Jack Smith Wants More Time To Figure Out SCOTUS Immunity Ruling by TPM

(Long post, but jam-packed even if you don’t click through on anything.)

INSIDE: Donald Trump … Kamala Harris … Nancy Pelosi Read on Substack

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Hurry Up And Wait

Today was the deadline set by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan for Special Counsel Jack Smith and Donald Trump to propose a schedule for pretrial matters as she resumes the Jan. 6 case following the Supreme Court’s horrendous ruling on presidential immunity.

But Smith, in a bit of a surprise move, asked Chutkan in a filing late yesterday to provide more time for him and other DOJ components to sort out the implications of the Supreme Court decision. Trump, the king of delay, did not oppose Smith’s request for more time.

Smith wants another three weeks – until Aug. 30 – to confer with Trump and submit the proposed scheduling order. Smith also asked Chutkan to delay the status conference originally scheduled for next Friday, Aug. 16, until after Aug. 30.

Typically, you would expect the judge to be amenable to this kind of request, but Chutkan was clearly ready to move when the case was finally returned to her, so it’ll be interesting to see how she reacts. I still doubt she’ll force the issue, but nothing about this case is routine.

What does it all mean?

This case was already not going to trial before the election, so it doesn’t change those odds. It reduces the window available for holding any kind of evidentiary hearing on the immunity issue, making it less likely that that will happen before the election (for what it’s worth, I was having trouble getting excited about that as any kind of real pre-election accountability moment for Trump anyway). Whether the case goes to trial after November depends almost entirely on whether Trump loses the election, so Smith’s desired delay wouldn’t really change that either.

Beyond that, we’re left to speculate about what Smith is grappling with internally. It’s all speculation at this point. But before I get into the more tenuous speculation, the simplest and most obvious answer is that the implications of the Supreme Court immunity decision are in fact difficult to parse and to apply to the facts of this case. The high court didn’t give a clear road map on all of the legal issues involved, as Politico explains extensively this morning. And there are a lot of legal issues involved, as this Just Security project published this week outlines in great detail.

Beyond that, the speculation about the delay ranges from internal disputes at DOJ about how to move forward to more mundane bureaucratic slowness in dotting i’s and crossing t’s to one possibility that I’ve tried to keep in mind all along … but again this is purely speculative: If you’re not going to get to try Trump before the election, does it make sense to change the strategy of a stripped-down indictment of only Trump and broaden the federal case to charge the full conspiracy, including all possible crimes committed by Trump, plus adding co-defendants and co-conspirators?

I mention this possibility because the whole point of the current approach was to keep things narrow and targeted, largely for judicial economy and speed. It didn’t work. Trump succeeded in dragging it out past the election. Given that the goal of the original strategy is no longer achievable, there’s a logic to changing the strategy. And remember: if Trump loses the election, Smith has all the time in the world.

What Can Be Done About The Georgia Election Board?

NBC News’ Lisa Rubin takes a closer look at the recent shenanigans of the MAGA-infused Georgia Election Board on behalf of Donald Trump.

That Crazy Trump Presser

Casual readers of other news outlets probably got the sense that Trump held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago yesterday where he proposed more presidential debates, dodged some abortion questions, and made preposterous claims about the size of his crowds. But it truly was the kind of performance that had it been anyone else, or even him eight years ago, would have produced a cacophony of stories asking what is wrong with this guy. If you missed it, perusing the TPM liveblog of the presser might be the best way to get a proper sense of how much we’ve collectively normalized the man.

Harris Campaign Unleashes Its Young And Very Online Staff

I’ve read a million campaign press releases over the years and at this point ignore most of them, so I’m not holding up this Harris campaign press release responding to Trump’s press conference yesterday as some kind of Rosetta stone of the current moment. And yet … if you want to see the difference in tone and tenor between the Biden and Harris campaigns, this is as good of an illustration as any:

Nancy Pelosi Is Having A Moment

The former speaker is on a roll since President Biden ended his re-election bid.

Here she is, telling the AP about her crusade against Trump: “‘How can I say this in the nicest possible way: My goal in life was that man would never step in the White House again,’ Pelosi said, slapping the table with every word.”

Here she is giving The New Yorker’s David Remnick her assessment of Biden’s campaign: “I’ve never been that impressed with his political operation. They won the White House. Bravo. But my concern was: this ain’t happening, and we have to make a decision for this to happen. The President has to make the decision for that to happen.”

Historical Context

Just gonna leave this right here:

Good Read

TPM’s Josh Kovensky: A Journey Through the Authoritarian New Right–A non-exhaustive look at the influencers behind Republicans’ recent turn toward the bizarre.

Reader Mailbag

TPM Reader AN checking in this week from the Paris Olympics:

Thanks for including that item about Armand Duplantis in the Morning Memo. My husband and I were there last night at the Stade de France, and it was absolute magic.

We are the biggest nerds in the world, totally un-sporty, never watch any sports, barely know what pole-vaulting is. Some friends gave us their extra tickets to Saturday night’s, and then last night’s, track and field event, so we thought, what the hell, it’s the Olympics, let’s go.

Well. We had a spectacularly good time watching all the events on both evenings: discus, shotput, long jump, high jump, sprints, relays and the men’s 10,000 meter final. But the pole-vault! It was just spectacularly entertaining, in large part thanks to the showmanship of the athletes, especially Sam Kendricks and Mondo himself. They had the crowd clapping in unison, they mugged for the camera, raced around, emoted, hugged each other between attempts.

It was crazy how much higher Mondo vaulted than the other guys–at the beginning, he was clearing the bar by probably half a meter. He seemed to be floating. When he had beat everyone else and won the gold at 6.10 meters, there was a pause. Then came the announcement that Mondo would go for the world record. The crowd went crazy and stayed that way until the very end. What a joy.

I’m not sure this experience has turned us into sports fans, but after this, we certainly get what all the fuss is about.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Thanks to Zorba

Political Signs

Sharing some humor from Beetleypete

Mixed Media Thursday Humour

A Poem I Just Read

This poem came in a newsletter I receive. I thought it’s a worthy share.

The Earthling

Matthew Olzmann

The Earthlings arrived unannounced, entered
without knocking, removed their shoes
and began clipping their toenails.
They let the clippings fall wherever.
They sighed loudly as if inconvenienced.
We were patient. We knew our guests
were in an unfamiliar environment; they needed
time to adjust. For dinner, we prepared
turkey meatloaf with a side of cauliflower.
This is too dry, they said.
This is not like what our mothers made.
We wanted to offer a tour of our world,
demonstrate how we freed ourselves
from the prisons of linear time.
But the Earthlings were already spelunking
our closets, prying tools
from their containers and holding them
to the light. What’s this? they demanded.
What’s this? What’s this? And what’s this?
That’s a Quantum Annihilator; put that down.
That’s a Particle Grinder; please put that down.
We could show you how to heal the sick, we said.
We could help you feed every nation, commune
with the all-seeing sentient energy that palpitates
through all known forms of matter.
Nah! they said. Teach us to vaporize a mountain!
Teach us to turn the moon into revenue!
Then the Earthlings
left a faucet running and flooded our basement.

https://poets.org/poem/earthlings/embed

Sea lion camera crews map the ocean floor

August 7, 2024 Ariel Marcy

Australian researchers have equipped sea lions with underwater cameras to map previously unexplored areas of the ocean floor.

In Australia – and the world – ocean seabeds and the surrounding benthic habitats remain shrouded in mystery. Remotely operated robots can gather ocean floor data, but they are expensive, require certain weather conditions and are difficult to operate in remote, offshore areas.

To overcome these challenges, the research team glued GPS units and lightweight cameras on Australian sea lions (Neophoca cinerea). These fast-swimming predators forage in several different benthic habitats, allowing the researchers to model over 5,000 square kilometres of ocean floor.

The results are published in Frontiers of Marine Science.

The eight enlisted sea lions came from the Olive Island and Seal Bay colonies on the coast of South Australia.

“We deployed the instruments on adult females so we could recover the equipment a few days later when they returned to land to nurse their pups,” explains first author Nathan Angelakis, a PhD student with The University of Adelaide and the South Australian Research and Development Institute.

The sea lions collected 89 hours of recordings in total, from which the researchers identified six distinct benthic habitats: macroalgae reef, macroalgae meadow, bare sand, sponge/sand, invertebrate reefs and invertebrate boulder.

The researchers then used machine learning models to predict the habitat type in nearby areas of continental shelf.

“The sea lions from both locations covered quite broad areas around the colonies. In our calculations, we kept the area in which we predicted habitats small to maximize the precision of our predictions,” said Angelakis. “This allowed us to model benthic habitats across more than 5,000 square km of the continental shelf.”

The findings have conservation implications for the endangered sea lion and for other benthic species that rely on these habitats.

“These data are useful both for mapping critical habitats for an endangered species such as the Australian sea lion, and more broadly, for mapping unexplored areas of the seabed,” said Angelakis.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/earth/oceans/australian-sea-lions-camera-crew-map-ocean-floor/

J6 Rioter Back In Custody After Threats To Officials

J6 Rioter Back In Custody After Threats To Officials

We’re bringing the ocean to the desert

Bazaar Mar is opening Wednesday in Las Vegas!

José Andrés Aug 05, 2024 Read on Substack

If you know one thing about me…you know I absolutely love the sea and everything that comes from it. Over the last couple of years (we passed our two year mark here at Longer Tables and I didn’t say anything! Happy anniversary, friends!) I’ve told you about my love of oysters, and crabs, and octopus, and all kinds of fish, as well as the beauty of drinking seafoam, and watching the stars from the beach at night, and sailing across the ocean on a tall ship. So you know this is true!

And you know something else about me, which is that I love Vegas. It’s a city where anything can truly happen…there’s magic, there’s mystery, there’s great energy, and of course there’s some of the best dining in the world.

So friends—I’m thrilled to be able to share with you the news that my team and I, we are bringing two of my favorite things together: we are opening Bazaar Mar in Vegas! I don’t know if any of you were able to make it to Bazaar Mar in Miami when it was open in Brickell from 2016 to 2019, but I’m not lying when I tell you it was one of my favorite restaurants we ever opened (no offense to the others, of course! I love them all…). The design, these beautiful blue and white tiles everywhere, the art from my friend Sergio Mora, the feeling like you’re under the sea, were amazing. And the menu! We did some of our best R&D there, and served some incredible seafood to happy guests. I was so sad we had to close it five years ago.

But now, it’s as if it’s rising again from the ashes, crossing the country to become a beautiful oasis of seafood in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Friends—Bazaar Mar is back, and I couldn’t be happier.

If you’ve never been to a Bazaar, I’ll tell you this: it’s a place of discovery, of wonder, of surprise. You can visit a Bazaar multiple times and still find new things. Think of exploring a spice bazaar or a market in a new city: what do you think you’ll find? What will you taste, what will you smell, what will you see? There’s always something new around the corner!

Some of you know that I also have Bazaar Meat in Vegas, which celebrates everything carnivorous, from jamón to suckling pig to thick grilled chuletón steaks. Steak is great, but sometimes you need to go to the open ocean! I hope that Bazaar Mar is that place of wonder and surprise for everyone who’s excited to explore a bit deeper below the surface..

Chef Manny and Chef Daniela, with Chef Victor from Bazaar NY!

Enough talk, José, more food! Okay, okay, so what am I excited to eat there? Well, I know what I’m excited to have, but I also spoke with two of my chefs from the restaurant—Daniela Romero, the restaurant’s head chef, and Manny Echevarri, the head chef of all of the Bazaars. Like me, they both loved Bazaar Mar in Miami, and are so excited to be able to open the restaurant again in an amazing city like Vegas. Here are a few of our favorites!

Got friends in Vegas, or someone who always seems to be there?

River Trout Cone: Every Bazaar has a unique cone—which, if you’ve never been to any of my restaurants, is a little beautiful crunchy two-bite snack that can be savory or sweet. The one we’ve made for Bazaar Mar has a flower made of a very very special trout from Virginia, raised by the Walker family in a 1930s-era fishery (I’ll tell you more about Ty and Shannon Walker and their trout sometime!). It’s got a little preserved Meyer lemon and dill on it…an amazing way to start the meal.

bazaarbyjose

A post shared by @bazaarbyjose

Cobia Rosa Ceviche: Have you ever had the fish called Cobia? It’s an amazing mild, buttery, firm fish, absolutely perfect with leche de tigre (the very famous Peruvian lime dressing for ceviche). This was one of my absolute favorites from The Bazaar in Miami, and I’m so happy to be bringing it back (a bit updated from the earlier version, and still amazing). Oh, and the Cobia is coming from Panama, from Open Blue, a project promoting the sustainability of this delicious fish.

Salt-Baked Whole Fish, served tableside: It’s just what it sounds like…just as theatrical and amazing as you can imagine. You’ll be able to pick your fish of choice, whether it’s turbot, lubina, red snapper, sea bream, or whatever we have from the fishers that day, and you can tell us how to prepare it: fried, like they do it in Ibiza; grilled over wood; Donostiarra-style (which you know how to do at home!) or baked in salt. I don’t know if I have a favorite, but I do know that to have a salt-baked fish prepared for me by a great server is an amazing thing! By the way, we won’t have this available immediately at opening, but we’ll be introducing it soon after!

Maybe you can tell—the fish we are serving is from the very best places in the country and the world. We care so much about the ingredients we’re serving, so we’ve found the best. And of course, fish, like produce, is seasonal…so you won’t always find the same dishes on the menu.

Okay, enough of me telling you guys what I love about this restaurant. I’m getting so excited thinking about it, and I hope you are too! I know maybe not everyone goes to Vegas very often, but I think maybe it’s time to give it a visit, just to feast for a few days…? You don’t even need to gamble!

Check Out Bazaar Mar!

UK Officials Want To Question Musk For Inciting Riots

I say good. I don’t see him submitting to questioning, but good that they want to.

UK Officials Want To Question Musk For Inciting Riots

Republicans start attacking Walz by going after his military record

The charge has been led by Vance, a veteran who served in Iraq, who is going after Walz’s decision to leave the National Guard to run for public office.

Snippets:

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is homing in on what advisers see as a potential liability for Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz: his departure from the Army National Guard two decades ago.

Walz, introduced Tuesday as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate, ended his 24-year military career to run for public office in 2005 — just before the unit he led deployed to Iraq. (snip)

Walz has faced such attacks before, including in his re-election campaign in 2022, when his GOP opponent questioned his decision to leave the service in 2005. Walz’s campaign responded with a letter signed by 50 veterans praising his record and leadership.

“Governor Walz secured additional funding for new veterans homes,” read the letter, a copy of which the Harris campaign shared Wednesday with NBC News. “In his first term, Minnesota was one of just seven states initially selected by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to participate in the ‘Governor’s Challenge’ to eliminate veteran deaths by suicide.” (snip)

Walz joined the National Guard in 1981, just after his 17th birthday. After he transferred from the Nebraska National Guard in 1996, he served in the Minnesota National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 125th Field Artillery, said Army Lt. Col. Kristen Augé, the Minnesota Guard’s public affairs officer. Walz, Augé added, “culminated his career serving as the command sergeant major for the battalion” and “retired as a master sergeant in 2005 for benefit purposes because he did not complete additional coursework at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy.”

During Walz’s nearly quarter-century of service, he was part of flood fights, responded to tornadoes and spent months on active duty in Italy, according to the Harris campaign. Walz “was deployed to Italy in 2003 to protect against potential threats in Europe while active military forces were deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported in 2022, attributing the information to Walz in an article about the scrutiny of his military service. (snip)

Asked about the video, a Harris campaign spokesperson did not deny that Walz had embellished when he spoke of carrying weapons in war.

“In his 24 years of service, the Governor carried, fired and trained others to use weapons of war innumerable times,” the spokesperson said. “Governor Walz would never insult or undermine any American’s service to this country — in fact, he thanks Senator Vance for putting his life on the line for our country. It’s the American way.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/republicans-vance-start-tearing-walz-going-military-record-rcna165564