IT'S A RICO CASE:

Semyon Kislin, a business associate of Donald Trump who is due to give evidence at the US president's impeachment inquiry on October 14, tried to obtain millions of dollars that Ukrainian prosecutors deemed stolen, Al Jazeera can reveal.

Kislin is a long-time friend of Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. The Ukraine-born businessman donated to Giuliani's political campaigns in the 1990s. 

In January last year, Kislin lobbied the former US Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, to help him unlock millions of dollars that had in fact been seized in a major criminal inquiry.

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

Pompeo was definitely not expecting 98-mph fastballs from ⁦@WSMVNancyAmons⁩ https://t.co/MZGWvsXmO8

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) October 12, 2019

NO ONE HATES JUST MEXICANS:

Warren explained that the difference was simply the result of her decision to open up more once she went into politics. CBS also found two retired teachers who worked at Warren's school at the time and affirmed that there was a "rule" that expectant teachers had to step down around the fifth month of pregnancy. A year after Warren's departure, the Associated Press wrote that a new state rule would prevent pregnant teachers from being "automatically forced out of New Jersey classrooms."

In other words, the evidence supports Warren on this. But there's more to say about the fact that she started telling the anecdote differently around the time she started running for office. It's possible that Warren didn't interpret her dismissal as pregnancy discrimination in 1971, or that, with no grounding in progressive politics, she didn't see it as a noteworthy injustice. It's even more likely that when she explained her career path to others, as she did in her 2007 interview at the University of California, Berkeley, she didn't want to be seen as a victim. Some may see Warren's rephrasing as the mark of a lie or as a cynical play for political points. I see it as an indicator of the changing ways stories of gender-based mistreatment get told in mainstream politics.

To be taken seriously as leaders in politics and business, women have historically been told to project strength and power, to play down any parts of their histories that might encourage voters to imagine them as fragile, exploitable, or overtly female. Just last year, New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait argued that Sens. Kamala Harris and Kirsten Gillibrand were falling into a "victim trap" by presenting themselves, or allowing themselves to be presented, as people who've experienced sexism. "Within the ecosystem of the left, demonstrating that you have suffered harassment or microaggressions is a big win," he wrote. "But among the country as a whole, the dynamic is very different." A woman may find it harder to convince the nation she's "a figure of presidential stature," Chait went on, if voters think of her as someone who needs protecting, rather than as a protector.

Here's the interesting thing about the response to this Warren "scandal," though: Women responded not with sympathy for a woman who's suffered, or with general fist-shaking at the patriarchy. They related to Warren with deep-seated anger, born of personal experience. They flooded Twitter with stories of pregnancy and the workplace. Some said they'd been demoted or passed over for promotions when it became clear that they were expecting. Some repeated diminishing comments they'd heard from managers when they'd showed up visibly pregnant to job interviews. Some shared the stories of their mothers, who were ushered out of the workforce when they became parents in the years before pregnancy discrimination was outlawed nationwide in 1978. Others told of mistreatment that still afflicts pregnant working women, or any working woman of reproductive age, given that employers suspect she might get pregnant, someday.

By a few minutes after midnight on Wednesday morning, Warren had turned some of these anecdotes into a campaign video. "It's important to tell these stories," she said to the camera, after reading a few of the tweets. "This is how we make real change. We do it together." It had taken her just over a day to turn the initial allegations that she was lying into a rallying point for political action.

A SPAT, NOT A FIGHT:

A big fight has opened up in the Democratic presidential race. It's between "Medicare for All"--a single-payer system that would abolish and replace private health insurance--and a "public option," which would offer a Medicare-style alternative to private insurance plans but wouldn't abolish them. This fight could well decide the nomination. Health care is a huge voting issue: It's universal, it has enormous personal financial consequences, and for many, it's a matter of life or death.

Two candidates near the front of the pack, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders, are defending Medicare for All. The rest of the field, by and large, is defending some kind of public option. Judging by Thursday night's debate in Houston, Warren and Sanders are in trouble.

WHAT PART OF nATIONALISM IS CONFUSING THEM:

YEAH, BUT SOME DEMOCRATS SUPPORT PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD...:

NEW: Trump endorsed Jason Lewis at for Senate at his rally and Pence appeared at an event with him on Thursday. Lewis was condemned by the ADL and last month for saying "the Jewish lobby" controlled the GOP and Republicans had "dual loyalties" in 2013.https://t.co/HHJjQrgxGV

— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) October 11, 2019

FEEDING THE BUBBLE:

[L]ike past efforts to manufacture sexual claims against Trump foes--from Robert Mueller, to Pete Buttigieg, to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)--the Harris charade fell apart quickly. 

The pair's bogus accuser--26-year-old Sean Newaldass--told The Daily Beast on Friday that he had no idea the event in which he alleged that he was in a romantic dalliance with the Senate was real. That's because Newaldass had met Wohl and Burkman by replying to an ad posted on Craigslist seeking a "male actor" for "performance art." When he showed up at Burkman's Virginia home and delivered his lines alleging an affair, Newaldass was under the belief that the press conference was actually an audition for a Spike TV show. He said he had no idea that Harris was a politician. Indeed, he assumed she was a fictional person. 

"I thought I was acting for a role in a movie, like a role in a TV series," Newaldass said. "I thought everything was staged, I'm thinking everyone is an actor." 

WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY...:

We've been making presentations and talking regularly with reporters and about working-class voters - by which they almost always mean white working-class voters - since 2007. We study class and race in Youngstown, Ohio, a racially-segregated deindustrialized community, so reporters called then to ask whether white industrial workers would vote for an African American or a woman. Now they're asking why white working-class people would be drawn to Trump's anti-immigrant, racist, and sexist bravado.

We could say plenty about the complicated relationship between racism and the working class, but we also know two things. First, although Trump does attract significant support from the working class, but his real base is the middle- and upper-class. Second, while his white working-class fans might respond with open approval to Trump's racist appeals, his more educated, better-off real base embraces it, too.

In reality, the base for Trump, and the core of the Republican Party, is whiter, more rural, older, and more religiously conservative than Democrats. They are also richer. Democrats benefit from what some have called the "diploma divide," winning more votes from people with college degrees, the most commonly-used basis for pollsters to talk about class, but Republicans take the lead - as Trump did in the 2016 vote - among those with incomes of $50K or more. It's simply not true to Trump's appeal comes primarily from economically-insecure voters.

The sad reality is that many voters don't just tolerate the President's nasty remarks because they appreciate his tax cut or his anti-abortion, pro-business Supreme Court nominees. Both racist attitudes and an investment in the racist policies that reinforce inequality in this country also appeal to many voters who, we'd like to think, ought to know better.

In part, Trump's racism appeals because it violates the social rules that many white middle-class people resist. Since at least the 1990s, they've been hearing that they have to be careful what they say about women, people of color, and LGBTQ people, and that rankles. Some genuinely don't get why it's racist to call a black Congressman's district "rat-infested" or to suggest that Representatives of color should go back to the troubled countries they supposedly came from. When critics call these statements racist, many white middle-class people hear a different message: it's never acceptable for white people to criticize people of color. As Kevin M. Kruse suggested in a New York Times op-ed, Trump voices the resentment many white voters - of all classes -- feel about not being able to say what they think. For many, Trump's statements reassure them that they are not racist, they're just not "PC."

NO ONE HATES JUST MEXICANS:

According to the Washington Post, as well as a report from Turkish state-run media, the 15-nation U.N. Security Council failed to issue a joint statement condemning Turkey's incursion into the Kurdish region of Syria after the United States and Russia objected.

NO ONE LEFT TO DEFEND HIS ACTIONS:

Yovanovitch testified behind closed doors Friday for more than nine hours as part of the House Democrats' impeachment investigation. Her prepared remarks were obtained by The Associated Press. She left without answering questions.

New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat, said Yovanovitch occasionally had to leave the room because she was overcome with emotion as she was "recounting how she was thrown to the wolves" in Ukraine.

"It is clear to me that she was fired because she was a thorn in the side of those who sought to use the Ukrainian government for their own political and financial gain - and that includes President Trump," Maloney said.

Lawmakers leaving the meeting would not provide specifics from the confidential deposition. But they indicated that Yovanovitch was providing information that would help with the impeachment inquiry.

"It was compelling, it was impactful, it was powerful and I just feel grateful for the opportunity to have received that information," said Democratic Rep. Denny Heck, who flew in from Washington state for the interview. He said the eight hours he was there "went like a New York second."

Yovanovitch "set a very powerful, courageous example," said Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey.

Republicans leaving the meeting focused their criticism on Democrats, arguing that the president's lawyers should be able to attend the hearings and cross-examine witnesses.

She said that the pressure to have her removed as ambassador came directly from the president:

I met with the Deputy Secretary of State, who informed me of the curtailment of my term. He said that the President had lost confidence in me and no longer wished me to serve as his ambassador. He added that there had been a concerted campaign against me, and that the Department had been under pressure from the President to remove me since the Summer of 2018. He also said that I had done nothing wrong and that this was not like other situations where he had recalled ambassadors for cause.

Although Yovanovitch was fired from her post as ambassador to Ukraine, she has continued to work in the U.S. State Department and risked her job by testifying on Friday. Regardless, Yovanovitch spoke her mind, and she stressed that hurting loyal diplomats only encourages "bad actors" and enemies of U.S. interests who will "see how easy it is to use fiction and innuendo to manipulate our system."

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

One of the Times' sources says the investigation is related to Giuliani's efforts to undermine former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Two Florida businessmen tied to Giuliani were charged Thursday with federal campaign finance violations. The men, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, had key roles in Giuliani's efforts to launch the Ukrainian corruption investigation against Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden, a main Trump rival, and his son Hunter. According to the indictment against the men, they agreed to raise $20,000 or more for a US congressman to seek his "assistance in causing the US Government to remove or recall the then-US Ambassador to Ukraine."

Yovanovitch was recalled from Kyiv as Giuliani pressed Ukrainian officials to investigate the baseless corruption allegations against Biden and his son, who was involved with a gas company there.

LOW-HANGING FRUIT:

During the CNN LGBTQ town hall on Thursday night, 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O'Rourke openly stated that he would seek to strip religious institutions of their tax-exempt statuses if they opposed same-sex marriage. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) immediately denounced this policy as "bigoted nonsense."

"This bigoted nonsense would target a lot of sincere Christians, Jews, and Muslims," wrote Sasse in a statement released Friday. "Leaders from both parties have a duty to flatly condemn this attack on very basic American freedoms. This extreme intolerance is un-American. The whole point of the First Amendment is that ... everyone is created with dignity and we don't use government power to decide which religious beliefs are legitimate and which aren't."

BASKET OF REPUGNANTS:

An 1893 cartoon titled "Looking Backward" depicts the irony of American immigrants turning away additional newcomers. The caption reads: "They would close to the new-comer the bridge that carried them and their fathers over."

In a written decision filled with unmasked contempt, a federal judge blocked on Friday a Trump administration policy designed to punish poor and working-class immigrants. The "public charge" rule, which was set to take effect on Tuesday, would deny green cards to immigrants deemed likely to use public benefits, to which they are legally entitled. 

District court judge George Daniels was unusually critical of the arguments the Justice Department used to justify radically reinterpreting what it means to be a public charge, a part of federal immigration law that dates back to 1882. "In short," Daniels wrote, "defendants do not articulate why they are changing the public charge definition, why this new definition is needed now, or why the definition set forth in the Rule--which has absolutely no support in the history of U.S. immigration law--is reasonable." (A California district judge court issued a second injunction on Friday that, unlike Daniels', does not apply nationwide.)  

Daniels wrote that the rule released by the Department of Homeland Security in August "is simply a new agency policy of exclusion in search of a justification." He continued, "It is repugnant to the American Dream of the opportunity for prosperity and success through hard work and upward mobility." [...]

The judge was particularly critical of a section of the rule that penalizes immigrants who do not speak English. "The United States of America has no official language," Daniels noted. "Many, if not most, immigrants who arrived at these shores did not speak English. It is simply offensive to contend that English proficiency is a valid predictor of self-sufficiency."

DOGPILE ON THE RACIST:

One knowledgeable source said that the daily accumulation of revelations about Trump's willingness to use U.S. foreign relations for his personal political benefit has prompted more people to approach Congress. Two associates of Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani have been arrested and charged with campaign-finance violations arising from their Ukraine dirt-digging effort. The Financial Times reported that Trump China adviser Michael Pillsbury said he received "quite a bit of background" on Joe Biden's son after Trump publicly called for China to aid his domestic political prospects. The Washington Post reported that Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, and Trump attempted to quash a prosecution of a Turkish national--represented by Giuliani and important to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan--for violating Iran sanctions.

IT'S ALMOST LIKE PRESIDENTS ARE SUBJECT TO LAWS:

MIC DROP:

Yawn... Welcome to Minneapolis where we pay our bills, we govern with integrity, and we love all of our neighbors. https://t.co/v1cXvoD9uR

— Jacob Frey (@Jacob_Frey) October 8, 2019

FRIENDLY OLD GIRL:

Radical and far-reaching, the scheme dared to rethink the very infrastructure underpinning the city. There's still not a climate project anywhere else in the world that comes close.

And, so far, it's working. CO2 emissions have been reduced by 42% since 2005, and while challenges around mobility and energy consumption remain (new technologies such as better batteries and carbon capture are being implemented), the city says it is on track to achieve its ultimate goal.

More significant still is that Copenhagen has achieved this while continuing to grow in traditional economic terms. Even as some commentators insist that nothing short of a total rethink of free-market economics and corporate structures is required to stave off global catastrophe, the Danish capital's carbon transformation has happened alongside a 25% growth in its economy over two decades. Copenhagen's experience will be a model for other world cities.

The sentiment that lies behind Arc's conception as a multi-use public good - "hedonistic sustainability" - is echoed by Bo Asmus Kjeldgaard, former mayor of Copenhagen for the environment and the man originally tasked, back in 2010, with making the plan a reality.

WHICH FEDERALIST PAPER...:

AT THE eND OF hISTORY...:

In just under two weeks, millions of people in Canada will cast their votes for the country's next parliament.

And while election posters adorn street lamps, leaders trade barbs in televised debates, and campaign stops are organised from coast-to-coast, in many ways the election has failed to capture the attention of would-be voters.

"A lot of people really do feel that at some level, this is an election about nothing," said Lisa Young, a professor in the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary.

HOW YA GONNA KEEP 'EM DOWN ON THE FARM...:

Waving flags and snapping selfies, thousands of Iranian women on Thursday attended a football match freely for the first time in decades, after FIFA threatened to suspend the country over its controversial stadium restrictions.

Elated female fans wore the national green, white and red flag around their shoulders and over their hair as they streamed into a tiny section of Tehran's 80,000-capacity Azadi Stadium for Iran's 2022 World Cup qualifier against Cambodia.

"We are so happy that finally we got the chance to go to the stadium. It's an extraordinary feeling," Zahra Pashaei, a 29-year-old nurse who has only known soccer games from television, told the Associated Press news agency. "At least for me, 22 or 23 years of longing and regret lies behind this."

For nearly 40 years, Iran has barred female spectators from entering football and other sports stadiums, with clerics arguing women must be shielded from the masculine atmosphere and sight of semi-clad men.

MR. BOLTON IS NOT AMUSED:

Fiona Hill, who was until recently President Donald Trump's top aide on Russia and Europe, plans to tell Congress that Rudy Giuliani and E.U. ambassador Gordon Sondland circumvented the National Security Council and the normal White House process to pursue a shadow policy on Ukraine, a person familiar with her expected testimony told NBC News.

Hill's appearance next week before Congress has stoked fear among people close to the president, said a former senior White House official, given her central role overseeing Russia and Ukraine policy throughout most of the Trump administration.

THEY COULD NOMINATE MAXINE:

Fox poll:

Warren 50, Trump 40.
Biden 50, Trump 40. https://t.co/N2O9GBXMXB

— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) October 10, 2019

HOW ODD...:

Several alarmed White House career budget staffers alerted House appropriators when the Office of Management and Budget last summer placed a political appointee in charge of a hold on $400 million in foreign assistance to Ukraine.

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH pic.twitter.com/vy92z1MyXb

— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) October 10, 2019

HARDLY THE ONLY ONE WHO REFUSES TO BELIEVE hE WAS HUMAN:

According to Catholic News Agency, Scalfari, who has interviewed the pope on several occasions, said he discussed the topic of Jesus' divinity sometime in the past. He allegedly challenged Pope Francis about church teaching by noting several scriptures of Christ expressing agony, which apparently led Scalfari to believe that Jesus was not divine. In response, Pope Francis allegedly told him, "They are the definitive proof that Jesus of Nazareth, once he became a man, even if he was a man of exceptional virtue, was not a God."

Immediately after the article went public, the Vatican issued a rather tepid statement denying Scalfari's claims, saying it was not a "faithful account" of what Pope Francis said.

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

Graham also mentions Trump's personal interest in a "Turkish bank case" in the call that appears to refer to a U.S. case involving Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader and client of Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Trump had asked then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017 to help persuade the Justice Department to drop the Zarrab case. [...]

According to U.S. prosecutors, Zarrab and others used the Turkish bank Halkbank to "launder billions of dollars-worth of Iranian oil proceeds, ultimately creating a slush fund for Iran to use however it wished -- the very harm that U.S. sanctions were put in place to avoid." A senior banker at Halkbank was found guilty of working to evade sanctions on Iran, and Halbank itself could still face fines by the Treasury Department.

Zarrab also had ties to the Turkish government, according to a memo written in 2016 by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and was "engaged in a massive bribery scheme... paying cabinet-level [Turkish] governmental officials and high-level bank officers tens of millions of Euro and U.S. dollars" to facilitate his transactions.

Erdogan, wary of corruption being revealed in open court, fiercely lobbied high-level Obama administration officials for Zarrab's release after his 2016 arrest, the Washington Post reported at the time. At one point he even asked Vice President Joe Biden to have Bharara fired. Erdogan also sent his justice minister at the time to meet with then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and argue that the case was "based on no evidence."

In the hoax call, Graham suggested that the president would try to help Erdogan regarding that case as best he could.

SNOWFLAKE-IN-CHIEF:

[I]t seems clear that Trump's combination of wrathfulness and aggrievement, truculence and indignation, is likely to result in a Vesuvius-like display of emotional fireworks when he speaks, or, to put it more precisely, bellows, at a rally in Minneapolis this evening, where his adoring congregants will gather to soak up his great and unmatched wisdom. Trump doesn't just have the polls to worry about. The polls are merely the reflection, not the source, of his current woes. Even as he tries to assert monarchical powers on behalf of the presidency and his retainers warn about attempts at 'regicide' by congressional Democrats, Trump himself has to be feeling a growing sense of unease at the silence of a number of Senate Republicans, not to mention the arrest of two Ukrainian associates of Rudy Giuliani. Both Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who were charged today with violating campaign finance laws in an attempt to influence American elections and foreign policy, were apparently also at the heart of Giuliani's attempt to concoct investigations of former Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden in Ukraine two other men were also indicted on counts of conspiracy, false statements and falsification of records). Giuliani has not commented on the pair. Their arrests will only heighten the avidity of House Democrats to depose them about their activities in Ukraine. According to the Wall Street Journal, this duo gave $325,000 to a pro-Trump super-PAC America First in 2018. The Washington Post reports, 'Last year, the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center filed a still-pending complaint with the FEC over the donation, alleging that it appeared to be a straw donation that masked the identity of the original contributor.'

THE RED HAT IS THE RED FLAG:

What at first sight may appear as an isolated attack in an obscure German city is anything but. The manifesto the attacker posted online -- as well as his comments during the livestream -- make clear that this is just the latest in a series of interconnected far-right terrorist attacks that have taken place across the world. It follows on from attacks in Pittsburgh (United States), Christchurch (New Zealand), Poway (United States), El Paso (United States) and Bærum (Norway), attacks that have killed 85 people in total over the last year. All of them speak to the same audience of white nationalists online, hoping to inspire them to commit their own acts of violence.

Of those, the March 2019 Christchurch massacre in New Zealand -- which left 51 worshippers dead in two mosques -- has proven to be most influential. Wednesday's attack in Germany featured many of the same hallmarks: the use of a livestream, the stated aim of a mass-casualty attack with "high score" kill counts, the posting of an online manifesto, the use of meme music and the language of relatively obscure internet image boards.

Beyond the similar modus operandi, the Halle shooter also invoked the unifying grand narrative of white-nationalist terrorism today: the "white genocide" conspiracy theory. This is the idea that a Jewish conspiracy is orchestrating the mass immigration of non-whites into Europe and North America with the ultimate aim of destroying the white population. Euphemistically labeled "the great replacement," this was cited as motivation by the Christchurch, Poway, and El Paso shooters. And the Halle attacker explicitly referred to this in his live stream, blaming Jews for feminism, declining birth rates, and mass immigration, as well as denying the Holocaust.

There are, however, differences. While the Christchurch shooter wanted to kill as many Muslims as possible, he also had secondary and tertiary aims: for New Zealand and the United States to ban guns (the reaction), causing people to rise up (the counter-reaction). He said he hoped to have "accelerated" that process. New Zealand did ban assault rifles following the Christchurch massacre, though there was no popular uprising as Tarrant anticipated. 

BABA YAGA HUNT:

Two businessmen from the former Soviet Union have been arrested for allegedly breaking U.S. campaign finance laws.

The Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office said on October 10 that Ukrainian-born Lev Parnas and Belarusian-born Igor Fruman, who are associated with President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, were apprehended in New York.

According to a federal court filing in New York, the two men conspired to "funnel foreign money to candidates for federal and state office."

ALL THAT JAZZ #57