budget year.

Florida legislators are poised to block one of the most effective tools local governments say they have to protect water quality in their communities in the face of red tide and blue-green algae outbreaks by banning rainy season restrictions on fertilizer use.

A measure quietly tucked into a budget proposal over the weekend would prohibit at least 117 local governments from “adopting or amending a fertilizer management ordinance” during the 2023-24 budget year, requiring them to rely on less restrictive regulations developed by the University of Florida, which are supported by the state’s phosphate industry, the producers of fertilizer.

Legislative leaders tentatively agreed to a $116 billion budget on Monday and, with no public debate or discussion, included the fertilizer language that emerged late Sunday.

It is the latest proposal to emerge in a legislative session that has fast-tracked industry-friendly bills aimed at removing local control and public input over emotionally-charged environmental and development issues.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/05/01/fertilizer-use-restriction-ban-rainy-season-environment-budget/

Florida Republicans really must love algae blooms in state waterways and red tides along the shorelines.

May 2, 2023

Florida bill protecting 'conscience' allows doctors to deny treatment

The bill also allows insurance companies not to cover procedures if it goes against their stated moral or religious guidelines.

Florida medical professionals would be able to refuse to perform nearly any health care service if they have moral objections under a bill passed by the Senate on Friday and moving in the House this week.

Under SB 1580, medical health providers could not be held liable in a civil case if they turn away a patient on conscience grounds. Insurance companies could also refuse to pay for a service if it goes against their written, conscience-based guidelines.

A person would still be able to sue for other violations, including medical malpractice.

Opponents of the legislation say they worry the bill opens the door for medical professionals to discriminate against people, including those who may be LGBTQ+.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/05/01/florida-doctor-medical-conscience-lawsuit-protection/

More stupid legislation compliments of Florida Republicans.

May 2, 2023

Hollywood Writers Will Go on Strike, Halting Production

Source: New York Times

The dispute, which pits 11,500 television and screenwriters against the major studios, has shattered 15 years of labor peace in the entertainment business.

Hollywood’s 15 years of labor peace shattered Monday night, as movie and television writers said they would go on strike, bringing many productions to a halt and dealing a blow to an industry that has been rocked in recent years by the pandemic and sweeping technological shifts.

The unions representing the writers said in a statement that they had “voted unanimously to call a strike.” Writers will begin walking picket lines on Tuesday afternoon. Their three-year contract was set to expire at midnight Pacific time on Monday.

The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which bargains on behalf of Hollywood companies, said in a statement that its offer included “generous increases in compensation for writers.” The organization added that it remained willing to keep negotiating.

The primary sticking points, according to the studios, involve union proposals that would require companies to staff television shows with a certain number of writers for a specified period of time “whether needed or not.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/01/business/media/hollywood-writers-strike.html?unlocked_article_code=Op8gPlu4nzrJxqd_2NK-ggwqozVfJm9qOio9-fR6zYe09yKW3CxQHm6Xn7maQ-QG26XguliiFcQH7IW1NtJjpebxzio8m5L__5c-WcoOd1L9nECzOqPi_m7efN9PCHB3WnfCu-EeAEJRxWfxFdiFg5oIPz6v9gqHeNOnV9lZITW9DKTyX3whvwjpPb43LkjGKyH_L6ab33Uo_wa9DSRipPLfa0yVTwsSusxwVFWCqShlMgs12g45Bfuc0zohYcEiKVyeQyJtCIelSNixc7oFD9ZhmPeCCbxofU6sDiNYOQpjaIk6VPo-5SMTJQ32OIeeST03y5KhPnGJIkrJ5eVFjqw2PSu0xqx4tw&giftCopy=0_NoCopy&smid=url-share

May 1, 2023

Florida Legislature pumps $50 million into New College after DeSantis takeover

New College of Florida is receiving nearly $35 million in additional funding next year, including nearly $10 million to renovate aging facilities and $25 million for operating expenses. The money comes on top of an extra $15 million the school received in the current budget for operating expenses.

New College of Florida is receiving a massive influx of cash next year to help the school’s new leaders carry out the vision of Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Florida Legislature has pumped almost $50 million into New College within a few months of DeSantis appointing six new conservative board members to shake up the small Sarasota school.

It’s a huge amount of money for a college with just 700 students, the smallest institution in Florida's public university system.

"Over the last 90 days, New College has received almost $50 million in new funding from the state, which is more than the university has received in the past 20 years," New College Interim President Richard Corcoran said in a statement. "Our future could not look brighter."

https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/politics/2023/05/01/new-college-of-floridas-budget-getting-big-boost-from-ron-desantis/70170654007/

IMO New College will be begging for students in the upcoming years, and this budget increase is part of an effort to induce future applications.

May 1, 2023

Fed Set to Raise Interest Rates to 16-Year High and Debate a Pause

Officials could keep their options open in crafting signals around the endgame for increases

Federal Reserve officials are on track to increase interest rates again at their meeting this week while deliberating whether that will be enough to then pause the fastest rate-raising cycle in 40 years.

“We are much closer to the end of the tightening journey than the beginning,” Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester said April 20.

Just how much closer the Fed is to that endgame will be a focus of internal debate because officials think their communications around future policy actions can be as significant as individual rate changes.

Officials are likely to keep their options open as they finesse carefully calibrated signals in their postmeeting statement and remarks by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at a news conference after the meeting ends Wednesday.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/fed-set-to-raise-interest-rates-to-16-year-high-and-debate-a-pause-860c8146?st=ef6hkkske3kngsu&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

May 1, 2023

This Is Make or Break Time for Desperate Vladimir Putin

It’s the Kremlin’s last chance for a reboot or they are toast.

During Russia’s blood-stained spring of 1919, about 10 months after the Cheka executed the tsarist Romanov family in a grubby basement, Vladimir Lenin assembled 15 Bolsheviks and ordered them to sanitize the mess. They did such a poor job of sweeping up the dirt that Lenin the following year persuaded 425,000 volunteers to participate in what the Kremlin soon after enshrined as the subbotnik, the annual Saturday spring-cleaning of Russia.

Vladimir Putin is keen on autocratic traditions and enthusiastic about keeping his Kremlin spick-and-span. But with so much crap piled up inside his fortress after the invasion of Ukraine, arresting critics and assassinating political foes, the one day of traditional spring-cleaning from the beginning of Putin’s reign is no longer enough.

Spring 2023 is here and it’s time to look at what Putin has to clean up. He’s ignited a dumpster fire kindled with more than 200,000 dead Russian soldiers, whose death march on Ukraine doubled the size of his border with NATO, torched his profitable global energy markets, and recycled him as a Chinese subordinate.

He’s produced the country’s largest budget hole since the 1990s and achieved the highest number of sanctions ever leveled against a country. And if the International Criminal Court in The Hague has its way, Putin is destined to be convicted of crimes against humanity, leaving Russia leaderless and with the annexed Crimea becoming a Ukrainian vacation destination once again.

Putin can always cut and run to one of his many gilded hideaways of reinforced concrete, but there’s no future in hunkering down alongside his hierophants, all of them echoing his flimflam about Russia’s grandeur, moral superiority, and schemes to lure deposed Fox News host Tucker Carlson into anchoring a talk show on Russia-1. Spring 2023 is a pivotal political moment for Putin, particularly if his moral compass is plotting an anywhere near tolerable economic future for his country. Putin, however, has never taken directions. Many who have offered him advice are either dead, under arrest, or being slowly poisoned in far-flung penal colonies.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-desperate-putins-last-chance-for-a-reboot

May 1, 2023

The first arrests from DeSantis's election police take extensive toll

The fallout came fast when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s new election police unit charged Peter Washington with voter fraud last summer as part of a crackdown against felons who’d allegedly broken the law by casting a ballot.

The Orlando resident lost his job supervising irrigation projects, and along with it, his family’s health insurance. His wife dropped her virtual classes at Florida International University to help pay their rent. Future plans went out the window.

“It knocked me to my knees, if you want to know the truth,” he said.

But not long after, the case against Washington began falling apart. A Ninth Judicial Circuit judge ruled the statewide prosecutor who filed the charges didn’t actually have jurisdiction to do so. Washington’s attorney noted that he had received an official voter identification card in the mail after registering. The case was dismissed in February.

https://wapo.st/40PQHVL

May 1, 2023

Defamation bill dead for this Florida legislative session, sponsor says

The measure was a priority for Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ goal of passing legislation that would rewrite federal defamation law and make it easier to sue critics appears dead for the legislative session, but the author of the bill said he will be back to try it again next year.

“There’s just not enough time, and I have too much stuff on my plate,” said Rep. Alex Andrade, R-Pensacola, the House sponsor of HB 991, as lawmakers approach the final week of the annual 60-day session, which ends May 5. The companion measure, SB 1220, is also dead, he said, as time ran out before the bills could be heard in their final committees.

The bills would have removed many of the legal protections against defamation lawsuits established in the landmark 1964 Supreme Court case New York Times v. Sullivan by changing what is considered a public figure in a defamation claim and eliminating the longstanding protections for the news media in its coverage of politicians, government officials and public figures.

Although the measure was a top priority for DeSantis, who has been sued for curbing First Amendment protections for critics of his policies in Florida, support for the measure had waned.

For weeks, free speech advocates, including some members of conservative media, warned that the bill was a direct violation of the free speech protections in the U.S. Constitution and would open the door to a barrage of lawsuits, including against conservative talk radio hosts.

The death of the bill is one of the few policy losses the governor has faced this legislative session, as he has advanced an aggressive agenda of culture wars aimed at imposing state controls over classroom speech, transgender health care, entertainers in drag, abortion and loosening restrictions on guns.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/04/26/defamation-bill-dead-this-florida-legislative-session-sponsor-says/

I suspect the real reason Republican interest in passing this legislation waned when it was pointed out it would open up lawsuits against right wing radio talk show hosts...