DL Open Thread: Thursday, October 13, 2022

Trump Played Rope-A-Dope With Federal Agents.  Moved boxes around after receiving subpoena:

A Trump employee has told federal agents about moving boxes of documents at Mar-a-Lago at the specific direction of the former president, according to people familiar with the investigation, who say the witness account — combined with security-camera footage — offers key evidence of Donald Trump’s behavior as investigators sought the return of classified material.

The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicatingthat, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes,said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Trump spokesman doesn’t even deny it, just accuses Biden of conducting a (stop me if you’ve heard this before) witch hunt:

Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich declined to answer detailed questions for this article. “The Biden administration has weaponized law enforcement and fabricated a Document Hoax in a desperate attempt to retain political power,” Budowich said in a statement. “Every other President has been given time and deference regarding the administration of documents, as the President has the ultimate authority to categorize records, and what materials should be classified.”

To me, Trump has likely been running out the clock on legal storm clouds since he was a teenager.

Could Control Of The Senate Run Through Utah?  No, the D’s aren’t winning Utah.  But an ongoing feud between incumbent Sen. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney makes it possible that independent Evan McMullin could win.  Lee has now taken to begging Romney for his support:

The appeal carried the unmistakable whiff of desperation. That it was delivered on live television only heightened the dramatic tension.

A Utah Republican, Senator Mike Lee, was publicly begging a fellow Utah Republican, Senator Mitt Romney, for a simple act of solidarity: an endorsement in his campaign for re-election. One that, in Mr. Lee’s telling, could amount to no less than an act of salvation, as he battles for political survival against an unexpectedly fierce challenger, the independent candidate Evan McMullin.

“Please, get on board,” Mr. Lee said, looking into the camera and addressing Mr. Romney by name on Tuesday night. “Help me win re-election. Help us do that. You can get your entire family to donate to me.”

Mr. Lee and Mr. Romney were — and evidently remain — antagonists in the lingering drama of Jan. 6, 2021. Mr. Lee played a key role in support of President Donald J. Trump’s attempt to subvert the 2020 election and cling to power. Mr. Romney was a stalwart opponent of it.

And Mr. Lee was making his appeal to Mr. Romney on Tuesday night on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program — a venue in which Mr. Romney has been routinely roasted, for years, before audiences of millions of conservative viewers.

14 Members Of Laxalt’s Family Endorse His Opponent In Nevada Senate Race.  This race could also determine control of the Senate:

The three-page letter, obtained by The Nevada Independent, does not mention Laxalt by name or his Senate campaign, focusing instead on praising Cortez Masto. That includes her positions on women’s issues, opposition to a proposed federal mining tax, public land preservation and her record as the state’s attorney general from 2007 to 2015.

“We believe that Catherine possesses a set of qualities that clearly speak of what we like to call ‘Nevada grit,’” the letter said, adding that “no further comments will be made, as we believe this letter speaks for itself.”

Laxalt is the grandson of Paul Laxalt, a former senator and Nevada governor who for decades was one of the state’s most prominent Republican politicians.

The letter marks the second time that Laxalt’s extended family has chosen not to back his political aspirations. During Laxalt’s 2018 run for governor, 12 of his family members publicly opposed his bid, writing in an op-ed published in the Reno Gazette-Journal that Laxalt’s campaign “leveraged and exploited the family name.”

Minnesota Man Blamed Antifa For Burning Down His Camper.  Guess what?:

A Minnesota man who claimed Antifa set fire to his camper during the political unrest of 2020 because he had displayed a Trump campaign flag admitted to staging the event and committing insurance fraud, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.

Denis Molla, age 30, of Minneapolis suburb Brooklyn Center was indicted by a federal grand jury in July and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud after being accused of defrauding and attempting to defraud an insurance agency and GoFundMe donors of more than $300,000 following the alleged incident, according to court records.

Ain’t No Such Thing As The ‘Five Stages Of Grief’.  I found this thoughtful piece on loss–thought-provoking:

I learned that my doubts were well founded. Plenty of researchers, practicing psychologists, and expert panels have given up on Kübler-Ross’s theory; some have called for it to be “relegated to the realms of history.” Already by the early 1980s, a U.S. Institute of Medicine committee cautioned “against the use of the word ‘stages’ to describe the bereavement process,” as it might “result in inappropriate behavior toward the bereaved, including hasty assessments of where individuals are or ought to be in the grieving process.” And a few years after that report, the research psychologists Camille Wortman and Roxane Silver thoroughly debunked the five-stage model, noting, for example, that most people don’t experience depression after bereavement. What’s more, when a grieving person does become clinically depressed, they might be at risk of long-lasting suffering rather than in the middle stage of a steady advance toward “acceptance.”

Yet despite decades of attempts by scholars and professionals to let the five stages die, the model remains dominant. Research surveys of its spread confirmed my own experience: The stages appeared in roughly 60 percent of English- and Dutch-language websites about grieving that were evaluated in 2020. Another recent study asked roughly 60 mental-health professionals and 150 people from the general public whether they believed that the grieving process “can be expected to progress through a predictable series of stages, starting with denial and ending with acceptance.” Nearly half of the clinicians and more than two-thirds of the other adults rated that statement as being “definitely” or “probably” true.

What do you want to talk about?