The cruelty of English professors » « Who you gonna call when you’ve got a racist book to publish? REGNERY!

Discuss: Political Madness All the Time

Wouldn’t you know it, this thread would lapse just before Trump was kicked out of office. I wonder if the new thread will be as lively without the Orange Cheeto around to focus our anger? I think Joe might provide some prompting, at least.

Lynna is your curator. Type furiously!

(Previous thread)

The cruelty of English professors » « Who you gonna call when you’ve got a racist book to publish? REGNERY!

Comments

  1. says

    SC @497, Ha! Well said.

    In other news: Supreme court races in these 10 states are key to protecting fair elections and halting gerrymanders

    The federal judiciary grew ever more hostile to voting rights during the Trump era, and the right-wing majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to curtail partisan gerrymanders designed to entrench one-party rule. But at the same time, state courts have started striking down these gerrymanders and issuing their own decisions defending voting access. Crucially, these decisions have relied on protections found in state constitutions, meaning that they’re insulated from U.S. Supreme Court review (at least for the time being).

    Almost every state constitution, in fact, offers similar protections—the issue is who’s interpreting them. Unlike federal judges, most state supreme court justices are elected to their posts, and while the almost uniquely American practice of electing judges creates serious problems for judicial impartiality, it nevertheless presents progressives with the opportunity to replace conservative ideologues with more independent-minded jurists.

    Below, we’ll take a look at the states with major opportunities for progressive gains on state supreme courts over the next two years, as well as those where they must play defense. Progressives have the chance to flip Ohio’s Supreme Court, gain a more solid majority in Montana, and make inroads that could set them up to flip conservative-heavy courts in Georgia, Texas, and Virginia later this decade. Meanwhile, Republicans could take control of Democratic-leaning courts in Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and North Carolina. […]

    Map, and more details at the link.

  2. says

    blf, at comment 499 in the previous chapter of this thread: That’s a well-done cartoon. The penguin saying, “If only there was something we could have done.” [penguin shoulder shrug] Perfect.

  3. says

    Guardian world liveblog (support the Guardian if you can!):

    The WTO’s new director-general has called for more vaccine plants in developing [sic] countries.

    “People are dying in poor countries,” said Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in a speech to the WTO’s 164 members at a meeting in her first day in the job.

    “We must focus on working with companies to open up and license more viable manufacturing sites now in emerging markets and developing countries [gah],” she said, adding that technology transfers were also required.

  4. blf says

    Josh Bernstein Brags That He Wants to Make It Harder to Vote in America (RWW edits in {curly braces}):

    [… Radical right-wing commentator Josh] Bernstein agreed with Trump’s recommendations[bellowing for more and more voter suppression measures] but faulted him for not going far enough.

    We cannot have early voting, Bernstein declared. We should have one day to vote, and no, it should not be {a day} off, OK? You either go before work, you either go on your lunch break, or you go after work. That’s it. If you can’t get there in that one day, then it wasn’t important enough for you, and to be quite frank, I don’t want you to vote. If you can’t make it in that one day, stay home.

    Bernstein said that only those in the military or who are sick should be allowed to use mail-in voting, but it should only be available the week before the election. He also called for the Constitution to be amended to outlaw the use of mail-in voting for any other reason.

    Bernstein then insisted that we must raise the voting age to a minimum of 21 and that every voter must provide proof of income at the polling place.

    I want proof of income at the polling stations,[†] he said. I want to see that you have skin in the game and that you are not planning on sponging off of the system. … I’m talking about people on welfare and things like that, that have been on the system and have been exploiting the system for many, many, many years. They should not be allowed to vote. You should have skin in the game because you’re probably going to vote for the people that are going to keep you dependent on them, and that’s not good for the country.

    […]

      † On a bit of a tangent, and nothing per se to do with voting (or voter / vote suppression), a Finland-like system of public tax summary could be a useful improvement. Somehow, I suspect this loon would object…

  5. says

    Steve Herman, VOA:

    “What has been declassified appears to be very little indeed and that’s disappointing,” says [UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions Agnes Callamard] of the @ODNIgov report released on the #KSA sanctioned killing of @JKhashoggi.

    It’s “extremely dangerous” for the US to acknowledge the culpability of the #KSA crown prince in the murder of @jkhashoggi and not take action against him, adds @AgnesCallamard.

    “It is extremely problematic, in my view, if not dangerous, to acknowledge someone’s culpability and then to tell that someone ‘but we won’t do anything, please proceed as if have we have said nothing,'” says @AgnesCallamard.

    (I could be mistaken, but I thought I saw that the WH was making some announcement on this today…)

  9. blf says

    Warren and fellow progressives propose ‘Ultra-Millionaire’ tax:

    Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressive United States lawmakers proposed the Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act, which would levy a two percent annual tax on households and trusts valued between $50m and $1bn, and a three percent tax on all net worth over $1bn.

    […]

    “The ultra-rich and powerful have rigged the rules in their favor so much that the top 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 99%, and billionaire wealth is 40% higher than before the COVID crisis began,” Warren said in a statement. “A wealth tax is popular among voters on both sides for good reason: because they understand the system is rigged to benefit the wealthy and large corporations.”

    […] Democrats are planning to use special budget reconciliation procedures to pass a bill with a simple majority later in the year that will include parts of a massive infrastructure package. At that point, taxes to pay for the build out would be on the table. And under Senate rules, tax increases generally are allowed in budget bills.

    […]

  10. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Global infections rose for first time in 7 weeks in last week of February

    The number of new coronavirus infections globally rose last week for the first time in seven weeks, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

    Reuters reports:

    “We need to have a stern warning for all of us: that this virus will rebound if we let it,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO technical lead for Covid-19, told a briefing. “And we cannot let it.”

    WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the rise in cases was “disappointing but not surprising” and urged countries not to relax measures to fight the disease.

    It was too early for countries to rely solely on vaccination programmes and abandon other measures, he said: “If countries rely solely on vaccines, they are making a mistake. Basic public health measures remain the foundation of the response.”

    Tedros noted that Ghana and Ivory Coast became the first countries on Monday to begin vaccinating people with doses supplied by COVAX, the international programme to provide vaccines for poor and middle-income countries.

    But he also criticised rich countries for hoarding vaccine doses, saying that it was in everyone’s interest for vulnerable people to be protected around the world.

    “It’s regrettable that some countries continue to prioritise vaccinating younger healthier adults at lower risk of diseases in their own populations, ahead of health workers and older people elsewhere,” Tedros said.

    Mike Ryan, the WHO’s top emergency expert, said the global fight against the coronavirus was in a better state now than it was 10 weeks ago before the roll-outs of vaccines had begun. But it was too early to say the virus was coming under control.

    “The issue is of us being in control of the virus and the virus being in control of us. And right now the virus is very much in control.”

  11. says

    John Harwood at CNN – “White evangelicals’ dominance of the GOP has turned it into the party of resistance”:

    For obvious reasons, President Joe Biden made the coronavirus pandemic his first legislative priority. Polling shows wide public support for his $1.9 trillion relief plan.

    But that didn’t translate to Republican support for the measure. When the House passed the bill last week, not a single GOP lawmaker voted yes.

    That offered a bookend to developments in state capitals across the nation, where Republicans seek to restrict access to the ballot. After Biden defeated Donald Trump in a presidential election free of large-scale voter fraud, Republican legislators have proposed curbing voting methods used last November in the name of stopping large-scale fraud.

    In both cases, Republicans defied broad signals from the political marketplace. Instead, they heeded the defiant partisan impulse that Trump sounded before leaving office: “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

    Those words explain why Trump’s pugnacity continues to grip the GOP despite his electoral defeat, second impeachment and mounting legal woes. They reflect the existential dread motivating the conservative White Christians who form the party’s core constituency and fear 21st century America is drifting away from them.

    “It really is about not giving an inch anymore — this sense of absolute resistance,” says Robert P. Jones, director of the Washington-based Public Religion Research Institute and author of “The End of White Christian America.” [This is a decent book. – SC]

    The imperative for resistance over cooperation, even when futile, fueled Trump’s denial of his defeat and the deadly US Capitol insurrection by his supporters that was replete with Christian iconography. In a different context, it produced the reflex among conservative politicians and commentators to blame Democratic energy policies for the recent power-grid crisis in Republican-controlled Texas — as stalwart conservative Sen. Ted Cruz, his constituents suffering, headed to a Mexican beach.

    “For the Republican Party, the sensationalization, nationalization, and demonization of the political system matter far more than any form of governing,” Amanda Carpenter, a former Cruz aide who is now a CNN contributor, wrote in The Bulwark. “Political performance is the point. Both the means and the end. The purpose and the power.”

    White Christians’ hold on the GOP

    For almost all of American history, White Christians have represented a large majority of the US population and controlled the levers of government power. But that majority had shrunk to just 54% by 2008 when Barack Obama won election as the first African American president and personified the nation’s changing demography.

    Trump has personified resistance to that change with his turn-back-the-clock call to “Make America Great Again.” Faith in his singular mission proved so strong that at last summer’s nominating convention Republicans didn’t even offer a governing platform.

    Resistance hasn’t worked. Trump lost his reelection bid, Democrats captured Congress, and the proportion of White Christians in the population has now shrunk to 44%, PRRI research shows.

    But White Christians still hold unchallenged dominance within the GOP. They represent two-thirds of rank-and-file Republicans, Jones said. And they represent more than 90% of Republican senators, House members and governors.

    The most conservative among them — those describing themselves as evangelical or born-again — wield the greatest influence. Last November, that group — comprising 28% of the overall electorate according to exit polls — gave Trump three-fourths of their votes. And their grievances against prevailing national sentiment on issues from gay rights to immigration to racial justice to election integrity echo through GOP stances in Washington and state capitals now.

    …

    Instead of condemning the idea of physical resistance, White evangelical Republicans embrace it, the AEI survey showed. Fully 60% agreed that “the traditional American way of life is disappearing so fast that we may have to use force to save it.”

    Embracing lies

    White evangelical Republicans who accept Trump’s election lies also propel the national GOP push to restrict voting procedures….

    Even on the pandemic that has claimed more than 500,000 American lives, ravaged the economy and upended normal life, Republican lawmakers reflect the emphatic skepticism of White evangelicals.

    …

    Meantime, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell fends off questions about intra-party divisions by underscoring a higher priority: what Republicans agree they’re against.

    “I think what you need to focus on,” McConnell told reporters last week, “is how unified we are today in opposition to what the Biden administration is trying to do.”

  12. says

    Bits and pieces of news:

    * New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) apologized yesterday for comments to women colleagues that “have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation.” The Democratic governor, whose third term is up next year, also agreed to refer the matter to the state attorney general’s office.

    * Asked over the weekend about whether Republicans will win the U.S. House majority next year, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said he’s prepared to bet “my personal house” that his party will succeed.

    * The Nebraska Republican Party decided not to formally censure Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) for his vote on Donald Trump’s impeachment, but the state GOP did approve a resolution expressing “deep disappointment and sadness” about the senator’s work on Capitol Hill.

    * With Trump and his allies targeting Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), the Illinois Republican’s allies are launching a new super PAC — called “Americans Keeping Country First” — intended to defend GOP lawmakers who’ve clashed with the former president.

    * At the Conservative Political Action Conference, Ric Grenell, a controversial former member of the Trump administration, “strongly hinted” that he intends to run for governor in California. He’s also reportedly begun hiring campaign staff.

    […]

    * And we can apparently add Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) to the list of Republicans uncomfortable with their party’s cult of personality. The Louisiana senator told CNN yesterday that his party won’t succeed by “putting one person on a pedestal and making that one person our focal point.” He added, “If we idolize one person, we will lose.”

    Link

  13. says

    Senate continues work on $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill passed by House

    The federal minimum wage has not been increased since July 2009, when it was set at $7.25/hour. The nearly eleven-year delay in increasing it is the longest period Congress has ever allowed in the history of the 80-year-old law. […]

    By all accounts, the White House has ruled out challenging the Senate parliamentarian, who is the arbiter of whether a bill has real or merely incidental effects on the federal budget, on her opinion that the minimum wage increase included in the COVID-19 relief bill that passed in the House last week has to be stripped out of the bill in the Senate.

    […] Senate Democrats, and the White House, seem to be backing off. House progressive Democrats are pushing back […]. Nearly two dozen of them signed on to a letter Monday to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris urging them to keep up the fight for $15. […]

    That push became more urgent as Senate Democrats have abandoned their back-up plan to tax big corporations that don’t pay workers $15/hour. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Ron Wyden, chairs of the Budget and Finance Committees respectively, had been working on that alternative solution but now have dropped it according to various sources, as a result of “numerous practical and political challenges.” The practical include the amount of time it would take to write and vet the provision, clearing it through the parliamentarian, when the bill needs to be passed as quickly as possible.

    […] The leadership apparently believes that setting up a bulletproof, or accountant-proof, way to make corporate American pay a living wage through taxes isn’t possible in the time allowed.

    There are two tracks to take now to get the long overdue minimum wage increase and both involve Democrats forcing their “moderates,” Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, to get in line. That’s by overruling the parliamentarian now and keep the House’s minimum wage increase or abolishing the filibuster on legislation in an upcoming bill. Republicans will not allow it to happen any other way.

    […] Republicans know they have a losing hand but nonetheless are unified in opposition to the will of the American voting population and the Democrats. Not a single Republican voted with Democrats to pass the bill in the House. In fact, they dragged out the process and engineered the vote to happen in the very early hours Saturday so they could use their old “passed in secrecy in the middle of the night” trope against it. Because that’s all they got. On the Senate side, McConnell retains a tight grip on his members, arguing that the bill is just too big while refusing to work constructively with Democrats to come to agreement on anything. As usual.

    […] We saw polling last week that pegged 60% of Republican voters supporting the bill, with overall support among voters at 76%. It’s not just a hugely popular bill, it’s an essential one. The need is why people want it so badly, and why Democrats need to get the maximum out of it that they can. Now.

  14. says

    ‘If masks and social distancing don’t work, then what the hell happened to the flu?’

    […] I still usually get sick in the winter at least once. […]

    This year? I haven’t had so much as a sniffle, though every throat tickle and minor cough sends a frisson of dread down my spine.

    Turns out I’m not alone. This year’s flu season—long feared as the second head of a twin-headed monster—has been decidedly [small]

    That’s almost certainly because of the coronavirus mitigation efforts that have helped flatten the COVID-19 curve, even as our ex-pr*sident did everything in his power to secure our spot in the record books. […]

    according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, only one pediatric flu death has been reported in the U.S. as opposed to 92 at this same point last year.

    That’s a nice, comforting ray of sunshine in the midst of a dark, depressing winter. […]

    Associated Press:

    Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.

    Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling — were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say. […]

    Nationally, “this is the lowest flu season we’ve had on record,” according to a surveillance system that is about 25 years old, said Lynnette Brammer of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  15. says

    Biden admin will allow families separated under Trump to remain in US

    The Biden administration will allow families separated at the southern border by the Trump administration to reunite and remain in the U.S., the White House announced Monday.

    “We are hoping to reunite the families, either here or in their country of origin. […] And if, in fact they seek to reunite here in the United States, we will explore lawful pathways for them to remain in the United States, and to address the family needs,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at a press briefing.

    “We are acting as restoratively as possible.”

    Mayorkas, head of the family reunification task force established by President Biden, said his administration has thus far reunited 105 families.

    Immigration advocates have argued that the Biden administration needs to not only just reunite families, but also seek to compensate those harmed under the Trump administration.

    “We applaud Secretary Mayorkas’ commitment to remedy the torture and abuse of families who were separated from their children in immigration proceedings. […]”

    “We should have a legislative solution to allow families impacted by zero tolerance to remain in the U.S. They should be offered a path to permanent citizenship given what they’ve been through,” said Jorge Loweree, policy director of the American Immigration Council.

    Such an aspect could be tucked into Biden’s immigration legislation currently working its way through Congress, though the bill has already elicited significant pushback from Republicans.

    […] “Reunification needs to happen as soon as possible but we also need to consider working to address the significant harms that the government has imposed on all the families that were impacted by the policy previously,” Loweree said, adding that “there is long term and enduring damage that many children and parents will have to deal with, possibly for life” as a result of separation.

    Mayorkas also announced Monday that Michelle Brané, who most recently directed the Migrant Rights and Justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission, would serve as the executive director of the task force.

  16. says

    Deen Freelon:

    Black vax hesitancy makes headlines, but the most reluctant group by far is white Republicans–a much larger group.

    [Graph and Axios link at the link.]

    Note also that unlike the white GOP, Black vax hesitancy is on a downward trend.

    Here’s a headline for you: Black vax hesitancy has dropped by half over the past three months. GOP hesitancy has barely budged.

  17. blf says

    The Onion, Florida GOP Introduces Ballotless Voting In Disenfranchised Communities (quoted in full):

    In an effort to streamline the state’s electoral process, Florida Republicans introduced a new bill to the legislature Thursday that would establish ballotless voting in disenfranchised communities. “We’ve eliminated the complex and insecure process of casting a ballot so that voters from underserved communities don’t have to worry about going to the polls or mailing anything in,” said co-sponsor Rep. Chris Sprowls of the popular proposal, which had already garnered unanimous support among Republicans in the House and Senate. “Come voting day, voters will be able to walk right up to the doors of their polling place, then turn around. No lines, no worry. We’ve listened to your concerns, and are confident that ballotless voting will address them.” At press time, Sprowls added that the bill would also help fight voter fraud by eliminating the likelihood of votes being erroneously counted.

  18. says

    Man shot security guard at high school basketball game during argument over wearing mask

    A police officer working as a security guard for a high school basketball game in New Orleans was shot and killed after trying to stop a man who tried to enter a gymnasium without a mask.

    Tulane University police officer Martinus Mitchum, 38, was working security during a George Washington Carver High School basketball game on Saturday when police say John Shallerhorn attempted to enter the gym midway through the first half […]

    Because Shallerhorn was not wearing a mask, a staffer attempted to stop him. After Shallerhorn allegedly punched the staffer, Mitchum responded to the scene to attempt to break up the altercation.

    Police said Shallerhorn pulled a gun and shot Mitchum, killing him […]

    Shallerhorn was arrested at the scene and has been charged with multiple felonies including first-degree murder […] Police believe Shallerhorn had robbed someone outside of the gymnasium before attempting to enter the indoor arena.

    Shallerhorn admitted to shooting Mitchum, police said.

    […] There have been a number of violent incidents arising from fights over mask mandates used to stop the spread of the coronavirus. [snipped details of other violent confrontations over wearing a mask]

  20. says

    Josh Marshall:

    Even though I wasn’t the one covering it for TPM, I was waiting to hear ex-President Trump’s speech last night because he remains, even after the presidency, a looming presence in our national politics. I watched. I listened to him brag. I listened to his standard barrage of lies about immigration. And then I thought, “Fuck this guy. I don’t need to hear this.” I turned off the feed and went to work on a woodworking project.

    This might be a normal response for some. But it’s not for me. When everyone else was treating Trump as a joke I said it was folly to ignore him. Within weeks of his getting into the race in 2015, I thought he’d win the Republican nomination. […] There is a breed of quaint liberal myopia that says that if we just ‘don’t give oxygen’ to awful people that will somehow make them go away, like a toddler who think covering his eyes means you can’t see him. We’re told we shouldn’t “amplify” the likes of Donald Trump. This is all congenial, well-intentioned nonsense – the sort of head in the sand thinking that [is] how we ended up with Donald Trump being President.

    […] Part of this may be fatigue. I want to be done with this guy. But I don’t think it was mainly that. I’ve wanted to be done with him for years. […] However terrible and absurd he may be, what he says and what he thinks and even his mood really matters because of the awful powers he had acquired by being elected President.

    Many times I’ve analogized the Trump presidency to living in a household with an abuser. Part of that experience is hyper-vigilance and attention to the actions and moods of the abuser. That person has the power. […] Absent that power, though, Trump’s lies and general crap don’t really matter to me as much. Absent that power, he’s just another entitled jerk who wants space in my head.

    His recitation felt like the past rather than the future – like a one-time chart topper belting out the same standards at a tumble down venue for a nostalgia crowd. […]

    Driving Trump from office and securing the thinnest congressional majorities was a critical victory – a necessary but by no means sufficient step to securing democracy in America and a positive future. What is so existential about what Democrats are able to accomplish in 2021 isn’t just about ending the pandemic or restoring the economy or making progress on the numerous challenges we already faced at the beginning of last year. It’s about putting a series of tangible wins on the board that solidify a broad constituency for a democratic future.

    […] watching Trump’s performance yesterday left me more skeptical that a Trumpist future will include Trump himself. He seemed low-energy, flat, like losing power was a gut punch he hasn’t recovered from. I’m also not sure he wants to be back in power or really ‘do’ anything. What I saw was much more consistent with wanting to keep hold of the Republican party as a power base, as a source of money […]

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/just-f-this-guy

  22. says

    California Sen. Alex Padilla’s first bill would protect millions of undocumented essential workers

    Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro, California Rep. Ted Lieu, California Sen. Alex Padilla, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren have introduced critical legislation that would put undocumented immigrants who have served as essential workers amid the novel coronavirus pandemic on a pathway to citizenship. The Citizenship for Essential Workers Act—Padilla’s first piece of legislation since filling the seat vacated by Vice President Kamala Harris—would affect up to 5 million people.

    […] Findings last year showed that nearly 3 in 4 undocumented workers are in essential roles amid the pandemic, from agriculture to health care to sanitation. […]

    Doris Landaverde, a Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holder from El Salvador and janitor at Harvard University, was among the essential workers who became sick in the first weeks of the pandemic last year. […]

    The bill would protect the parents of Leydy Rangel, who is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient and comes from a farm-working family in California. “The grapes, bell peppers, lettuce and other fruits and vegetables that my family makes sure other Americans have to eat can’t be harvested through Zoom,” she said. […]

    “The Citizenship for Essential Workers Act will also include undocumented workers who worked in essential industries but lost employment due to COVID-19,” the fact sheet continued, “including leaving the job due to unsafe working conditions, as well as undocumented relatives of an essential worker who died from COVID-19.” In a series of tweets, Warren noted that essential workers are doing their jobs all the while having the threat of deportation hanging over their heads, because the same Department of Homeland Security that classified them as essential workers also targets them for deportation. […]

  23. blf says

    After the storm: Texas power coop files for bankruptcy:

    […]
    The largest and oldest power cooperative in Texas is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing last month’s winter storm that left millions without power.

    […]

    Brazos said that it received excessively high invoices from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) for collateral and for the purported cost of electric service. The invoices were required to be paid within days. As a cooperative, Brazos’s costs are passed through to its members and retail consumers served by its members. Brazos decided that it won’t pass on the ERCOT costs to its members or the consumers.

    “Let me emphasize that this action by Brazos Electric was necessary to protect its member cooperatives and their more than 1.5 million retail members from unaffordable electric bills as we continue to provide electric service throughout the court-supervised process,” Clifton Karnei, executive vice president and general manager of Brazos, said in a prepared statement.

    Brazos said that it will continue to supply power to members as it restructures the cooperative while under bankruptcy protection.

    The bankruptcy filing comes the same day that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said that he is suing electricity provider Griddy for passing along massive bills to its customers during February’s winter storm. The lawsuit accuses Griddy of violating the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and seeks refunds for customers.

    […]

    We have always been transparent and customer-centric at every step. We wanted to continue the fight for our members to get relief and that hasn’t changed, Griddy said. [Reminder: Griddy passed on the absurd costs to the customers they are centricallycynically transparent with; Brazos didn’t –blf]

  24. says

    Related to #15 above – MSNBC is reporting that the former guy and his for-now spouse received the vaccine at the WH in January, but without any announcement or public show that it was safe and effective. Because they have to be the biggest assholes possible in every single thing they do.

  25. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Nearly two thirds of Russians are not willing to receive the country’s Sputnik V vaccine, and about the same number believe Covid-19 was created artificially as a biological weapon, an independent pollster [the Levada Center] said on Monday.

  29. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Ghana’s president Nana Akufo-Addo on Monday became the first recipient of a coronavirus vaccine under the global Covax scheme.

    The scheme, designed to ensure poorer countries do not miss out on vaccinations as worries grow that rich nations are hogging the doses, is aiming to deliver at least two billion jabs by the end of the year.

    Akufo-Addo received his AstraZeneca shot live on television along with his wife, while in neighbouring Ivory Coast a presidential spokesman got the country’s first jab, also part of a Covax delivery.

    Ivory Coast received some 504,000 doses from Covax, while Ghana got 600,000 that it will start to roll out this week.

    “It is important that I set the example that this vaccine is safe by being the first to have it, so that everybody in Ghana can feel comfortable about taking this vaccine,”Akufo-Addo said.

    The World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the first Covax shots:

    It’s encouraging to see health workers in lower-income countries starting to be vaccinated, but it’s regrettable that this comes almost three months after some of the wealthiest countries started their vaccination campaigns.

  31. says

    Politico – “Prosecutors fill in details of Proud Boys assault on Capitol”:

    The Proud Boys gathered at the Washington Monument at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6 dressed “incognito” to avoid detection, and then fanned out across the Capitol to prevent law enforcement from identifying them en masse, prosecutors alleged Monday in a legal filing that provides the most detail yet about the group’s actions on the day of the insurrection.

    In one of the most detailed filings describing the violent nationalist group’s activities, prosecutors say the Proud Boys — bereft of their leader Enrique Tarrio, who had been arrested two days earlier — turned to new leaders, including Ethan Nordean, a Seattle-based Proud Boys leader, who helped orchestrate the group’s role in the assault.

    In a filing seeking Nordean’s detention pending trial, prosecutors say he helped hatch a plan to provide Proud Boys with walkie-talkies — a Chinese brand called Baofeng — and communicated privately with individuals willing to fund and provide equipment for the Capitol siege.

    But most notably, Nordean helped hatch the tactics the Proud Boys would use when they split up at the Capitol to avoid detection.

    “Defendant — dressed all in black, wearing a tactical vest — led the Proud Boys through the use of encrypted communications and military-style equipment,” prosecutors allege, “and he led them with the specific plans to: split up into groups, attempt to break into the Capitol building from as many different points as possible, and prevent the Joint Session of Congress from Certifying the Electoral College results.”

    Prosecutors say the Proud Boys never intended to hear then-President Donald Trump’s speech to supporters that day, when he urged them to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” against Congress’ effort to certify the results of the 2020 election, a Trump defeat. Rather, Nordean led his allies “on a march around the Capitol” to position them at thinly guarded entrances.

    The new details provide the most vivid account yet of the government’s effort to piece together the most sophisticated, coordinated efforts by militia groups to overtake the Capitol and the peaceful transfer of presidential power. Numerous members of the Proud Boys have already been charged for their role in the assault that day, including several indicted on Friday on conspiracy charges.

    Nordean’s case, however, is even graver, prosecutors say: “Defendant’s position with the Proud Boys is that of giving instructions, not receiving them.”

    “All of this mayhem plainly envisioned that those carrying out Defendant’s stated vision — the reawakening of 1776 — would at least attempt to destroy federal government property and force their way inside the building,” the government brief said. “There was simply no other way for them to enter the Capitol building.”

    According to the filing, Nordean met his Proud Boy cohorts at the Washington Monument the morning of Jan. 6 and led them — dressed in all black instead of the Proud Boys’ typical colors — while wielding a bullhorn. He was at the front of the lines when the first barricades were breached.

    …

    Prosecutors also sketched out the early evidence of a money trail behind the Proud Boys’ efforts.

    …

    The case represents a leap forward in evidence about the Proud Boys’ role following an increasingly developed case against another militia group, the Oath Keepers, who also had a significant presence at the Capitol that day….

  32. says

    Kurt Bardella oped at USA Today – “The Republican civil war was over 5 years ago. Trump and the winners have a new target: Us”:

    There is no “Civil War” brewing within the Republican Party.

    Sure, there are a few, and I mean a few, folks who happen to still be in the Republican Party, who oppose what Donald Trump has done to the GOP, but let’s be very clear here: They are outliers. They are the fringe. They are the exception, not the rule.

    For all of the talk and headlines about there being some kind of GOP “Civil War” playing out in front of our eyes, the functional reality is that this so-called war was fought and decided five years ago, when Donald Trump insulted his way to the Republican nomination.

    …

    There was no realistic effort to break from Trump. There was no attempt to diminish his power. There was no resistance from the people who were in a position to actually resist. There was no “war.” Just unconditional surrender.

    …

    What’s shocking to me isn’t that it happened, but rather how easy it was for these feckless arsonists to pull it off. All it took was a snake-oil salesman to front the effort, a few white nationalists (Stephen Miller) to write the scripts, some old-fashioned media propaganda (Fox News), and the largest collection of cowards that has ever occupied elected office (Republicans in Congress). The instruments of war used for this takeover weren’t weapons of mass destruction, they were a relentless barrage of tweets. And that’s it. That’s all it took for Donald Trump to complete his occupation of the Republican Party.

    The scary reality is it’s only going to get worse. Trump is not an isolated phenomenon. Disciples of Trump are littering the national landscape….

    Nothing has shaken the Republican Party’s devotion to Donald Trump. Not the events of Jan. 6. Not losing the House majority in 2018. Not losing the presidency in 2020. Not losing the Senate majority in 2021.

    As a matter of fact, Republicans’ love affair with Trump has only intensified. Their collective rhetoric has grown more extreme. His most devout followers feel even more validated. Those who acted on the former president’s words on Jan. 6 surely feel emboldened to try again.

    There is an undercurrent of violence that is escalating in this country. Asian Americans are under siege right now, fueled by Republicans who applaud the use of racist rhetoric like Trump’s “China virus” refrain (a phrase he used three times at CPAC). This thirst for violence will continue to spread and manifest itself in dangerous and deadly ways. What happened Jan. 6 wasn’t the culmination of the Republican Party’s rhetoric, it was just the opening act.

    What I saw this weekend wasn’t a party in the midst of an internal civil war. What I saw was a political party getting ready to instigate a civil war against the rest of us.

  34. says

    SC @23, I’m surprised it took this long for us to find out that Trump and Melania were vaccinated in the White House in January. You would think that someone would have spilled those beans.

    Don’t know if you noticed, but at CPAC Trump did say, “Go get your shot.” Too late to halt all the vaccine disinformation, but better late than never, I guess.

    “We took care of a lot of people — including, I guess, on December 21st, we took care of Joe Biden, because he got his shot, he got his vaccine,” Trump said, before suggesting that Biden’s vaccination shows how few side effects come with the vaccine. “It shows you how unpainful that vaccine shot is.” … “So everybody, go get your shot,” Trump added.

    Commentary:

    […] In context, the former president delivered the comments in the most Trumpian way possible. The Republican went on and on about what he considered the most important detail: giving Trump “100 percent” credit.

    “Never forget that we did it,” Trump told attendees. “Never let them take the credit because they don’t deserve the credit. They just followed, they’re following our plan…. Joe Biden is only implementing the plan that we put in place.”

    None of these comments were true, of course — the Trump administration didn’t develop a vaccine distribution plan — but the former president just kept going.

    “Never let them forget,” he added. “This was us. We did this. And the distribution is moving along, according to our plan.”

    After rambling a bit more, and ironically accusing Biden of not understanding the details of governing, Trump finally concluded his thought by encouraging people to get vaccinated.

    Sure, ideally the former president would be principally concerned with public health, not personal glorification. And sure, it’d be nice if Trump were capable of offering sound advice about vaccinations without lying or taking cheap shots at the president who’s succeeding where he failed. And sure, it’d be great if the former president hadn’t done so much damage to his credibility on this issue.

    But ultimately, what matters most is the public-health consequences in the midst of a deadly pandemic: if Trump’s comments, regardless of his motivations, help encourage conservative vaccine skeptics to get a needle in their shoulder, then everyone will benefit.

    It shouldn’t be necessary, but if members of my family can now go to my Fox News-watching relative and say, “Even Trump says ‘everybody’ should ‘go get your shot,'” I’ll take it

    Link

  35. says

    Over half a million Texans are still under boil water notices.

    From the Daily Beast:

    For nearly two weeks now, tens of thousands of residents of Jackson, Mississippi, have gone without running water in their homes, leaving them with no clean drinking water and unable to bathe, cook, wash clothes, or flush toilets.

    Both Texas and Mississippi are run by Republicans.

  36. says

    New York Times:

    Early last summer, Chinese and Indian troops clashed in a surprise border battle in the remote Galwan Valley, bashing each other to death with rocks and clubs. Four months later and more than 1,500 miles away in Mumbai, India, trains shut down and the stock market closed as the power went out in a city of 20 million people…. Now, a new study lends weight to the idea that those two events may well have been connected.

    Yikes. China and India fighting. Not good.

  37. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    The Supreme Court exempted five California churches from a county health directive intended to stem the coronavirus pandemic by prohibiting indoor gatherings.

  38. says

    Oh, FFS.

    Josh Hawley speaking at CPAC:

    We can have a republic where the people rule or we can have an oligarchy where Big Tech and the liberals rule. That’s the fight of our time: to make the rule of the people an actual thing again, to restore the sovereignty of the American people,

    Now wait just a damn minute. You can’t honestly separate “the people” and “the liberals.”

    “The people” voted Hawley’s darling Dear Leader out of office.

    Chris Hayes:

    [Hawley’s] speaking here not about being a U.S. Senator who is accountable to the voters — all of them — of his state of Missouri. No, he’s saying the Party is what matters here, and the Party is run by its voters and so that is who he is accountable to…. Hawley is making it explicit here that he sees himself fundamentally as a party functionary, not a member of the representative government.

  39. says

    Hyatt Hotels group:

    “We take the concern raised about the prospect of symbols of hate being included in the stage design at CPAC 2021 very seriously as all such symbols are abhorrent and unequivocally counter to our values as a company,” said Hyatt, which had faced pointed criticism for hosting the event.

    Commentary:

    […] The CPAC Stage is an interesting case. The idea any group in the US today would intentionally use Nazi synbolism at an event with Senators and a President speaking is almost too horrible to contemplate. But the past four years have been a daily litany of things too horrible to contemplate:

    Trump campaign cooperation with a foreign adversary.

    Trump calling Nazis “good people.”

    The US having to extract a spy from Russia because our intelligence feared Trump would compromise him/her. (Remember that story? — so far unrefuted.)

    The President speaking and taking actions everyone knew would cause the deaths of thousands from COVID. This is a particular sore point for me. If the media had called Trump’s rallies and White House superspreader events the manslaughter it really was, I doubt Trump would have come so close to winning. […]

    Link

  40. says

    Aaron Rupar:

    Trump called in to Fox News after his CPAC speech and was asked by Steve Hilton about his response to the January 6 insurrection. He tried to shift blame to Pelosi before resorting to Black Lives Matter whataboutism.

    https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1366228113173143554

    Transcript of some of Trump’s lies that were told on-air during that interview (partial transcript by me, created by listening to the video):

    […] The press doesn’t like to talk about it, but the real number of people at the location [rally location on January 6] went all the way back practically to the Washington Monument. It was tremendous numbers of people. Not the capitol, I’m talking about the rally itself. And it was a love fest! This rally is going to be bigger than anyone thinks, because everybody said, “Oh we’re going to be at the rally […] and it had a, I think, the largest crowd that I’ve ever spoken to, and I’ve spoken before very big crowds. Hundreds of thousands of people, and more than that. Hundreds of thousands of people, and I said that I think you should have, ten thousand [pause] I think I gave the number, [slight pause while he refines his lies on the fly], I definitly gave the number of ten thousand national guardsmen. I think you should have ten thousand of the national guard ready. Uh, they took that number, from what I understand, they gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi, and I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it would look good. So, you know, that was a big mistake. […] I hate to see it. I think it’s terrible. I hate to see it. I will tell you that’s very interesting however, when you see Washington burning, [pause] and when you see Seattle burning and Portland burning and all these other places burning with Antifa and the radical left, nothing seems to happen. […] It is a double standard […]

    Video is available at the link.

    What Trump also said to Hilton:

    It’s very interesting. My poll numbers are high. I think they are the highest they’ve ever been.

    Hilton cut the rest of the lie off by breaking in and speaking over Trump’s rant about poll numbers.

    Do you miss him yet? Do you miss his tweets? Fucking liar.

  41. blf says

    SC@32, Entirely speculation, but the cut-out mask is perhaps “thought” by the wearer to be some sort of an “ironic” protest: It’s not the usual none, or below the nose / chin, and there is a mask. Freedom for the SARS-COV-2 virus! Don’t oppress the microbes!! Support mass infection!!! Free pass to visit DEATH!!1!

    Or maybe it’s a harness to keep their brains from falling out? (It didn’t work.)

    The large hoop earring(s? (I can only clearly see one)) are presumably just an individual preference. I’m fine with that — provided they are comfortable (both physically and emotionally) and the individual has not been (or feels) coerced into wearing them — so I don’t think they are related to the absurd mask.

  42. blf says

    Mystery at the lair! Today was (outdoor) market day, and at my “usual” Italian stall, the nice person who runs sneaked in a little extra (they often do, I’m one of their frequent customers). I didn’t see what it was at the time, they just dropped it into my rucksack.

    I have no idea what it is. It isn’t making any noise. There’s no label. It’s a misshapen white chunk, slightly waxy in feel and appearance, with almost no discernible smell. Tied around the middle is a “rope” like that used with some soaps. The individual, as far as I know, only sells Italian foodstuffs (including drinks). There’s no wick, so it’s not a candle. As far as I can tell, it wasn’t refrigerated.

    It’s either a hard cheese, a hard salami, or a soap. The smell is not distinct enough to differentiate. There’s no obvious “skin” or casing, so at the moment I leaning towards a soap. The faint smell could be that of a mild peppery hard salami (except there’s no obvious pepper (it’s all whitish)), or a mild cheese, or a soap.

    It could also just be a lump of inert Italian stuff, but who ever head of an inert Italian? (Apologies for the stereotyping!)

    I’m loathe to taste it, and so is, remarkably, the mildly deranged penguin. Normally, she eats just about everything (peas notably excepted), and if she doesn’t like it, ejects it at speed. Being a penguin, she has multiple power ejection options (Penguins’ pooping power scoops Ig Nobel prize (2005)).

    I might try an image similarity search later…

  43. johnson catman says

    re blf @41: Would the shopkeeper be insulted if you asked them what it was?

  44. says

    blf @ #40, I was mostly asking whether the person was wearing what I thought they were, given that the photo is fairly small.

    SC@32, Entirely speculation, but the cut-out mask is perhaps “thought” by the wearer to be some sort of an “ironic” protest:…

    Yes, I assume so.

    The large hoop earring(s? (I can only clearly see one)) are presumably just an individual preference. I’m fine with that — provided they are comfortable (both physically and emotionally) and the individual has not been (or feels) coerced into wearing them

    As a longtime earring wearer, I can confidently say that hoops that size (if that’s what they’re wearing), even if they’re light, are inadvisable in general since they’re prone to catch on any number of things and tear your earlobe, and a bizarre choice for a crowded event. “Hold my hoops” is a sensible meme, and it’s amazing that someone wouldn’t think to remove them prior to storming the Capitol.

    so I don’t think they are related to the absurd “mask”.

    ? Of course not.

    They also do seem to have a tattoo on at least one wrist, which the FBI didn’t zoom in on in the photos, but given that they still haven’t identified #218 I’m not sure how much it would help.

  45. blf says

    @42, No, but I’ll have to wait until next week’s market.
    Plan at the moment is, if I cannot find something on the ‘Net, to cut it open. As far as I can tell, the interior is very Very similar to the surface (which, if correct, suggests soap, but does not rule out cheese, but probably does rule out sausage). In the grand scheme of things, it’s a minor mystery — or at least I assume it’s minor — and, in my current opinion, rather funny. Mystery Italian Thing! White Lump of Stuff!! Does One Wash With It, Eat It, or Use It As Tile Grout? Is It a Defense Against Republicansthugs (or, here in France, le penazis) — and if so, how does one use it?

  46. says

    Guardian – “Criminal complaint filed against Mohammed bin Salman in German court”:

    Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and other high-ranking Saudi officials have been accused of committing crimes against humanity in a criminal complaint filed in Germany by Reporters without Borders (RSF), the press freedom group.

    The 500-page complaint, filed with the German public prosecutor in general in the federal court of justice in Karlsruhe, centres on the “widespread and systematic” persecution of journalists in Saudi Arabia, including the arbitrary detention of 34 journalists there and the assassination of Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist.

    “These journalists are the victims of unlawful killing, torture, sexual violence and coercion and forced disappearance,” said Christophe Deloire, the secretary-general of Reporters Without Borders, at a press conference on Tuesday.

    RSF has chosen to file its complaint in Germany because German laws give its courts jurisdiction over international crimes committed abroad, even without a German connection. RSF indicated that it hoped its complaint, which centres on Prince Mohammed and four senior officials, will lead the German prosecutor to open what is known as a “situation analysis”, which could lead to a formal prosecutorial investigation into whether the Saudi officials have committed crimes against humanity by targeting reporters.

    “The official opening of a criminal investigation in Germany into the crimes against humanity in Saudi Arabia would be a world first,” said RSF Germany director Christian Mihr. “We ask the public prosecutor general to open a situation analysis, with a view to formally launching a prosecutorial investigation and issuing arrest warrants.”

    …

    The bid by RSF to try to get German prosecutors to open a case against the Saudi crown prince followed the recent conviction in Germany of a former Syrian secret police officer of aiding and abetting crimes against humanity for his role in the torture of protesters a decade ago. Eyad al-Gharib, a 44-year-old former low-ranking officer in the Syrian intelligence service, carried out orders in one of Bashar al-Assad’s prisons.

    The “suspects” in RSF’s Saudi case are the crown prince, known as “MBS”, his close adviser Saud al-Qahtani, Ahmad Asiri, who has been sanctioned by the US and is alleged to have supervised Khashoggi’s murder, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the consul general in Istanbul at the time of the murder, and Maher Mutreb, an intelligence officer who is accused of leading the torture.

    The Biden administration has been criticised for its decision not to take further actions against Prince Mohammed, even as it publicly acknowledged he was behind the Khashoggi murder….

  47. blf says

    How a five-second social media clip took India, Pakistan by storm:

    Video shot by 19-year-old Dananeer Mobeen in northern Pakistan’s Nathaigali Mountains garners millions of views and hundreds of spin-offs.

    […]

    The short video, shot by Dananeer Mobeen in the Nathaigali Mountains of northern Pakistan and uploaded onto Instagram, shows a group of youngsters enjoying themselves by a roadside.

    Swinging the device she is filming on around to face her, Mobeen gestures behind her and says in Urdu, “This is our car, this is us, and this is our party taking place.”

    Seemly innocuous, she deliberately mispronounced the English word “party” as “pawri” to poke fun at South Asians who adopt Western accents.

    It immediately struck a chord on both sides of the border, sparking top trending hashtags on social media, and garnering millions of views and hundreds of spin-offs in Pakistan and India.

    “It was the most random video. I initially had no intention of uploading it,” Mobeen said, expressing surprise that it went viral and adding that the trend showed the power and reach of social media.

    “Pawri” monologue renditions have since been used by police in India and the Delhi Commission for Women in their social media outreach campaigns.

    [… other examples…]

    “I’m honoured and grateful for all the love across the border,” said Mobeen, expressing her happiness at fostering some rare friendly cross-border dialogue.

    […]

    Since the video went viral, Mobeen said she has been inundated with acting and modelling offers, along with requests for product endorsements. Instead, she says she aspires to join Pakistan’s foreign service.

    Ms Mobeen’s Urdu-language video is at the link.

  48. says

    From the Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    FBI director Christopher Wray to testify over Capitol insurrection

    FBI director Christoper Wray will be up before the Senate judiciary committee at 10am today (1500 GMT) in Washington DC, where the topic of discussion will be “the 6 January insurrection, domestic terrorism, and other threats”. Kevin Johnson at USA Today notes that:

    The last time Christopher Wray testified before a congressional committee, the FBI director offered a now-prescient warning of the threat posed by domestic extremists.

    “Trends may shift, but the underlying drivers for domestic violent extremism – such as perceptions of government or law enforcement overreach, sociopolitical conditions, racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, misogyny, and reactions to legislative actions – remain constant,” Wray said in a written statement to the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

    Six months later, the director returns to the Senate after the deadly Capitol assault that involved some of the very classes of extremists featured in Wray’s stark warning in September.

    He will be facing a committee that includes those sceptical of the FBI’s performance in countering that threat. Last week the committee’s chairman Sen Richard Durbin said that “Unfortunately, the FBI appears to have taken steps in recent years that minimize the threat of white supremacist and far-right violence.” [I think I get his meaning – if he’s being quoted accurately – but this isn’t worded very well.]

    Johnson writes that “Wray is expected to be pressed by lawmakers on an array of questions, from law enforcement’s response to the 6 January siege and how the bureau shared intelligence before the attack to its capacity to deal with a domestic terror threat that has now outstripped the risk posed by international operatives.”

  49. says

    Also from the Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    The Washington Post this morning is previewing the expectation of a historic collaboration between Merck & Co and Johnson & Johnson to increase supplies of the latter’s one-shot Covid vaccine. Laurie McGinley and Christopher Rowland report:

    President Biden will announce that pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. will help make Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot coronavirus vaccine — an unusual pact between fierce competitors that could sharply boost the supply of the newly authorized vaccine.

    Officials told the Washington Post they began scouring the country for additional manufacturing capacity after they realized in the first days of the administration that Johnson & Johnson had fallen behind in vaccine production. They soon sought to broker a deal with Merck, one of the world’s largest vaccine makers, which had tried and failed to develop its own coronavirus vaccine.

    Under the arrangement, Merck will dedicate two facilities in the United States to Johnson & Johnson’s shots. One will provide “fill-finish” services, the last stage of the production process during which the vaccine substance is placed in vials and packaged for distribution. The other will make the vaccine itself, and has the potential to vastly increase supply, perhaps even doubling what Johnson & Johnson could make on its own, the officials said.

  50. says

    Guardian – “Experts warn Brazil facing darkest days of Covid crisis as deaths hit highest level”:

    Health experts and lawmakers have warned Brazil is steaming into the darkest days of its coronavirus catastrophe, as fatalities soared to new heights and one prominent politician compared the crisis to an atomic bomb.

    Politicians from across the spectrum voiced anger and exasperation at the deteriorating situation on Monday, after Brazil’s weekly average of Covid deaths hit its highest level since the epidemic began last February and hospitals around the country reported being swamped.

    According to the newspaper O Globo, intensive care units in 17 of Brazil’s 26 states were near capacity, while six states and the capital Brasília had run out of intensive care beds altogether.

    “We are living through one of the worst moments in our history,” said Tasso Jereissati, an influential centre-right politician who is among a group of senators demanding a congressional investigation into President Jair Bolsonaro’s globally condemned handling of the pandemic.

    …

    Luiz Henrique Mandetta, who was Bolsonaro’s health minister until he was fired last April, told O Globo that Brazil’s failure to launch a rapid vaccination scheme meant the average daily death toll could soon rise to over 2,000.

    “I don’t know where this will end … The country is running the risk of becoming one big Manaus,” Mandetta warned in reference to the Amazonian capital which made international headlines in January after hospitals ran out of oxygen because of a Covid surge.

    …

    Mandetta, who was fired after challenging Bolsonaro over Covid, has claimed that before leaving government he warned the president the death toll could reach 180,000 before a vaccine was found.

    But Bolsonaro, who has trivialized Covid as “a bit of a cold”, ignored those appeals, resisted quarantine measures and, one year into the outbreak, continues to undermine lockdown efforts by disparaging masks and promoting crowded public events.

    In December Bolsonaro falsely claimed his country had reached “the tail end of the pandemic”.

    Last Friday, as Brazil reported its highest daily number of deaths, Bolsonaro travelled to the north-eastern state of Ceará – where the leftwing governor had imposed a Covid curfew – to hold a Trump-style rally at which he railed against such measures before a throng of supporters and claimed people could no longer bear to stay at home.

    That appearance sparked outrage among political opponents and fuelled calls for an inquiry into Bolsonaro’s actions.

    Jereissati, who represents Ceará in the senate, said Bolsonaro’s “reckless” undermining of containment measures “bordered on insanity”.

    “In my opinion, what he did here was a crime against public health,” he said.

    “It was one of the most irresponsible acts that I’ve ever seen from a Brazilian president. We experienced a tough period of military rule here, which I lived through, but I’ve never seen anything so irresponsible and foolish as what happened here in Ceará.”

    Jereissati added: “The president seems to believe that he can behave however he likes without facing any kind of consequences himself. With an inquiry, we hope to show the president that he must be held legally, and even criminally, responsible for his actions … These actions have consequences – and they need to have consequences for him too.”

    Jean Paul Prates, a Workers’ party senator, said an inquiry could prevent the death toll soaring further.

    “There is still time to save lives and to pressure the government into changing its behaviour so it doesn’t keep clinging to certain positions just because of dogmatism or pseudo-ideology,” Prates said.

    Bolsonaro’s political standing was bolstered last month after candidates he had backed were elected to the presidencies of the senate and lower house. Analysts believe that is likely to free Bolsonaro from the threat of impeachment, for now at least.

    However, the far-right populist is facing mounting public anger over the soaring death toll and its spluttering vaccination drive.

    So far just 3.8% of Brazil’s population has been vaccinated with state capitals such as Rio, Salvador, Cuiabá, Porto Alegre and Florianópolis among the cities forced to temporarily suspend immunisation for lack of shots.

    Calls for the impeachment of a man critics call “Bozo” can be seen graffitied on to walls across major cities while propaganda hoardings promoting the far-right populist have been vandalised with red paint. Both left- and rightwing detractors have taken to the streets in protest in recent weeks.

    The outlook appeared bleak in many of Brazil’s states on Monday, as an association of state health secretaries called for an immediate nationwide curfew from 8pm until 6am to curb infections.

    “We are facing our worst moment, with the worst president for this moment,” said Jereissati. “It didn’t need [to be like this] at all – on the contrary.”

  54. blf says

    Liberty Counsel Falsely Claims Equality Act Would Force Religious Schools to Hire Pedophiles and Goat Lovers (RWW edits in {curly braces}):

    Religious-right fearmongering about the Equality Act, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity protections to federal civil rights laws, has been increasingly extreme around Thursday’s vote in the House of Representatives, which passed the legislation on a 224–206 vote. Today, an email from Mat Staver of the stridently anti-LGBTQ Liberty Counsel declared that if the Equality Act became law, schools {that} refuse to hire a crossdresser, a pedophile or a goat lover” would be penalized.

    I know this sounds absurd — but, sadly, it’s true, Staver added.

    No, it’s not true. Staver is lying.

    So where does Staver come up with this claim?

    Staver’s email says that the bill imposes LGBTQ into every corner of the school, adding the entirely false claim that the Q in LGBTQ — standing for “queer” — means that pedophilia and other paraphilias like bestiality and necrophilia would become protected categories under federal law.

    In fact, the Equality Act explicitly defines sexual orientation to mean “homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality.”

    […]

    Staver’s email links to a page that charges people to [allegedly –blf] fax senators — from $5 to fax the Senate leadership to $59 to fax every senator. The fax message does not include Staver’s claim about schools being forced to hire pedophiles or goat lovers, but it does claim that the legislation would effectively criminalize Christianity in America.

    Wild accusations from religious-right groups about the Equality Act criminalizing Christianity echo equally false claims that religious-right leaders made more than a decade ago when they were opposing legislation that would add sexual orientation to federal hate crimes laws. […]

    Mat Staver is the dumbest lawyer in the States not named Larry Klayman or Orly Taitz (paraphrasing the late Ed Brayton).

  55. blf says

    SC@52, The Grauniad also had an alarmist and sadly non-critical “article” (presumably inspired by the same apparent loon?), Falling sperm counts threaten human survival, expert warns. Fortunately, it’s not in the Science section, unfortunately it’s also not in the speculative fiction section. I’ve been sort-of waiting for poopyhead, or possibly Orac (haven’t checked recently), to have a go at it.

  57. says

    Why it matters that Trump kept his COVID vaccination under wraps

    If Trump had just been straight with people, telling the public the truth about his own personal COVID experiences, it could’ve saved lives.

    […] Trump and his team failed to fully disclose the severity of the then-president’s coronavirus illness when he was hospitalized last fall, and as NBC News reported, they also failed to tell the public that Trump and his wife received vaccinations before the Republican’s term ended two months ago.

    Former President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump quietly received the Covid-19 vaccine at the White House in January, a Trump advisor told NBC News on Monday. It is not clear which type of vaccine they received and they were not disclosed at the time by the Trump White House.

    This was a secret that Trump didn’t need to keep.

    On the surface, there’s no obvious reason for the former president to have kept such a thing under wraps. It doesn’t benefit him in any obvious way.

    But just below the surface, the significance of this is even greater. As Rachel explained on the show last night, had Trump and his team disclosed his vaccination, it might very well have had significant public health consequences.

    Remember, Trump politicized the pandemic to such an ugly and gratuitous extent that many Republicans are more skeptical than Democrats and independents about getting the shot(s). That was evident in the latest Civiqs poll, which found Democratic voters more than twice as likely as GOP voters to express interest in getting the vaccine, and it was bolstered by a recent Monmouth University poll, which found very similar results.

    Or put another way, for everyone’s benefit, the United States needs the public to get vaccinated, but Republicans are among the nation’s most stubborn skeptics.

    It is precisely why Trump — who, for reasons I don’t understand, is considered highly trustworthy and reliable among millions of GOP voters — was in a position to change the political calculus. Had he disclosed the extent of his illness in October, it might have helped remind his followers that COVID-19 was (and is) a potentially deadly threat that people need to take seriously, and had he disclosed his vaccination three months later, it might have helped encourage his followers to follow his lead.

    Or put another way, if Trump had just been straight with people, telling the public the truth about his own personal experiences, it could’ve saved lives. […]

  58. blf says

    SC@55, A snippet from Membership of the 115th Congress: A Profile (PDF), December-2018:

    The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 115th Congress [sic (House)] was 57.8 years; of Senators, 61.8 years, among the oldest in US history.

    That’s the average ages of the last Congress. The oldest Senator (back then) was Dianne Feinstein (born 1933).

  60. says

    From the Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    Senate judiciary committee chairman Dick Durbin asked FBI Director Christopher Wray whether the bureau believes the Capitol insurrection was carried out by “fake Trump protesters”.

    “We have not seen evidence of that as this stage,” Wray replied.

    The question comes two weeks after Republican Senator Ron Johnson amplified baseless claims that provocateurs and fake Trump protesters carried out the Capitol attack during a separate Senate hearing on the insurrection.

    A number of those facing federal charges for their involvement in the Capitol insurrection have ties to far-right extremist and militia groups….

  61. says

    Blast from the past: Alabama’s Tuberville pushes for school prayer

    “We’ve got to start teaching our young people moral values again,” Tommy Tuberville said. “That starts with putting God and prayer back in schools.”

    […] one of the biggest “culture war” issues of all time is school prayer — that is, policies that mandate public schools encourage and promote worship among children. The issue has been at the center of historic court rulings and proposed constitutional amendments, but in the 21st century, even the most aggressive social conservatives have largely moved on to more contemporary cultural disputes.

    Alabama’s newest senator apparently hopes to relitigate the issue.

    Teaching children moral values by “putting God and prayer back in school,” and giving students opportunities in career tech programs were among the educational priorities Republican Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville cited during his first speech on the Senate floor.

    “We’ve got to start teaching our young people moral values again,” the coach-turned-politician declared in his maiden Senate speech. “That starts with putting God and prayer back in schools.”

    Oh my.

    Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that “God and prayer” were never removed from schools, Tuberville’s declaration notwithstanding. […] students can already pray if they want to. Under current law, they can also form after-school Bible clubs and invite other students to worship services.

    What’s not allowed is governments using public institutions to intervene in matters of faith. Courts have consistently ruled that schools simply must remain neutral on religious issues, which is the sort of framework that should satisfy the left and right equally: it protects civil liberties while limiting the power of government.

    Evidently, however, Tuberville wants to turn back the clock to an era in which public officials intervened in children’s religious upbringing, communities fought over whose religion would be favored, and kids from minority traditions were told to wait in the hall.

    […] Tommy Tuberville was a unique kind of U.S. Senate candidate. The Republican settled on a campaign strategy that Americans generally don’t see among those seeking statewide office: say very little, do very little, and expect to win by maintaining a relatively low public profile.

    During the state’s GOP primaries, for example, Tuberville refused to debate former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. During the general election, he also refused to debate then-Sen. Doug Jones (D). After struggling to discuss what the Voting Rights Act is, the retired coach seemed to retreat even further from microphones.

    […] None of this seemed to matter too much to voters in Alabama — Tuberville won in a landslide — and as he prepared to take office, [he] raised new doubts about his competence with comments to the Alabama Daily News’ Todd Stacy, arguing that World War II was about “freeing Europe of socialism.” (It wasn’t.)

    In the same interview, Tuberville added, “You know, our government wasn’t set up for one group to have all three of branches of government. It wasn’t set up that way, our three branches, the House, the Senate, and executive.”

    In the United States, the three branches of government are the legislative, the judiciary, and the executive.

    Yesterday, the Alabama Republican appeared confused about the basics on school prayer, too […]

    Tuberville is the guy Rudy Giuliani called while the January 6 attack on the capitol was ongoing to ask Tuberville to slow down the certification of the electoral votes.

  62. says

    While FBI Director Christopher Wray is testifying before Congress, Fox News is carrying this story: “Cancel Culture Goes After Dr, Seuss.”

    Wray told senators that there is no evidence antics played any role in the January 6 insurrection.

  63. says

    blf @ #57, Feinstein’s on this committee and is asking questions right now. So far, she’s doing slightly better than Grassley at reading the questions her staff wrote. I just looked at the members, and fortunately after this next pair there are several younger people (unfortunately, some of them are rightwing kooks).

  64. blf says

    Lynna@61, I presume what the wackos are whining about is Six Dr Seuss books with racist images won’t be published any more:

    […]
    “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong,” Dr Seuss Enterprises told The Associated Press news agency on Tuesday. The statement coincided with the late author and illustrator’s birthday.

    […]

    Titles affected are the popular “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street” and “If I Ran the Zoo” and the lesser-known “McElligot’s Pool”, “On Beyond Zebra!”, “Scrambled Eggs Super!” and “The Cat’s Quizzer”.

    The decision to cease publication and sales of the books was made last year after months of discussion, the company told the AP.

    […]

    He remains popular, earning an estimated $33m before taxes in 2020, up from just $9.5m five years ago, the company said. Forbes listed him number two on its highest-paid dead celebrities of 2020, behind only the late pop star Michael Jackson.

    As adored as Dr Seuss is by millions around the world for the positive values in many of his works, including environmentalism and tolerance, there has been increasing criticism in recent years over the way Black people, Asians and others are drawn in some of his most beloved children’s books, as well as in his earlier advertising and propaganda illustrations.

    [… assorted additional details…]

    I cannot recall any of those six books.

  65. says

    Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:

    Shortly after the sentencing of Nicolas Sarkozy, Donald J. Trump issued a statement claiming that prison time for the ex-President of France sets a “horrible precedent.”

    In the statement, Trump called the corruption case against Sarkozy a “rigged hoax” and claimed that the former French leader was being treated “very unfairly.”

    “This should never be allowed to happen in that country,” he said.

    Trump said that he was currently mulling options to help Sarkozy, including running for President of France himself in order to issue its ex-President a pardon.

    Reacting to the statement, the current French President, Emmanuel Macron, said that the most remarkable thing was that Trump spelled both “President” and “precedent” correctly.

    New Yorker link

  66. says

    Sen. Whitehouse is grilling Wray about questions for the record (save those of political interest to some Republicans under Trump) not being answered. He said of nine hearings in which the FBI was a witness, seven of them resulted in no questions for the record being answered at all.

  68. quotetheunquote says

    In other news, in case anyone is still unaware, the crazy isn’t just in the US of A (I am pretty sure everybody is already aware of this, actually…):
    Here in Canada, a woman has designed, and is selling (was selling? she may have been cut off) a T-shirt with a yellow star on it, which has the words “Covid Caust” superimposed on top of the star. Apparently, according to her, the vaccine is meant to kill people because… because … um, well I’m sure the government has its reasons.

    What a slime.

  69. tomh says

    High Noon For The Future Of The Voting Rights Act At The Supreme Court
    NINA TOTENBERG, NPR
    March 2, 2021

    The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a major voting rights case that could give state legislatures a green light to change voting laws, making it more difficult for some to vote.

    Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 — a law that today is widely viewed as the most successful civil rights law in the nation’s history. But in 2013, the Supreme Court gutted a key provision: no longer would state and local governments with a history of racial discrimination in voting have to get pre-clearance from the Justice Department before making changes in voting procedures.

    Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts essentially said that times had changed and that the law, in treating some states differently from others, was unconstitutional.

    Besides, he said, another provision of the law still bars discrimination in voting nationwide. That provision, known as Section 2, would be sufficient to police discriminatory voting procedures, he noted.

    Now, eight years later, Section 2 is in the conservative court’s crosshairs.
    […]

    The potential to render the Voting Rights Act nearly a dead letter

    In fact, 33 states have “introduced, refiled or carried over more than 165 restrictive laws this year,” says Myrna Pérez, director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice.

    Remember too that Chief Justice Roberts, in striking down the pre-clearance provision of the law eight years ago, highlighted Section 2’s importance as the law’s alternative enforcement mechanism. But Roberts has long been disdainful of the need for the Voting Rights Act, dating back to his youth as an aide in Ronald Reagan’s administration, when he unsuccessfully urged the president not to sign the amended law. Now, decades later, he presides over a 6-to-3 conservative majority on a court that is, at minimum, skeptical about the need for tough voting rights enforcement.

    The Biden administration has withdrawn the Trump Justice Department’s brief, which sided with Arizona Republicans in the case. But the new administration is not siding with Democratic Party arguments either.

    “They’re in an effort at damage control,” says law professor Richard Hasen, a voting rights expert at the University of California, Irvine. “What they’re trying to do is prevent the court from making bad law that will apply to more draconian voting restrictions. So this fight is less about whether the Democratic Party loses but how the Democratic Party loses.”

    … there is every possibility that the high court could make it much more difficult, or practically impossible, to challenge voting rights restrictions in the future.

  70. says

    Video of #65: “Sen. Whitehouse castigates Wray for not cooperating with Democratic senators during the Trump years, while cooperating with GOP senators in their investigation of the Russia investigation. Wray seems a bit taken aback….”

    I got the sense Wray was trying to express that it wasn’t the FBI but Trump’s people in the “interagency process” who blocked the responses, and to imply that now they’ll flow more freely. Wray’s thing during the Trump years seemed to be keeping his head down and carrying on; but Whitehouse (rightfully) expected him to do/say more, especially since information about the Russia investigation investigation was shared with Trumpublicans.

  71. quotetheunquote says

    Oh, yes, and speaking of vaccines, way to go U.S.A! (C.f. SC #25 & #26).
    That puts your rate for the total population vaccinated at about double ours; I’m under 65, so I just might get my first shot by April. Or September. Something like that.
    I’d like to blame our dreadfully hidebound constitutional monarchist system for this (I like to blame everything on the monarchy, if at all possible), but the UK is also way ahead of us (way, waaaaay ahead of us!) so that just won’t fly.

  72. says

    Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    FBI Director Christopher Wray has declined to provide additional details about the death of Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who died the day after the January 6 insurrection.

    Wray previously said there was an “ongoing investigation” into Sicknick’s death, and he said he did not want to get ahead of that investigation.

    But the FBI director made a point to note that he believed the US Capitol Police had correctly characterized Sicknick’s passing as a line of duty death.

    Some right-wing commentators have tried to raise doubts about whether Sicknick really died as a result of his injuries from the Capitol insurrection, but the USCP has consistently said Sicknick died in the line of duty.

    I hope someone asks him why the FBI isn’t doing regular press briefings to update the public on the investigation.

  74. says

    David Fahrenthold:

    Secret Service just released new docs showing Trump’s first trip to Bedminster as POTUS in 2017 — and the spigot of taxpayer money it opened for his business.

    First trip: 4 days, Trump Org charged the Secret Service $5,343 for a cottage near Trump.

    After that, the Secret Service started renting the cottage every night, just to be ready. Trump Org charged $566.64 per night, every night.

    First bill: $9,689.60.

    That was the start. Over Trump’s presidency, Trump charged taxpayers more than $392,000 for rooms at Bedminster.

  77. says

    Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    Defense Production Act will be invoked to expand vaccine production, White House says

    Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, is now holding her daily briefing with reporters at the White House.

    Psaki previewed Biden’s remarks on the pandemic response this afternoon, when the president is expected to announce a partnership between Merck and Johnson & Johnson to expand production of Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine.

    The press secretary noted Biden will be invoking the Defense Production Act to equip Merck facilities with the necessary resources to manufacture the vaccine.

    Psaki also announced that the weekly distribution of Moderna and Pfizer vaccine doses to states is increasing from 14.5 million to 15.2 million.

    White House confirms Russian sanctions in response to Navalny poisoning

    White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed that the Biden administration has approved sanctions against seven Russian officials in connection to the poisoning and imprisonment of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

    Psaki said the department of commerce and the state department would soon release statements detailing the sanctions.

    “The intelligence community assesses with high confidence that officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service used a nerve agent in the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny,” Psaki said….

  78. says

    More re #s 66 and 68 above: “Stunning exchange:

    Justice Kagan: A state with 2 weeks of early voting gets rid of Sunday voting. Black voters vote on Sundays 10x as often as white voters. Is that lawful?

    GOP lawyer Michael Carvin: Yes, that’s lawful

    note: Georgia House just passed bill cutting Sunday voting”

  79. tomh says

    @ #77
    More on the Georgia bill cutting out Sunday voting.

    It adds an ID requirement for absentee ballot requests– It requires a copy of other identifying info like a utility bill, if the voter lacks a government ID.

    It limits the number of absentee ballot drop boxes. It also requires drop boxes to be kept indoors, and inaccessible if the building is closed.

    It shortens the absentee voting period

    The bill also makes it a misdemeanor to give food or drink to any voter waiting in a line with 150 feet.

    Republicans frame this bill only as reform.

  81. says

    SPLC – “Alex Jones on Leaked Video: ‘I Wish I Never Met Trump'”:

    Before multimillionaire conspiracy theorist Alex Jones riled up Donald Trump’s fans with lies about a stolen election, he privately expressed revulsion over the 45th president, a video leaked to Hatewatch reveals.

    “It’s the truth and I’m just going to say it. That I wish I never would have fucking met Trump,” Jones said on camera in January 2019, while shooting a documentary in Austin, Texas. “I wish it never would have happened. And it’s not the attacks I’ve been through. I’m so sick of fucking Donald Trump, man. God, I’m fucking sick of him. And I’m not doing this because, like, I’m kissing his fucking ass, you know. It’s, like, I’m sick of it.”

    According to Caolan Robertson, a filmmaker Jones hired to shoot a propaganda film called “You Can’t Watch This” that produced this outtake, the conspiracy theorist’s comments disparaging Trump are emblematic of his cynical business model. The leaked footage contrasts starkly with Jones’ public rhetoric about Trump. Jones’ talk show Infowars promoted and idealized Trump daily, throughout both the 2016 presidential campaign and the former president’s time in office.

    Robertson also shared with Hatewatch a screenshot of text messages he claimed to have exchanged with Jones. In them, the Infowars host appears to ask him to discard comments he made from the final product of the film. Robertson told Hatewatch that the comments Jones made were him expressing his disgust with Trump.

    “Please don’t put me [b—-ing] in the film. I don’t do it a lot. But when I do look out,” Jones writes across three messages, according to the screenshot Robertson shared.

    Robertson, whom far-right figures hired to shoot a number of propaganda films, leaked the footage and messages to Hatewatch to back up his claim that Jones is motivated by a desire to exploit Trump’s fans. Robertson told Hatewatch that during the same shoot, Jones bragged to him off camera about making $60 million in 2018. (Although Jones is a noted fabulist, he testified in court under oath to bringing in $20 million in revenue in 2014.) Robertson told Hatewatch that Paul Joseph Watson, a far-right internet performer Jones hired to produce content, who also appeared in the propaganda film, allegedly told Robertson the Infowars founder paid him $16,000 per month for his work – or a salary of close to $200,000 annually.

    Robertson also told Hatewatch that off camera, Jones took delight in belittling his own audience, suggesting he could sell them “dick pills” and claiming they would “buy anything.”

    “Alex Jones doesn’t care about most of the stuff he professes to,” Robertson told Hatewatch over Skype from his home in London. “It just shows he doesn’t care about anything he talks about. He doesn’t like Trump but then goes on camera talking about how Trump is the savior.”

    Robertson has disavowed the far right and told Hatewatch he is working to undo the damage he did while producing propaganda for extremists such as Jones….

    …

    Jones’ alleged exploitation of Trump’s base extended to boosting the lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. In Washington, D.C., on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, Jones hyped up crowds of Trump supporters before some of them stormed the Capitol building in an unprecedented attack that left five people dead.

    …

    The Washington Post reported on Feb. 20 that the Department of Justice and the FBI had opened a probe to determine the degree to which Jones and Stop the Steal leaders Roger Stone and Ali Alexander may have influenced the insurrection attempt on the Capitol building on Jan. 6. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier in February that Jones donated $50,000 to a Jan. 6-related event in exchange for access to a headlining speaking slot to address Trump’s fans.

  82. Akira MacKenzie says

    @80

    Jones has long ago vilified the SPLC as a “globalist” front, so I already know what Jones is going to say in response: “DEEP FAKE!!! COMPUTER GENERATED IMAGES!!! IT DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE ME!!!”

  83. says

    TPM – “Hardcore GOP Position For Defanging VRA Falls Apart Under SCOTUS Questioning”:

    It appears likely that voter advocates will suffer at least some loss in their abilities to bring Voting Rights Act cases with the Arizona lawsuit heard by the Supreme Court Tuesday.

    But the oral arguments produced another seeming loser. Michael Carvin, the high-profile Republican lawyer who was representing the state GOP in the hearing. Carvin backtracked on the sweeping arguments in the GOP’s briefs, prompting skepticism from the court’s left and right wing alike.

    “I want to make sure that I understand your position because it strikes me that it has some contradictions in it,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett said in comments suggesting that there was little support on the bench for the GOP’s hardcore approach to defanging the VRA….

    Much more atl.

  84. says

    ABC – “Texas becomes biggest US state to lift COVID-19 mask mandate”:

    Texas is lifting its mask mandate, Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday, making it the largest state to end an order intended to prevent the spread of the coronavirus that has killed more than 42,000 Texans.

    The Republican governor has faced sharp criticism from his party over the mandate, which was imposed eight months ago, and other COVID-19 restrictions. It was only ever lightly enforced, even during the worst outbreaks of the pandemic.

    Texas will also do away with limits on the number of diners that businesses can serve indoors, said Abbott, who made the announcement at a restaurant in Lubbock. He said the new rules would take effect March 10.

    “Removing statewide mandates does not end personal responsibility,” said Abbott, speaking from a crowded dining room where many of those surrounding him were not wearing masks.

    “It’s just that now state mandates are no longer needed,” he said.

    The decision comes as governors across the U.S. have been easing coronavirus restrictions, despite warnings from health experts that the pandemic is far from over. Like the rest of the country, Texas has seen the number of cases and deaths plunge. Hospitalizations are at the lowest levels since October, and the seven-day rolling average of positive tests has dropped to about 7,600 cases, down from more than 10,000 in mid-February.

    Only California and New York have reported more COVID-19 deaths than Texas.

    “The fact that things are headed in the right direction doesn’t mean we have succeeded in eradicating the risk,” said Dr. Lauren Ancel Meyers, a professor of integrative biology and director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium.

    She said the recent deadly winter freeze in Texas that left millions of people without power — forcing families to shelter closely with others who still had heat — could amplify transmission of the virus in the weeks ahead, although it remains too early to tell. Masks, she said, are one of the most effective strategies to curb the spread….

  85. says

    Still enjoying the differences between a Biden presidency and that other awful, Hair-Furor-led administration:

    […] The New York Times noted: “As soon as Mr. Biden touched the ground in Texas, he set a different tone than his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, who more than once threatened to withhold federal funding from states recovering from disasters because he had toxic political relationships with state officials there.”

    It may have been an entirely different kind of story, but Biden’s Texas trip came to mind reading this Associated Press report on the administration’s aid to Ukraine.

    The Pentagon on Monday announced a $125 million military aid package for Ukraine, including two armed patrol boats to help the country defend its territorial waters. The remaining $150 million in military aid approved by Congress for the 2021 budget year will not be provided until the departments of State and Defense are in position to certify to Congress that Ukraine has made “sufficient progress on key defense reforms this year,” the Pentagon said.

    It was nearly two years ago, of course, when Trump was also supposed to extend U.S. security aid to Ukraine, but the Republican instead saw an opportunity: Trump tried to extort the U.S. ally into helping him cheat in his re-election campaign. During a phone meeting with the Ukrainian president, when his counterpart broached the subject of military assistance, Trump famously responded, “I would like you to do us a favor, though.”

    But that was then, and this is now. In 2019, aid to Ukraine was a White House opportunity for corruption and an illegal quid pro quo. In 2021, it’s a routine extension of an uncontroversial foreign policy.

    In 2019, a presidential trip to Texas in the wake of a disaster was an opportunity for self-indulgent and tone-deaf photo-ops [at a local hospital, Trump bragged about the size of crowds coming to hear his speak and he also belittled political opponents]. In 2021, Biden’s visit is an act of kindness and compassion.

    […] Biden is restoring norms and repairing what it means to be an American president.

    Link

  86. says

    Nicole Lafond:

    Long gone are the excuses of yesteryear that a Fox News personality’s seemingly partisan appearance was merely a journalist performing his or her journalistic duties.

    […] back in 2018 Fox News’ Sean Hannity stirred up a bit of lame controversy within the journalistic ethics world when the Trump campaign promoted an upcoming rally hyping Hannity’s appearance alongside the President. The event featured appearances from other prominent right-wing media personalities, including the late shock jock Rush Limbaugh. At the time, Hannity defended his appearance at the event, saying he was simply doing his job and “covering” the Trump rally even though he was literally hosting his show at the event and his appearance was used as part of the campaign’s marketing for the affair.

    Fox News backed him up at the time, but it wasn’t always so supportive of Hannity’s partisan-seeming endeavors: he got a slap on the wrist in 2016 for appearing in one of Trump’s campaign videos without telling the network.

    The lines have gotten blurrier still in 2021.

    According to the Daily Beast, not only did one of Fox News’ most prominent voices, host Pete Hegseth, have a full-on speaking gig at this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, Fox News helped finance the annual conservative festival — which culminated with a low energy speech from ex-President Trump on Sunday. Per the Daily Beast, Fox News — through its Fox Nation streaming service — was also one of CPAC’s top sponsors this year, providing $250,000 in funding.

    It’s not the first time Fox has contributed to the highly partisan event: last year Fox gave $28,000 in sponsorship. […] In 2018, Fox News did say it would discipline Hannity, as well as Judge Jeanine Pirro for participating in the on-stage Trump rallies and made a show of not condoning on-air talent’s participation in campaign events. And according to the Washington Post, in 2019, the network cancelled several Republican events that attempted to booked Pirro, Hegseth and other “Fox and Friends” hosts.

    It appears that adherence to basic tenets of journalism has been put on pause, at least for now.

    Link

  87. says

    Goya Foods CEO is back to his shenanigans after being censured for spreading election lies

    More than a dozen Latino organizations are condemning an anti-democratic lie made by Goya Foods CEO and noted pendejo Robert Unanue at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where he called the former president “the real, the legitimate, and the still actual president.” I can’t believe we still have to repeat this, but the former president in fact lost the 2020 election.

    Unanue was already censured by his company’s board of directors for spreading anti-democratic lies on right-wing television last month. He was reportedly close to being ousted from Goya entirely, but got his ass saved by virtue of his family name. But following his continued shenanigans, 14 Latino groups say that “Mr. Unanue has clearly not learned his lesson.” While they do not outright call for his ouster, they urge “the corporate governance structures at Goya Foods act.”

    […] “The election of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris was free, fair, certified by state election authorities, validated by our courts, and affirmed by the House of Representatives and the Senate,” they continued. “Mr. Unanue’s remarks this weekend dangerously perpetuate falsehoods that were at the core of the criminal assault on the nation’s capital on January 6th. They are utterly unacceptable and disqualifying for anyone in a position of leadership and power.” […]

  88. says

    That’s not helpful. New Orleans Catholic Church tells followers to avoid new Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine

    As pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson achieves emergency approval for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has warned its parishioners against using the vaccine, saying it is diametrically opposed to the ethics and values of the Catholic Church.

    […] guidance from the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and The National Catholic Bioethics Center, the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine is considered “morally compromised” due to the cell line sourced from aborted fetuses that composes the vaccine.

    […] “[…] in no way does the Church’s position diminish the wrongdoing of those who decided to use cell lines from abortions to make vaccines,” the statement reads. […]

    The Vatican then justified its decision by saying that reducing the spread of COVID-19 is an urgent global priority, and for Catholics to be vaccinated against the pathogen will not constitute any cooperation with abortion.

    […] Church officials do note, however, that this permission does not act as a stance of support for abortion. The note also writes that receiving a vaccine dose must be consensual, and those who opt to forgo it for ethical reasons must continue to practice public health protocols.

    The usage of aborted fetus-derived cell lines in vaccine production is a popular talking point among certain religious groups and anti-vaccination communities.

    Gigi Gronvall, an immunologist and associate professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, says she first became aware of the issue in 2009 during the H1N1 pandemic.

    In research and testing new medicines, scientists want to formulate a medication that can interact well with the human body, and using tissue from abortions is one of the most biologically similar environments. This makes medicines more tolerable for the human body.

    Gronvall clarifies that many treatments and vaccines, including the COVID-19 candidates, utilize cell lines derived from aborted fetuses. These cells are decades old, and are immortalized for continued proliferation.

    “The things that make them problematic are some of the things that make them good cell lines,” she said.

  89. says

    Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    US is on track to have vaccines for all Americans by end of May, Biden says

    President Joe Biden is now delivering remarks on the distribution of coronavirus vaccines, after his administration announced Merck would team up with Johnson & Johnson to expand production of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine.

    The president described the partnership between the two companies as a “major step forward” in expanding vaccine access to every American.

    “This is the type of collaboration we saw between companies during World War II,” Biden said.

    With the planned partnership between Merck and Johnson & Johnson, Biden said the US will now “have enough vaccine supply for every adult in America by the end of May”.

    Biden had previously said the country would have enough vaccines for all Americans by July, and he credited his administration’s diligent efforts with moving up that timeline.

    Given that the US is always going to be selfish, the fact that we’ll have a vaccine surplus by summer is good news for other countries, too.

    He also said he’s directing states to get K-12 teachers and staff at least one shot by the end of March, and is using federal resources to get pharmacies the doses specially earmarked for them.

  90. says

    FBI Director Christopher Wray:

    We are not aware of any widespread evidence of voter fraud, much less that would have affected the outcome in the presidential election.

    […] We are concerned about the QAnon phenomenon, which we view as a sort of loose sort of set of conspiracy theories. Obviously the folks who engaged in this kind of violence draw inspiration from a variety of sources and we’re concerned about any source that stimulates or motivates violent extremism. […]

  91. blf says

    In teh “U”K, this is not from last millennia (I actually saw a No Travellers sign in the late 1980s at a pub in London), but this year, 2020, Secret Pontins blacklist prevented people with Irish surnames from booking (Pontins is a cheap-and-cheerful chain of holiday theme / camping parks):

    […]
    A blacklist circulated by the holiday park operator Pontins telling its staff not to book accommodation for people with Irish surnames has been described as “completely unacceptable” by Downing Street.

    The list of undesirable guests was sent to booking operators, who were told: We do not want these guests on our parks. It said: Please watch out for the following names for ANY future bookings.

    The list, which included names such as Carney, Boylan, McGuinness and O’Mahoney, was an example of “anti-Traveller discrimination”, a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said. The document had a picture of a wizard holding up a wand and staff declaring: “You shall not pass.”

    The attached memo said several guests are unwelcome at Pontins, however some of these will still try and book — especially in the school holidays, but the list only provided surnames.

    A whistleblower who approached the Equality and Human Rights Commission [EHRC] with the policy also revealed the firm had been monitoring calls within its contact centre and refusing bookings made by people with an Irish accent or surname and was using its commercial vehicles policy to exclude Gypsies and Travellers.

    […]

    The sweeping blacklist […] was referred to the EHRC in February 2020.

    “It is hard not to draw comparisons with an undesirable guests list and the signs displayed in hotel windows 50 years ago, explicitly barring Irish people and black people,” said Alastair Pringle, the EHRC executive director.

    […]

    The EHRC said Pontins had signed a legally binding agreement to prevent racial discrimination.

    Sarah Mann, the director of Friends, Families and Travellers, a charity that works on behalf of Gypsies, Roma and Travellers said the blacklist was “shameful”.

    […]

    “Our thanks go to the Pontin’s whistleblower for doing the right thing and to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for using their powers. We all have a choice when we see discrimination – to stand by or to challenge it.”

    […]

    The Traveller Movement, a community charity, said it was appalled but not surprised at the revelations.

    “We get many calls about stories similar to this one, and we don’t believe this is an isolated incident,” said chief executive Yvonne MacNamara.

    “Gypsies and Travellers experience very high levels of discrimination in this country despite being designated as ethnic groups under the Equality Act.”

  92. says

    Readers of articles on the TPM site posted comments related to Christopher Wray’s testimony before Congress earlier today:

    The elephant in the room is that the FBI was woefully unprepared to deal with the 1/6 insurrection despite having successfully snuffed out and stopped the coup attempt in Michigan.

    How would one not see a potential threat in advance of 1/6 after having uncovered the MI plot and presumably learning a lot about what motivates right wing activity? I think the answer to that is simple: Trump. When it came time to deal with the white nationalist threat to the peaceful transfer of power, the FBI balked at drawing direct connections to Trump and following the leads which emanated from messaging around Trump which were interpreted and acted upon by the far right.

    They were too afraid to make the connection that right wing groups exist AND that Trump is a big driver and motivator of their activity and that he does so for personal political benefit.
    ————————–
    Our focus is on the violence,” Wray said, adding: “Obviously the folks who engaged in this kind of violence draw inspiration from a variety of sources and we’re concerned about any source that stimulates or motivates violent extremism.”

    Correct response. That’s for the prosecutor to decide in a given case based on the totality of its circumstances. He’s right that it’s not his job. He seemed to acknowledge that it’s a conspiracy, concerning and something they’re keeping an eye on…that it can function as inspiration and motivation. Read between those lines and that should be sufficient. They’re not fucking stupid and he wasn’t going to play into the fishing for a soundbite.

  94. says

    Wonkette:

    Kayleigh McEnany, one of the greatest liars to ever lie nonstop from the White House briefing room, has gone home. She was 32.

    She is still 32, because the fucker ain’t dead, she’s just snaked her way into a job lying her stupid face off on Fox News, which is where she belonged in the first place. That’s what we mean by “home.” We assume she is otherwise unemployable, but Fox News will be a good fit, as it is for all the other deplorable Trump morons who end up working there.

    Media Matters has a good roundup of McEnany’s greatest lies. She was an enthusiastic, prodigious asshole when it came to promoting Trump’s fascist Big Lie that he won an election wherein he actually got his loser ass stomped. Personally, we will always remember the time she got hired for her job, promised to never lie to the journalists during the briefings, and made it maaaaaybe 15 minutes without lying. Oh, and the Wisconsin Ditch Ballots! That was a fun series of really stupid lies from McEnany, who on top of her lying has been drawing a paycheck for years to pretend she, a 2016 Harvard law grad, is just jawdropping weapons-grade stupid.

    Fox News asshole Harris Faulkner announced today that McEnany was joining the Fox News “family” (of liars), but didn’t say exactly what she would be doing. Maybe she could do a new segment called “Make It More Bullshit!” Like, a “Fox & Friends” idiot could say a lie about a genderless Potato Head, or Tucker Carlson could go on one of his shriek-y white supremacist sperm rants, and then they could cut in like “Kayleigh, make it more bullshit!” and she would have five seconds to come up with an even more astounding lie than the one the Fox News host just told. She would always deliver the goods.

    Faulkner’s announcement came as she played more of an interview she did with McEnany this week, in which McEnany bellyached about how MEAN the White House Press Corps was to her, as she lied to them day after day. […]

    McEnany also lied and said everybody in the White House was just totally broken up by the terrorist attack her former boss incited on America on January 6. [Video is available at the link.]

    Of course, as some have noted, Kayleigh Mac was already basically a Fox News contributor. Hell, she went on there more than she did actual White House press briefings, which was ostensibly her job. There was all this confusion late last year when she was working for the White House and also somehow for the Trump campaign, but at all times she was on Fox News, spewing her bullshit. “That would be a question more for the White House,” the press secretary said with a straight face in November during a Fox News appearance.

    The news side of Fox News is pissed […]:

    “It’s truly disgusting they fired hard-working journalists who did care about facts and news reporting only to turn around and hire a mini-Goebbels whose incessant lies from the White House helped incite an insurrection on our democracy that got five people killed, including a police officer,” a Fox News insider raged to The Daily Beast. “Post-Trump Fox is quickly becoming a very scary place and quite dangerous for our democracy. It’s not even conservative news anymore. They’ve plunged into an alternate reality where extremist propaganda is the only course on the menu.”

    Here’s a Fox News journalist:

    “It bothers me in that it is basically a slap in the face to the hardworking journalists that value real news and facts. But it also doesn’t surprise me because they have shown that they don’t give a damn about facts and real news.”

    There’s more where that came from.

    Link

  95. says

    Wonkette:

    […] the guy who fed [Trump] all that nonsense about trade wars being easy to win and China paying those stupid tariffs; the guy who’s too crazy even for the National Review, which refers to him as “Trump’s Nutty Professor”; the guy responsible for the US government purchasing millions of doses of hydroxychloroquine to fend off COVID — that guy used his superduper detective skills to sniff out “Anonymous,” the author of a Times op-ed and the bestseller “A Warning” about the shitshow Trump administration.

    And he got it totally wrong. […] Because the author wasn’t National Security Council member Victoria Coates, as [Peter] Navarro suggested in his unsigned dossier. It was Department of Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor. I.e. not any of the things crack profiler Navarro gleaned from his very deep analysis of the text: like “female with several children” (Taylor is a childless man), working at the National Security Council instead of at an agency (nope!), an “Experienced Writer” (not!), and opposed to the Trump administration’s immigration policies — those same draconian immigration policies Taylor was actively working to implement at DHS. [image of list at the link]

    Politico reporter Danial Lippman got a copy of Navarro’s December 2, 2019, memo and describes the hilarious reception the “forensic analysis” received at the White House. Apparently, when Navarro trotted into White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney’s office and triumphantly dropped his little profile on the desk, Mulvaney got “irritated” and said “I don’t have time for this.”

    Somehow he failed to see the unimpeachable logic behind the declaration that the author must be female because she “rails at length against the ‘smoldering sexism’ and the ‘misogyny’ of the president, referring to him as the ‘Fred Flintstone of the “Me Too” era.'”

    One telling passage on p. 45 debunks the idea that UN Ambassador Nikki Haley “would help shore up the president’s unpopularity with women” by saying this idea “demonstrates how little this White House understands women in the first place.” […]

    A lengthier passage on p. 80 rails that Trump’s “displays of misogyny are unusual and unsettling to women who at times feel they are given different treatment than their male counterparts.” Again, this points strongly to a female as it presumes to understand what is “unsettling” to females. […]

    The entire document is just amazing gobbledygook, on par with Navarro’s crack analysis last January proving that the election must have been stolen because “no Republican has ever won a presidential election without winning Ohio while only two Democrats have won the presidency without winning Florida,” and Trump was leading in Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan on election night, […]

    But while most of the White House denizens just rolled their eyes at Peter being Peter again, there was one person who entertained the possibility that the economist was right. Unfortunately for Coates, that person was the idiot in charge, and she was transferred out of the White House just a few weeks later.

    “There is no question in my mind that it got Victoria fired,” a source told Politico, while Coates herself, a MAGA loyalist to the end, tut-tutted that the Tsar was cursed with such bad advisors. […]

    What a damn shame these fine civil servants are no longer employed by Uncle Sam. Coates, a former Redstate blogger, was shunted first to the Energy Department and then to Middle East Broadcasting Networks as part of the campaign to ratfuck the Voice of America before Biden was sworn in. [Biden] wasted no time kicking her to the curb within the first week of his tenure. […]

    Link

    The premise of the article is that Peter Navarro was never right about anything. Fact check: seems true.

  96. blf says

    @94, Peter Navarro appears to be able to breathe, albeit it’s unclear if he can walk at the same time, or has even more problems than hair furor drinking water. Ergo, for at least one, admittedly an autonomous biological function, that wannabe-dalek seems to get it mostly correct. (It’s unclear if he breathes through his nose, however, as the mildly deranged penguin points out.)

  97. blf says

    Here in France, former President Sarkoführer is as delusional as hair furor (see @491(previous page) and Lynna@64), Sarkozy says could take corruption appeal to European human rights court:

    […]
    I can’t accept being convicted for something I didn’t do, Sarkozy told the French daily Le Figaro a day after he was found guilty of corruption […].

    […]

    The judgement was riddled with inconsistencies, Sarkozy told Le Figaro. It doesn’t provide any proof, but just a bundle of circumstantial evidence. [Teh election was stolen! Teh media is FAKE! It’s a witch-hunt! … –blf]

    Sarkozy [also a one-term President –blf …] had already said on Monday that the findings were totally unfounded and unjustified and that he would appeal.

    […]

  98. tomh says

    Texas to end all coronavirus restrictions
    Jacob Knutson

    Texas will end its coronavirus restrictions next week with an upcoming executive order, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced Tuesday during a press conference in Lubbock.

    After Abbott signs the new order, which rescinds previous orders, all businesses can open to 100% capacity and the statewide mask mandate will be over…

  99. says

    One of the new FBI wanted photos (#253 – link @ #32 above) shows a guy spraying the line of police with something. I wonder if he’s the one suspected of killing Officer Sicknick…

  101. says

    MSNBC:

    Thank you to our loyal viewers for making @MSNBC the #1 network in cable for the first time ever….

    The Rachel @Maddow Show is the #1 regularly scheduled show in all of cable for the 2nd straight month in total viewers and is #1 in cable news in A25-54.

    @Morning_Joe again reigns #1 across all of cable in both total viewers and A25-54 for the 3rd straight month, continues to lead FOX News and CNN.

    The following shows were all #1 in total viewers for the month of February:

    @Morning_Joe
    @DeadlineWH
    @TheBeatWithAri
    @thereidout
    @maddow
    @TheLastWord
    @11thHour

    (Little medal emojis they gave the shows not included. :))

  104. KG says

    The First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, is currently giving evidence under oath to the Scottish Parliament’s enquiry into the botched investigation into claims of sexual harrassment (and worse) by the former First Minister (and her former mentor and friend, now deadly enemy) Alex Salmond. I won’t try to explain the whole insanely tangled affair, but depending on how today goes, Sturgeon could be forced toi resign, if she can’t give a convincoing response to claims she lied to the Scottish Parliament at an earlier stage about what she knew when. Salmond alleges (but gave no convincing evidence for) a conspiracy by people close to Sturgeon to force him out of public life and get him sent to prison. (In my view, that’s exactly where he should be – he was not convicted of any of the criminal charges at his trial last year, but I think he was guilty as hell – and what he admitted to should have been enough to ensure his departure from public life.) But the investigation was undoubtedly badly botched – the person appointed to head it had already talked to two of the women complaining of Salmond’s behaviour, and the name of one of the complainants seems to have been leaked to Salmond’s then Chief of Staff. Sturgeon’s position is further weakened by intra-party disputes over strategy for securing independence, and a strong transphobic faction led by Joanna Cherry, an MP at Westminster, who claims to be a strong supporter of women’s rights but bizarrely, also backs Salmond. Most SNP MSPs and supporters appear to back Sturgeon over Salmond, but the SNP does not have a majority at Holyrood: if all the opposition parties join forces, they could pass a motion of no confidence in her and – presumably – block all legislation until she goes. New elections are due on 6 May, so she is saying the voters should decide whether she remains.

  105. says

    Here’s a link to the March 3 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    Also in the Guardian – “Brazil’s Covid outbreak is global threat that opens door to lethal variants – scientist”:

    Brazil’s rampant coronavirus outbreak has become a global threat that risks spawning new and even more lethal variants, one of the South American country’s top scientists has warned as it suffered its deadliest day of the pandemic.

    Speaking to the Guardian, Miguel Nicolelis, a Duke University neuroscientist who is tracking the crisis, urged the international community to challenge the Brazilian government over its failure to contain an epidemic that has killed more than a quarter of a million Brazilians – about 10% of the global total.

    “The world must vehemently speak out over the risks Brazil is posing to the fight against the pandemic,” said Nicolelis, who has spent most of the last year confined to his flat on the westside of São Paulo.

    “What’s the point in sorting the pandemic out in Europe or the United States, if Brazil continues to be a breeding ground for this virus?”

    Nicolelis said the problem was not simply Brazil – whose far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has repeatedly spurned efforts to combat a disease he calls a “little flu” – being “the worst country in the world in its handling of the pandemic”.

    “It’s that if you allow the virus to proliferate at the levels it is currently proliferating here, you open the door to the occurrence of new mutations and the appearance of even more lethal variants.”

    Already, one particularly worrying variant (P1) has been traced to Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, which suffered a devastating healthcare breakdown in January after a surge in infections. Six cases of that variant have so far been detected in the UK.

    “Brazil is an open-air laboratory for the virus to proliferate and eventually create more lethal mutations,” warned Nicolelis. “This is about the world. It’s global.”

    The alert came as Brazil hurtled into the most deadly chapter of its year-long Covid crisis, with hospitals around the country collapsing or on the verge of collapse and the average weekly death toll hitting new heights. A record 1,726 fatalities were reported on Tuesday, the highest number since the pandemic began.

    “It’s a battlefield,” a doctor in the southern city of Porto Alegre told local television after his hospital’s intensive care unit and mortuary ran out of space.

    Nicolelis said Bolsonaro’s failure to halt the outbreak and launch an adequate vaccination campaign had created a domestic tragedy from which Latin America’s most populous nation was unlikely to emerge until late 2022.

    “We’ve now gone past 250,000 deaths and my expectation is that if nothing is done we could have lost 500,000 people here in Brazil by next March. It’s a horrifying and tragic prospect but at this point it’s perfectly possible,” he said, predicting a traumatic month as public and private hospitals buckled.

    “My forecast is that if the world was appalled by what happened in Bergamo in Italy and what happened in Manaus a few weeks ago, it’s going to be even more shocked by the rest of Brazil if nothing is done.”

    The scientist, who has been advising state governments on their Covid response, called for the creation of a special Covid commission to fill the leadership vacuum left by Bolsonaro and an immediate 21-day nationwide lockdown. That, however, seems virtually unthinkable given Bolsonaro’s position. On Wednesday the Brazilian president will reportedly deliver an address to the nation in which he is expected to again denounce lockdown measures.

    Nicolelis claimed Brazil’s crisis now posed an international risk, as well as a domestic one and claimed Bolsonaro – who has sabotaged social distancing, promoted unproven remedies such as hydroxychloroquine and belittled masks – had become “the pandemic’s global public enemy No 1”.

    “The policies that he is failing to put into practice jeopardize the fight against the pandemic in the entire planet.”…

  106. says

    Guardian – “‘Facebook has a blind spot’: why Spanish-language misinformation is flourishing”:

    In the last year, Facebook adjusted some of the most fundamental rules about what gets posted on its platform, halting algorithmic recommendations of political groups, banning lies about vaccines and removing a number of high-profile figures for spreading misinformation and hate – including Donald Trump.

    But researchers say the social media platform is not enforcing those policies as effectively when it comes to misinformation in Spanish – a blind spot that may prove deadly as health lies spread through the most vulnerable populations during the global vaccine effort.

    “Prior to the election, Facebook was rolling out new enforcement actions and policy updates week after week,” said Carmen Scurato, a senior policy counsel at the civil rights group Free Press who studies Spanish-language misinformation. “But what we are observing is that those enforcement actions don’t seem to be replicated in Spanish.”

    “Although before the election we saw Facebook make an effort to take down some disinformation, we did not see that same effort on Spanish content,” echoed Jacobo Licona, the disinformation research lead for Equis Labs, a polling firm focused on Latino voters. “It’s disappointing, and could have a negative impact on Spanish-speaking communities.”

    There are more than 59 million Spanish speakers in the US, and the demographic is growing on Facebook. According to Facebook’s own market research data, more than 70% of Latinos who use social media prefer Facebook over other online platforms.

    But Spanish-language content is less often and less quickly moderated for misinformation and violence than English content, research shows. While 70% of misinformation in English on Facebook ends up flagged with warning labels, just 30% of comparable misinformation in Spanish is flagged, according to a study from the human rights non-profit Avaaz.

    “Facebook is leaving out the millions of people who speak Spanish at home by failing to apply its community standards equally,” Scurato said. “If you say you are making efforts on your platform for the safety and health of all of us, that has to also include the Latinx community.”

    …

    The problem is not hopeless, however, said Soria, the Avaaz researcher. His organization and others have called on Facebook to not only devote more resources to the issue, but to address the misinformation problem by correcting falsehoods that have spread on the app, potentially sending notifications to users who were exposed to false information. Studies have shown such corrections work, decreasing belief in disinformation by nearly 50%….

  107. says

    AP – “National security officials to testify on Jan. 6 mistakes”:

    Federal national security officials are set to testify in the second Senate hearing about what went wrong on Jan. 6, facing questions about missed intelligence and botched efforts to quickly gather National Guard troops that day as a violent mob laid siege to the U.S. Capitol.

    Senators are eager Wednesday to grill the officials from the Pentagon, the National Guard and the Justice and Homeland Security departments about their preparations as supporters of then-President Donald Trump talked online, in some cases openly, about gathering in Washington and interrupting the electoral count.

    At a hearing last week, officials who were in charge of security at the Capitol blamed each other as well as federal law enforcement for their own lack of preparation as hundreds of rioters descended on the building, easily breached the security perimeter and eventually broke into the Capitol itself. Five people died as a result of the rioting.

    So far, lawmakers conducting investigations have focused on failed efforts to gather and share intelligence about the insurrectionists’ planning before Jan. 6 and on the deliberations among officials about whether and when to call National Guard troops to protect Congress….

    …

    In the Senate, Klobuchar said there is particular interest in hearing from Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, who was on the phone with Sund and the Department of the Army as the rioters first broke into the building. Contee, the D.C. police chief, was also on the call and told senators that the Army was initially reluctant to send troops.

    …

    Also testifying at the joint hearing of the Senate Rules Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committees are Robert Salesses of the Defense Department, Melissa Smislova of the Department of Homeland Security and Jill Sanborn of the FBI, all officials who oversee aspects of intelligence and security operations….

    Like yesterday’s hearing, this will be at 10 AM ET.

  108. says

    CNN – “First on CNN: Rep. Ronny Jackson made sexual comments, drank alcohol and took Ambien while working as White House physician, Pentagon watchdog finds”:

    The Department of Defense inspector general has issued a scathing review of Rep. Ronny Jackson during his time serving as the top White House physician, concluding that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy for drinking alcohol while on a presidential trip and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted concerns from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper care.

    The findings outlined in the report, which was obtained by CNN prior to its expected release on Wednesday, stem from a years-long IG investigation into Jackson — who currently represents Texas in the House of Representatives and sits on the House Armed Services subcommittee overseeing military personnel — that was launched in 2018 and examines allegations that date back to his time serving during the Obama and Trump administrations. Members of Congress were briefed on the IG report findings on Tuesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

    Jackson claimed the report was politically motivated in a statement to CNN on Tuesday, saying the inspector general “resurrected” old allegations against him because he refused to “turn my back on President (Donald) Trump,” who was a vocal supporter of his 2020 congressional bid. He also told CNN he rejects “any allegation that I consumed alcohol while on duty.”

    After interviewing 78 witnesses and reviewing a host of White House documents, investigators concluded that Jackson, who achieved the rank of Rear Admiral, failed to treat his subordinates with dignity and respect, engaged in inappropriate conduct involving the use of alcohol during two incidents and used sleeping medication during an overseas trip that raised concerns about his ability to provide medical care to the President and other top officials, according to the report.

    The report also notes that the investigation into Jackson “was limited in scope and unproductive” as White House counsel under Trump insisted on being present at all interviews of current White House Medical Unit employees, which had a “potential chilling effect” on the probe.

    “We determined that the potential chilling effect of their presence would prevent us from receiving accurate testimony,” the report states, adding that fieldwork stopped for about 10 months, between October 11, 2018, and August 22, 2019, as the Department of Defense inspector general and White House counsel determined whether the White House would invoke executive privilege, which they ultimately did not do.

    Still, the conclusions about Jackson’s conduct are striking. Allegations about his explosive temper and creating a hostile work environment are consistent throughout his time in both the Obama and Trump administrations as an “overwhelming majority of witnesses (56) … who worked with RDML Jackson from 2012 through 2018 told us they personally experienced, saw, or heard about him yelling, screaming, cursing, or belittling subordinates,” the report says.

    “Many of these witnesses described RDML Jackson’s behavior with words and phrases such as ‘meltdowns,’ ‘yells’ for no reason,’ ‘rages,’ ‘tantrums,’ ‘lashes out,’ and ‘aggressive.’ These witnesses also described RDML Jackson’s leadership style with terms such as ‘tyrant,’ ‘dictator,’ ‘control freak,’ ‘hallmarks of fear and intimidation,’ ‘crappy manager,’ and ‘not a leader at all,'” it adds.

    On a presidential trip to Manila from April 22, 2014, to April 29, 2014, four witnesses who traveled with then-President Barack Obama and Jackson said that Jackson became intoxicated and made inappropriate comments about a female medical subordinate.

    A witness interviewed by the IG said that shortly after arriving in Manila, Jackson began drinking in the hotel lobby, then got into a car with a drink in his hand “to go out on the town.” Another witness said he could smell alcohol on Jackson’s breath later that evening. Back at the hotel, one of the witnesses said he saw Jackson “pounding” on the door of his female subordinate’s room. When she opened the door, Jackson said, “I need you,” and, “I need you to come to my room.”

    Witnesses also alleged that Jackson made a comment about a female medical subordinate’s breasts and buttocks during a presidential trip to Asia in April 2014….

    Two years later, in Bariloche, Argentina, two witnesses told the IG they saw Jackson drinking a beer while he was serving as the physician to the President and in charge of providing medical care for a presidential trip, despite regulations prohibiting him from 24 hours before the President’s arrival until two hours after he left…..

    These two allegations of alcohol use both occurred under the Obama administration, but the report details a series of incidents under both Obama and Trump in which Jackson lost his temper, cursing at subordinates.

    Of the 60 witnesses interviewed by the Defense Department IG about the command climate under Jackson, only 13 had positive comments, while 38 spoke about unprofessional behavior, intimidation and poor treatment of subordinates.

    …

    Jackson retired from the Navy in 2019 while the watchdog investigation was still ongoing, but two defense officials have told CNN that he could now face a Navy review of his retirement pay. Officer retirement pay is based on the most senior rank at which a person served honorably. If the report findings validated less than honorable behavior, Jackson could have his retirement pay reduced.

    The IG report recommends that the secretary of the Navy take “appropriate action” regarding Jackson….

  109. snarkrates says

    Lynna: “The governor of Mississippi also lifted his state mask mandate. It’s like they want COVID infections to spread.”

    I may be paranoid, but I don’t rule that out. If the pandemic “miraculously” got better under the competence of the Biden Administration, they would have to admit (or at least deny a lot harder) that their god-emperor had screwed the domestic canine. They’ve shown throughout that they are willing to die for their lie, and they certainly have no qualms about taking the rest of us with them.

  110. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Russia has designated a medical trade union with ties to Alexei Navalny a “foreign agent” – a term with unpatriotic connotations that subjects organisations to increased scrutiny and bureaucracy.

    The Alliance of Doctors has been critical of Moscow’s pandemic response, accusing authorities of failing to protect health workers and downplaying the severity of the outbreak. The trade union raised the alarm over shortfalls of PPE and testing kits for health personnel at the start of the pandemic

    It is headed by Anastasia Vasilyeva, who is Navalny’s personal doctor. The organisation was labelled a “foreign agent,” the justice ministry said in a statement sent to AFP.

    Alongside implications that the union lacks patriotism, the term also requires organisations to label their paperwork and come under intensive scrutiny.

  112. says

    From the prepared statement of the DC National Guard commander:

    On December 31, 2020, the DC National Guard received written requests from District of Columbia Mayor, Muriel Bowser, and her Director of DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, Dr. Christopher Rodriguez. The requests sought DC National Guard support for traffic control and crowd management for planned demonstrations in DC from January 5th thru the 6th.

    After conducting mission analysis to support the District request, I sent a letter to then Secretary of the Army, Ryan McCarthy, dated January 1, requesting approval. I received approval in a letter dated January 5th from Secretary McCarthy granting support of the MPD with 340 total personnel to include 40 personnel assigned to a Quick Reaction Force.

    The DCNG provides support to MPD, the U.S. Park Police, U.S. Secret Service and other District and federal law enforcement agencies in response to planned rallies, marches, protests and other large scale first amendment activity on a routine basis.

    A standard component of such support is the stand up of an offsite Quick Reaction Force (QRF), an element of guardsmen held in reserve equipped with civil disturbance response equipment (helmets, shields, batons, etc..) and postured to quickly respond to an urgent and immediate need for assistance by civilian authorities. The Secretary of the Army’s Jan. 5th letter withheld authority for me to employ the Quick Reaction Force. In addition, the Secretary of the Army’s memorandum to me required that a “concept of operation” (CONOP) be submitted to him before any employment of the QRF. I found that requirement to be unusual as was the requirement to seek approval to move Guardsmen supporting MPD to move from one traffic control point to another.

    At 1:49pm I received a frantic call from then Chief of U.S. Capitol Police, Steven Sund,where he informed me that the security perimeter at the Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters. Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill and requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.

    Immediately after the 1:49pm call with Chief Sund, I alerted the Army Senior Leadership of the request.The approval for Chief Sund’s request would eventually come from the Acting Secretary of Defense and be relayed to me by Army Senior Leaders at 5:08pm – 3 hours and 19 minutes later. We already had Guardsmen on buses ready to move to the Capitol. Consequently, at 5:20pm (in under 20 minutes) the District of Columbia National Guard arrived at the Capitol. We helped to re-establish the security perimeter at the east side of the Capitol to facilitate the resumption of the Joint Session of Congress.

  113. says

    The Secretary of Defense told the DC National Guard commander that he needed his personal approval to get helmets and body armor. Now he’s describing the call with Army leadership and how they didn’t want the Guard at the Capitol, claiming it would be bad optics and incite the crowd (vs. the summer protests when none of this was discussed and he was able to deploy the Guard immediately). He says he spoke with Army leadership, but not the Sec. of the Army, who they said was with the SecDef and not available.

  118. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Sao Paulo, Brazil’s most populous state, on Wednesday announced tough new measures to slow a snowballing coronavirus pandemic in the country with the world’s second highest death toll, Reuters reports.

    It says that, from Saturday, bars and restaurants will only operate via delivery, while malls and non-essential businesses will be shut, citing the governor, João Doria. The measure, which come as Brazil notches record daily deaths, are due to last two weeks, he said.

    New infections are dropping in the United States, Canada and Mexico but vaccinations have hardly begun in Latin America, raising the risk of dangerous new variants emerging, the Pan American Health Organization has said.

    Reuters quotes the organisation’s director Carissa Etienne as saying: “As long as Covid-19 endures in one part of the world, the rest of the world can never be safe.”

  120. says

    Mark Mazzetti:

    The Pentagon’s timetable about Jan 6 riots has always been a mess. Today’s hearing gives even more evidence of that.

    According to original timetable, the Army Secretary ordered deployment of National Guard “immediately” after Miller’s approval at 3:04PM. Today’s testimony directly contradicts that

  121. says

    An excerpt from text quoted by SC in comment 105:

    […] researchers say the social media platform [Facebook] is not enforcing those policies as effectively when it comes to misinformation in Spanish – a blind spot that may prove deadly as health lies spread through the most vulnerable populations during the global vaccine effort.

    That reminds me of the disinformation that was pumped into Spanish-speaking communities in Florida prior to the 2020 election.

    It seems like we are always in too-little-too-late mode when it comes to countering disinformation that is presented in Spanish. Not good.

  122. says

    Also from SC’s comment 105:

    […] called on Facebook to not only devote more resources to the issue, but to address the misinformation problem by correcting falsehoods that have spread on the app, potentially sending notifications to users who were exposed to false information. Studies have shown such corrections work, decreasing belief in disinformation by nearly 50%….

    “Decreasing belief in disinformation by nearly 50%,” is amazing. Compared to other efforts to get people to stop believing in lies, 50% is incredibly good. Wow. That gives me hope. Now if they can just get Facebook to do that.

  123. says

    Several former Trump aides prepare campaigns for public office

    Almost immediately after the 2020 presidential race was called, political appointees throughout the Trump administration realized it was time to update their resumes and look for new opportunities. […] that wasn’t altogether easy.

    The Washington Post’s James Hohmann reported in early December, for example, “Senior executives at a handful of Fortune 500 companies have told me privately over the last year that they would not risk the potential employee blowback that would come from hiring someone closely linked to” Donald Trump.

    A month later, in the wake of Trump inciting a riot and dispatching a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol, these Republicans’ employment prospects got worse. Politico reported in early January that many officials, most notably those working in national security, “have been struggling to find new employment.” The Hill further reported in late January that top U.S. companies were eager to “distance themselves” from members of the former president’s team.

    As it turns out, there is an alternate path to employment: some of Trump’s former aides may be struggling to find a job in the private sector, but it appears a few members of Team Trump hope to get jobs in elected office. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported yesterday, for example, on Max Miller’s new congressional candidacy.

    A former aide to President Donald Trump has announced he will run against Rocky River Republican Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, who voted to impeach the former president after his supporters rioted at the U.S. Capitol in an unsuccessful effort to stop Congress from tallying votes that declared Joe Biden to be president.

    Around the same time, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran a similar report out of Texas.

    The former chief of staff of the Health and Human Services department under Donald Trump announced his run for the U.S. House seat of the late Rep. Ron Wright (R-Texas) on Monday. A special election was scheduled for May after Wright died Feb. 7 after a battle with COVID-19. Brian Harrison, a Republican and Texas native, told the Star-Telegram he will join the race for the Texas 6th Congressional District seat. Harrison was appointed deputy chief of staff of the HHS and promoted to chief of staff in 2019.

    Harrison said he’s running, at least in part, because he wants to “keep the Trump movement alive.”

    Oh, please, no. Don’t “keep the Trump movement alive.” Let it die. As an aside though, all of these diehard Trumpers will give Trump somewhere to spend the Super PAC money he has been raising. What will be fed is Trump’s thirst for revenge.

    […] As The Hill noted, the list of Team Trump members eyeing elected office in 2022 is not short:

    Cliff Sims, the former deputy at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), is eyeing Alabama’s U.S. Senate race. If he runs, he’ll face Lynda Blanchard, another Trump administration official, in a GOP primary.

    Trump’s Navy secretary, Kenneth Braithwaite, is eyeing Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race, as is Carla Sands, another former Trump administration official.

    Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is already considered a top contender in Arkansas’ gubernatorial race.

    Ric Grenell is gearing up for a gubernatorial campaign in California.

    Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign adviser, expressed an interest in a congressional campaign in Texas.

    I won’t pretend to know what the former president’s electoral plans are, but whether Trump runs again or not, it appears voters will have plenty of opportunities to vote for former members of his team.

  124. says

    Independent report calls for ‘urgent’ action on US infrastructure

    As Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg put it, “A generation of disinvestment is catching up to us.”

    The United States is overdue for a committed and ambitious effort to improve the nation’s infrastructure. Barack Obama unveiled a worthwhile plan during his presidency, but it faced unyielding Republican opposition. Donald Trump expressed some interest in the issue, too, but never followed through with a credible proposal.

    It’s against this backdrop that the American Society of Civil Engineers issued a 170-page report yesterday, painting an ugly picture. Reuters reported:

    The United States faces a $2.59 trillion shortfall in infrastructure needs that requires a massive jump in government spending to address crumbling roads, bridges and other programs, according to an assessment by an engineers group issued on Wednesday…. “We risk significant economic losses, higher costs to consumers, businesses and manufacturers — and our quality of life — if we don’t act urgently,” said ASCE Executive Director Thomas Smith in a statement.

    The quadrennial report includes grades for 17 categories, and not surprisingly, the United States fared better in some areas than others. But in 11 of the 17 categories, the country earned D ratings: “aviation, dams, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, public parks, roads, schools, stormwater, transit, and wastewater.”

    According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, a D rating indicates “significant deterioration” with a “strong risk of failure.”

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the report card documents “what Americans already know: failure to fully invest in our infrastructure over the years is now catching up to us. Consequences are appearing nationwide, in the form of dangerously degraded roads, bridges, and other assets.”

    […] While much of Congress’ current focus is on the COVID relief package, the White House has also been quietly laying the groundwork (no pun intended) for a major infrastructure initiative, and President Biden is reportedly set to meet with lawmakers tomorrow for a second round of talks about a possible proposal.

    They’ll need to aim big: the American Society of Civil Engineers’ report endorsed a “big and bold” approach, that would cost $5.9 trillion over the next decade.

    Hanging overhead, of course, is an inevitable Senate Republican filibuster, but let’s not forget that when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sat down with Rachel in late January, the New York Democrat pointed to a way around GOP opposition.

    Referring to the budget reconciliation process, Schumer said, “We get two reconciliation motions: one for COVID and then one probably for Build It Back Better.”

    And while Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) is in a position to derail a variety of key progressive priorities, Congress’ most conservative Democrat appears to be fully on board with “major” investments in infrastructure.

    The longer they wait to replace or repair failing infrastructure, the more expensive it becomes to correct the situation. They haven’t been doing the necessary maintenance for years.

  125. says

    D.C. Guard chief says ‘unusual’ restrictions slowed deployment of backup during Capitol riot.

    Washington Post link

    The commanding general of the D.C. National Guard told lawmakers Wednesday how restrictions the Pentagon placed on him in the run-up to Capitol riot prevented him from more quickly sending forces to help quell the violence.

    Maj. Gen. William J. Walker said he didn’t receive approval to change the D.C. Guard’s mission and send his forces to the Capitol on Jan. 6 until three hours and 19 minutes after he first received an emotional call from the Capitol Police chief requesting urgent backup.

    Walker described the Pentagon’s restrictions as “unusual,” noting that he didn’t have such limitations last June when the D.C. Guard was tasked with responding to local racial justice protests.

    Walker […] told lawmakers that had he not been restricted, he could have sent 155 soldiers to the Capitol hours earlier.

    “I believe that number could have made a difference,” Walker said during Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate Rules Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We could have helped extend the perimeter and helped push back the crowd.”

    Walker’s timeline for when he was finally authorized to send forces to the Capitol differed from that of another witness at the hearing, Robert G. Salesses, the Pentagon official performing the duties of the assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and global security. Walker said that he didn’t receive the order from senior Army officials to send his forces to the Capitol until 5:08 p.m., but Salesses said the acting defense secretary ordered forces to depart at 4:32 p.m.

    Walker said personnel did not arrive until 5:20 p.m.

    […] Walker, who was added to the slate of witnesses only this week, said top Army generals, Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt and Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, the brother of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, expressed concerns about the optics of sending the Guard to the Capitol during a call on the afternoon of the riot.

    “They both said it wouldn’t be in their best military advice to advise the secretary of the army to have uniformed guard members at the capitol during the election confirmation,” Walker said, explaining that he, like officials on the call from the D.C. government and the Capitol Police, was frustrated by those comments.

    The Pentagon shortly thereafter activated the full D.C. Guard in response to the riot, but the leadership at the Defense Department didn’t authorize the D.C. Guard to change its mission and head to the Capitol until hours later.

    Smislova told lawmakers in a written copy of her opening statement that the government did not do enough before the attack, saying, “more should have been done to understand the correlation between that information and the threat of violence, and what actions were warranted as a result.” […]

  126. says

    FFS.

    Pence Uses Post-VP Platform To Boost ‘The Big Lie’ Trump Continues To Push

    Even after his life was endangered during the Capitol insurrection earlier this year that then-President Trump incited, former Vice President Mike Pence has begun boosting the same election falsehoods that incensed the rioters.

    In an op-ed published in The Daily Signal on Wednesday, Pence falsely described the 2020 election as “marked by significant voting irregularities and numerous instances of officials setting aside state election law.”

    […] In his Wednesday op-ed, he said that he had pledged to ensure that all objections raised by GOP members that day [January 6] would be given a full hearing.

    […] “The tragic events of Jan. 6 — the most significant being the loss of life and violence at our nation’s Capitol — also deprived the American people of a substantive discussion in Congress about election integrity in America,” Pence wrote.

    Pence went on to take aim at congressional Democrats by accusing them of “a brazen attempt” to “nationalize elections,” citing the House’s vote this week on the For the People Act that would expand voting access, especially in communities most affected by the voting restrictions being pushed by Republicans in many states.

    […] “Leftists not only want you powerless at the ballot box, they want to silence and censor anyone who would dare to criticize their unconstitutional power grab,” Pence wrote.

    Pence also leaned into the GOP’s new fixation on “cancel culture,” characterizing the For the People Act as a means for the left to engage in a “cancel culture crusade.”

    The former vice president concluded by parroting congressional Republicans’ comical calls for unity after spending months egging on the former president’s bogus claims of widespread election fraud that ultimately led up to the deadly Capitol insurrection. [snipped Pence’s cowardly, lie-based “call for unity”]

    Pence’s op-ed may be part of the former-VP’s effort to get back into Trump’s good graces […]

    Amid the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6 certifying then-President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral victory, Trump blasted out a tweet railing against Pence for lacking the “courage” to illegally overturn the election results. Trump and Pence reportedly did not speak to each other a few days after the-then VP was hurried out of the Senate chamber minutes ahead of the mob.

    “Pence’s op-ed may be part of the former-VP’s effort to get back into Trump’s good graces.” Why? Why would you want to be in Trump’s good graces? The price will be whatever shreds of Pence’s integrity that may be left.

  127. says

    Follow-up to comment 125.

    Comments posted by readers of the TPM article:

    Pence started off as a lickspittle, had a singular moment of integrity (but really had no other choice) on January 6th, and now he is back to being a lickspittle, a Supreme Lickspittle. What a coward! What an asshole!
    ———————
    Aw, that’s cute. Pence really thinks he has a shot at reviving his political career in the Trumpist GOP? I never thought I’d see grown men – goddamn senators and representatives – like Pence, Graham, Jordan and others debase themselves so thoroughly and repeatedly for someone who clearly doesn’t give a shit about them. It’s a mind-sucking cult I simply can’t wrap my head around.
    ——————–
    Just another point of evidence that Republicans have determined that democracy doesn’t work for them. It’s a dangerous time for our nation now, as a party that could win at the ballot box is turning away from voting and towards anti-democratic means of holding power. Between “legal” methods, like the AZ legislature choosing the state electors regardless of the vote, to outright violence, it’s clear that Republicans are willing to forgo their supposed fealty to the Constitution for their own governmental power. A few officials, doing their duty, managed to head off a Trump dictatorship in 2020…2024 really could turn out different as those people will be swept away by Republicans hell bent on forcing the nation to install them as our rulers.

    This is really the end game of the Christian militant movement to create a Christian theocracy in America. It’s going to be a close thing to see if it actually does happen, or if we manage to overcome them and keep the nation free.
    ————————-
    Mother should remind Mikey about the Biblical mandate “Thou Shalt Not Lie.”

  128. says

    Texas racists get really racist about racist thing that people are calling racist

    Emails The Texas Tribune obtained show just how little wealthy alumni donors from the University of Texas at Austin care about Black people, even those that the graduates cheer for routinely on the football field.

    Hundreds of alumni responded with emails to university President Jay Hartzell after they assumed a student effort to have the university part ways with its racist alma mater “The Eyes of Texas” had seeped onto the football field. Then-quarterback for the school Sam Ehlinger was the only member of the team to remain on the field to sing the song after a crushing loss. But although many interpreted his decision as a stance in support of the alma mater, Ehlinger later said he only stayed behind to talk to coaches, The Texas Tribune reported on Monday.

    That didn’t stop alumni from flooding Hartzell’s inbox with threatening emails. “My wife and I have given an endowment in excess of $1 million to athletics. This could very easily be rescinded if things don’t drastically change around here,” one donor wrote. “Has everyone become oblivious of who supports athletics??”

    “The Eyes of Texas” references a common saying of Confederate Army Commander Robert E. Lee and was frequently played at university minstrel shows, in which white actors wore blackface and reinforced racist stereotypes about Black people. “Current students don’t feel pride when singing a song that is meant to bolster school spirit,” organizer Jacey Rosengren wrote in a petition to boycott the song. “It is our responsibility to listen to the voices of students. They are the life and culture of the university.” [video is available at the link. "The eyes of Texas are upon you" is a quote from Robert E. Lee. It calls upon students to uphold white supremacy, according to critics.]

    […] Clinging to a song more than 1,580 people signed a petition to ban as racist is a position no reputable university should hold up as a model. Even before the revealing Texas Tribune article, the president supported the song in a statement last October. [snipped word-salad statement]

    […] “The Eyes of Texas is non-negotiable,” wrote one graduate who bragged about having season tickets since 1990. “If it is not kept and fully embraced, I will not be donating any additional money to athletics or the university or attending any events.” Another wrote: “It is disgraceful to see the lack of unity and our fiercest competitor Sam E[h]linger standing nearly alone. It is symbolic of the disarray of this football program which you inherited. The critical race theory garbage that has been embraced by the football program and the university is doing massive irreparable damage.”

    Although the university redacted the names of many of those who penned emails due to open records laws that shield some donors, that protection didn’t extend to billionaire Bob Rowling, President of the Longhorn Alumni Band Charitable Fund Board of Trustees Kent Kostka, or retired administrative law judge Steven Arnold.

    “UT needs rich donors who love The Eyes of Texas more than they need one crop of irresponsible and uninformed students or faculty who won’t do what they are paid to do,” Arnold reportedly wrote Hartzell.

    Rowling, who owns Omni Hotels and formerly Gold’s Gym, told the university president: “I am not advising you or taking any position regarding this issue right now, other than to say ‘The Eyes’ needs to be our song. I AM wanting you to be aware of the ‘talk about town’ regarding UT. There are a lot of folks on this email chain who love UT and are in positions of influence.”

    And Kostka seemed to be driven to a virtual panic over the potential loss of dollars for the university. “[Alumni] are pulling planned gifts, canceling donations, walking away from causes and programs that have been their passion for years, even decades and turning away in disgust. Last night one texted me at 1:00 am, trying to find a way to revoke a 7-figure donation,” he reportedly wrote administrators. “This is not hyperbole or exaggeration. Real damage is being done every day by the ongoing silence.”

    Welp, silence no more. We all know exactly where the president stands on respecting the generational trauma of his Black students versus earning a dollar. Hint: It’s not with the students.

    Rich bullies using their money to bully institutions and to bully entire groups of other people.

    Note how open the donors are about their bullying ways, “[…] do what they are paid to do.”

  129. says

    Republican governors throwing states off COVID cliff, and counting on President Biden to catch them

    Yep. I don’t think it’s going to work well.

    Three weeks after a closed electricity market that’s designed to turn disasters into windfall profits collapsed in Texas, turning a winter cold snap into a deadly power shortage that still has many Texans dealing with broken pipes and ruined homes, Gov. Greg Abbott is badly in need of a new distraction. Abbott spent days during the cold wave sitting on Fox News explaining how the real culprit was the never-passed Green New Deal, and not the fragile by-energy-billionaires for-energy-billionaires system that Republicans had spent decades assembling in Texas. But then, a lot of Texans didn’t get to see Abbott making excuses about windmills on Fox, because they didn’t have any power.

    Obviously, a distraction was needed. Fortunately for Abbott, he could jump right onto a lemming train of Republican governors all making the same bad decision for pretty similar reasons. So on Tuesday Abbott decided that COVID-19 is over in Texas. He’s lifted the state’s (poorly enforced and incomplete) mask mandate, and he’s telling business they can “fully reopen.” But Abbott’s order does more than just lift any official mandate by the state. Because it also prohibits county and city governments from requiring masks, or from limiting business operation, or doing essentially anything to protect their citizens. […]

    So just like that, Texas is all back to normal. Except for the part where people are still getting sick and dying. See how well that worked? Now no one is talking about how Abbott’s energy policies killed people.

    As the Texas Tribune reports, mayors and county officials in Texas’ largest cities aren’t exactly happy about Abbott’s decision to declare a coronavirus thunderdome. With the state still averaging over 200 COVID-19 deaths a day, and several Texas counties still among the highest in the nation when it comes to total cases or cases by population, Abbott’s order seems almost certain to generate a fresh wave of cases. And deaths.

    […] Abbott’s action plays well, presumably, in the counties where officials have refused to enforce the mask mandate all along.

    And hey, it’s not as if Abbott is routing vaccine away from those cities to give it all to the reddest rural counties, even when it means vaccine is being thrown away. That’s Gov. Mike Parson in Missouri’s trick. As St. Louis public radio reports, “multiple mass vaccination events in rural areas” have ended up with hundreds of leftover doses of vaccine, some of which has ultimately been disposed of. In these areas, local officials have been skipping past the supposed guidelines to offer vaccines to anyone over 18, making a few Missouri counties among the vaccination leaders.

    In rural Putnam County, Missouri—which voted 84% for Donald Trump last November (and 85% for Parson)—2,340 doses of vaccine were provided for a vaccination event in a county whose total population is just 4,696. Only about 700 doses ended up being administered. Another 1,500 went unused, with some 150 of those doses being simply discarded. At the same time, St. Louis and Kansas City have been vaccine starved, with no large vaccination events scheduled. As a result, the percentage of the population vaccinated in many rural counties is over twice that of St. Louis or Kansas City. […]

    […] All of this is ridiculously dangerous. While case counts have fallen since January’s peak, the daily average remains well above the rate that held through the fall of 2020, which was itself already much higher than the first peak that came that spring.

    The decline in cases is a good thing. The rise in vaccinations is a very good thing. With accelerating delivery of vaccines—and some attempt at equitable distribution—the United States is almost certainly just weeks away from the point where this kind of reopening could be done reasonably, with a fair degree of safety … though mask mandates should almost certainly remain in place nationwide for an extended period.

    Republican governors are essentially pushing their states off the cliff and daring Joe Biden to catch them. Biden is trying. But there’s no reason to take this risk now, especially when the possibility of a real “end” to the pandemic—one where case counts are so low that genuine case management and contact tracing can be instituted is actually in sight. […]

  130. says

    Fox News asks Jen Psaki about President Biden’s outrageous disregard for Dr. Seuss

    Not sure where to slot this among the growing list of Fox News pseudo-scandals. Is this glaring omission worse than Barack Obama’s tan suit? That hardly seems possible. The tan suit affair nearly ended us. Our enemies saw our commander in chief arrayed in fine raiments of effete ecru and the gates of hell were flung wide open. Our national credibility was tarnished for all eternity.

    But that was then. After witnessing the stalwart, uber-patriotic leadership of Donald John Trump—who only launched one full-on insurrection attempt during his entire four-year term—we’re forced to endure this disgrace.

    Are you ready?

    Joe Biden didn’t mention Dr. Seuss in his statement on Read Across America Day. […]

    FOX REPORTER KRISTIN FISHER: “It is National Read Across America Day, it’s also Dr. Seuss’ birthday. Both former presidents Obama and Trump mentioned Dr. Seuss in their Read Across America Day proclamations, but President Biden did not. Why not?”

    JEN PSAKI: “Words, words words … [translation: what the fuck is this nitwit talking about, and who the fuck cares?] … words words words.”

    REPORTER: “So does the omission have anything to do with the controversy about the lack of diverse characters in the author’s books?”

    […] In her answer, Jen Psaki noted that the Department of Education actually wrote the statement, […]

    [Aaron Rupar tweeted] “Dr. Seuss is the top story on Fox News today. They’re still talking about it. It’s absolutely insane.”

    Fox has found its new wedge issue. It’s cancel culture! Which is odd, because the guy whose bulbous arse they’ve spent the past four years smooching into oblivion literally tried to cancel democracy, and he’s now trying to cancel numerous members of Congress from his own party.

    Oh, and apparently Mr. Potato Head has been brutally defamed as well. Or something. Honestly, I don’t have the energy to keep up with this much inanity.

    [Quote from Associated Press coverage:]

    In And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, an Asian person is portrayed wearing a conical hat, holding chopsticks, and eating from a bowl. If I Ran the Zoo includes a drawing of two bare-footed African men wearing what appear to be grass skirts with their hair tied above their heads.

    Joe Biden also didn’t mention the book of Hitler speeches Donald Trump used to keep in his bedside cabinet. WHY NOT, JEN PSAKI?! Is this part of Joe Biden’s attempt to cancel U.S. history? YOU CAN’T CANCEL OUR HISTORY! We had a Nazi-ish president for four years. […]

    Of course, Fox News and Republicans are blaming “cancel culture” for this outrage, but they really need to look at Seuss’ own family. It was Dr. Seuss Enterprises, which was founded by the Seuss family, that pulled the plug on several of the author’s titles. […]

  131. says

    House Energy and Commerce leaders unveil sweeping climate change legislation

    Senior House Energy and Commerce Democrats unveiled a template of their plan to combat climate change this Congress that would take a sector-by-sector approach to eliminate carbon dioxide and reach net-zero emissions by 2050.

    Their 981-page bill — an expanded version of last year’s CLEAN Future Act — calls for a federal clean energy standard that sets an interim goal of 80 percent clean electricity by 2030 and 100 percent by 2035. The bill represents a push from Democrats for aggressive action on climate change that’s in line with the goals laid out by President Joe Biden and as part of his Build Back Better agenda.

    “I really believe that the time for slow, marginal change has gone,” Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said Tuesday. “You can’t just watch from the sidelines as the climate crisis wreaks havoc on Americans’ health and home. The cost of inaction is staggering — it already is.” […]

    Pallone also acknowledged that the bill did not call for imposing a price on carbon emissions, since that type of measure lacked political support.

    “We don’t have a carbon tax … I think it’s time to try something new,” he said. “The votes are just not there for a price on carbon.”

    Clean energy standard: Arguably the most consequential title is a clean energy standard, which would create a credit trading system for utilities to meet clean energy goals. Utilities would get at least partial credit if their carbon intensity is lower than 0.82 tons of carbon dioxide per megawatt-hour of power — including emissions calculated from producing and transporting the energy to the utility — through 2030 but that threshold would drop to 0.4 by 2035.

    That approach would mean that natural gas power plants would not be able get partial credits without implementing carbon capture and sequestration technologies by the mid-2030s […] the standard also includes labor protections for the construction of new generating units.

    New provisions: Overall, the legislation would authorize $565 billion in spending over ten years as the U.S. pursues deep decarbonization efforts. It includes a host of new provisions in areas like environmental justice, energy transition, waste reduction and transportation.

    The bill would create a national green bank, seeded with $100 billion, to leverage public money for investments in new technologies needed to hit emissions reductions goals. The legislation also includes a requirement that 40 percent of funds go toward environmental justice communities that have suffered persistent pollution — a priority for the Biden administration.

    The Democratic bill also would direct the Securities and Exchange Commission to require disclosure from public companies about their climate-related risks. […] It would temporarily pause permitting new or expanded plastics production facilities while EPA enacts new Clean Air Act regulations to limit emissions.

    […] Environmental justice focus: The new environmental justice provisions would notably establish a grant program to finance lead drinking water service line replacements. That effort would prioritize disadvantaged communities and include requirements for U.S.-made raw materials and strong labor protections. […]

  132. says

    Wonkette: “House Dems Push Nutty Idea: LET AMERICANS VOTE, GODDAMMIT”

    The House will be voting this week on HR 1, the “For the People Act,” which would establish fair national standards for voting and ensure that people who are eligible to vote actually get their ballots counted.

    The Brennan Center for Justice calls the bill (and its companion, HR 4, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act) “the greatest civil rights bill since the civil rights movement itself,” and that’s not the least bit hyperbolic.

    The bill, sponsored by Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Maryland), would put the kibosh on a lot of voter suppression measures that Republicans are very fond of (Hello, Georgia!), so it should be no surprise that Republicans are howling about how unfair it would be. Fairness would keep them from rigging the vote in their favor […]

    Link

  133. says

    Wonkette: “Actual Trump Supporter ‘Disguised’ Himself As Fake Antifa Activist During Capitol Siege”

    Republicans, including the one-term loser, spent most of last year claiming that Joe Biden’s antifa troops were everywhere, spreading violence through cities and even riding in airplanes. When a clearly identifiable MAGA mob stormed the Capitol, certain mentally deficient Republicans insisted that the violent insurrectionists could’ve been antifa. Yesterday, FBI Director Chris Wray confirmed the observable reality that criminals dressed like Donald Trump supporters were in fact Donald Trump supporters.

    However, it turns out that at least one insurrectionist at the January 6 klanbake “disguised” himself as an antifa activist, because he assumed this would permit him to coup freely. William Robert Norwood III from South Carolina revealed his seditious cosplay scheme in a group text. “I’m dressing in all black,” Norwood wrote, according to [a criminal] complaint. “I’ll look just like antifa. I’ll get away with anything.”

    Wearing all-black can make you look like many things — a goth, a mime, or just your average New Yorker. There is no official antifa uniform because antifa isn’t an actual organization. Norwood straight-up resides in an alternate reality when he claims that antifa can “get away with anything.” Sure, most of the people arrested during last year’s racial justice protests were suburbanites with little criminal history, but that doesn’t mean antifa had a riot hall pass. […]

    The day after the Capitol siege, Norwood boasted in a followup text message about how well his “antifa disguise” worked. “I got away with things that others were shot or arrested for. The cop shot a female Trump supporter. Then allowed “ANTIFA Trump supporters” to assault him. I was one of them. I was there. I took his shit.”

    […] Norwood disarmed a cop and took his helmet and body armor as souvenir trophies. […]

    “I fought 4 cops, they did nothing. When I put my red hat on, they pepper balled me,” Norwood wrote.

    Raising my hand here: I think the cops pepper balled Norwood because he’d just assaulted police officers. This had nothing to do with his Beyoncé-like costume changes, but his whiteness might explain why he’s still alive.

    […]Norwood’s brother, T.D […] “You admitted to going and being something you’re accusing other people of being. And then got mad and blamed others for the same thing you did. What the actual f— is wrong with you?” T.D. texted, according to the documents.

    Norwood, demonstrating how much blue lives matter to him, allegedly replied, “The one cop who deserved it, got it. The cops who acted shitty got exactly what they deserved. The ones who were cool, got help.”

    T.D. and family member J.D. tipped off the FBI and shared Norwood’s incriminating messages. Norwood’s version of events is absurd, like some wino’s UFO abduction story. He admitted entered the Capitol after getting separated from his wife (it’s unclear if she was also dressed like antifa). He wanted to leave but the crowd was too large. He defended cops from the violent criminals who totally weren’t him. Someone else took the police vest and put it on him like James Brown’s cape, which is definitely something random people do. Spontaneous clothes fittings are a big problem at riots.

    […] Norwood is facing charges of “violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, obstruction of justice and Congress, theft of government property and other counts,” which I assume will cover delivering beat downs to cops.

    It’s astonishing that he was able to just walk away in all the confusion. Yet, in his mind, he doesn’t have it as good as your average antifa. That’s so MAGA.

    Link

  134. says

    Follow-up to comment 124.

    Walker said the restrictions the Army and Pentagon secretaries imposed on him the day before the insurrection were “never really explained to me,” but he didn’t push back against them.

    “I’m a major general. I don’t question the people above me,” the commander said. “The secretary of the Army is the secretary of the Army. Secretary of the Defense is the secretary of Defense.”

    “So all I know was I had restrictions that were unusual to me. I hadn’t had them in the past,” he continued.

    Link

    The Secretary of the Army and the Sec Def were Trump people.

  136. says

    Manu Raju:

    Sen. Rob Portman, ranking GOP member on Senate Homeland Security and Govt Affairs, told me he wants former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller to testify about the failure to deploy the National Guard in a timely manner on Jan. 6.

    Portman expressed concern at today’s hearing they are not hearing from the decision makers about why the call to deploy guardsmen was not made immediately when the request came in. Instead, the DC National Guard waited more than three hours before getting approval on its request

    “Yeah we needed to hear from the people who were there at the time making the decisions,” Portman said. “I think we’ve reached out (to them). I don’t know if they want to come in or not yet.”

  137. tomh says

    WaPo:
    GOP Sen. Ron Johnson to force Senate clerks to read text of $1.9 trillion covid-relief bill, a process that could last 10 hours
    By Colby Itkowitz

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) will force Senate clerks to read aloud the entire $1.9 trillion covid-relief bill, delaying debate on it by about 10 hours.

    “I will make them read their 600-700 page bill,” Johnson said, detailing his plan during an interview on a Milwaukee conservative talk radio show.

    He also said he plans to force votes on a huge number of amendments to prolong the debate by several days…

    … “It’s a Democrat wish list setting things up for an even more socialist society, and it needs to be resisted and I’m going to lead the effort to resist it.”

    …The bill is publicly popular, even among Republicans, but Johnson argued that was because the Democrats tout the $1,400 relief checks in the bill, and not that it was “mortgaging our kids’ future.”

  138. says

    Wonkette:

    Yesterday, Texas GOP Governor Greg Abbott decided that, even with rising COVID-19 cases, Texans had “mastered” the skills they need — yes, he said that — to keep from getting the virus, and therefore all mask mandates must be uplifted, for freedom! […]

    About five seconds later, Mississippi GOP Governor Tate “Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater […]” Reeves said Mississippians were also too ready to breathe hot wet viral delta mouthfarts all over each other, in the name of America! Or whatever he said. Point is, he removed all the statewide restrictions.

    […] We were literally thinking last night that we hoped President Joe Biden would be just cold fuckin’ MEAN to those GOP governors who, like the brain wizards they are, have decided that it’s time to fuck up all the progress we’ve made and cancel safety measures in the seventh inning stretch.

    And surprise, he was! He called them Neanderthals.

    OK, to be exact, he called their brain thoughts “Neanderthal thinking,” which by extension makes them “Neanderthal thinkers,” and if it walks like a Neanderthal and it quacks like a Neanderthal and it thinks like a Neanderthal, it’s probably a … ! [Video is available at the link]

    CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said not to get complacent right now. The CDC said if we fuck it up now, we can really fuck it up and set ourselves backward on the wrong path. As Biden reminded us, we will now have enough vaccine for all American adults by May. “The last thing we need is Neanderthal thinking,” he explained, about Greg Abbott and Tater Tater Tater Tater Tater and any other GOP governors who think they’re getting bright ideas right now. […]

    Advice for President Biden: Next time, just call them “some dumbass motherfuckers.” We know, we know, you are all “genteel” and “civility,” and you are trying to move on from the Trump era of coarse language, WE KNOW.

    Just once, though, it would be fine. It would feel great. Also Fox News would probably stop talking about Mr. Potato Head’s peenwhistle for five seconds so it could rage about your cusses.

    Try it! You’ll like it!

    Link

  139. says

    Two Republicans elected to the House, one from Texas and one from Louisiana, died of COVID before they could take office this session.

    Those sworn in include:

    Marjorie Greene (GA) – insurrectionist, among other issues
    Nancy Mace (SC) – misrepresented what her colleague said about the Capitol attack to smear her as a liar
    Beth Van Duyne (TX) – had a former aide go to her house to kill himself a few weeks ago and multiple staffers quit since
    Madison Cawthorn (NC) – total fraud, serial liar, sexual predator
    Lauren Boebert (CO) – insurrectionist, among other issues
    Ronny Jackson (TX) – subject of a scathing IG report about his horrendous behavior as WH physician

    And that’s not even getting into the usual cast of characters…

  140. says

    Andrew Desiderio:

    Senate Homeland Security chair Peters tells me & @frankthorp he wants former acting SecDef Miller & former acting Army Secretary McCarthy to testify.

    “Certainly they were intimately involved in the decision-making process & it’s very important for us to hear from them directly.”

  143. says

    Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:

    After Joe Biden announced that there would be enough vaccine for all adult Americans by the end of May, leading Republicans accused the President of trying to score political points by ending the pandemic.

    Leading the charge was the House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, who called Biden’s anti-pandemic measures “partisan politics at its worst.”

    “So now we learn that the pandemic will be ended by a White House that is a hundred per cent controlled by Democrats,” he said. “Where’s the so-called unity, President Biden?”

    Senator Ted Cruz concurred. “After vowing that there would be enough vaccine in July, Joe Biden broke his promise and is now saying May,” the Texas lawmaker said. “I think the American people will see right through this.”

    Finally, Senator Ron Johnson called Biden’s actions to bring the pandemic to a close “blatant,” adding, “This is just another attempt to undo Donald Trump’s legacy.”

    New Yorker link

  144. says

    New York Times:

    The Senate voted on Tuesday to confirm Cecilia Rouse, a Princeton University economist, as the chair of President Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, making her the first Black leader of C.E.A. in its 75-year history. The final vote was 95 to 4.

  145. says

    “One reminder: The main reason that the Pentagon was wary of intervening on 1/6 was because it had already been abused by President Trump last summer. Impossible to separate Trump’s abuse of military resources against Black Lives Matter from its unwillingness to stop 1/6 riots.”

    “Hugely important context. Plus there was deep concern (remember the letter from the all the living fmr SecDef?) that Trump would use civil unrest as pretext for some kind of soft martial law. Meanwhile, Mike Flynn was pushing for military to run do-over elections in swing states!”

    Yes. And the Republicans today were trying to push a narrative – with some help from a couple of the witnesses – that the use of the NG in the summer makes the refusal to deploy them in January reasonable. But the opposite conclusion should be drawn:

    The problem, as Walker’s testimony made clear, wasn’t with the NG going rogue or something; it was Trump and his lackeys giving them inappropriate orders (there was a whistleblower who testified before Congress!). So it was in no way a reasonable response to the outcry following this to remove autonomy from the DCNG and give more power to Trump and his lackeys! It was in no way a reasonable response to the outcry to have Flynn’s brother involved in the decision about calling up the NG!

    (And this is setting aside that of course Trump sniffed out the opportunity to exploit the military’s reluctance to get involved in anything deemed political to keep them from protecting the Capitol and the democratic process.)

  147. says

    Here’s a link to the March 4 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    From there:

    Resurgence of cases hits Europe

    The World Health Organization (WHO) is seeing a resurgence of cases in central and eastern Europe, as well as a rise of new cases in several western European countries, Reuters is quoting the head of its European office as saying. Hans Kluge told reporters:

    Continued strain on our hospitals and health workers is being met with acts of medical solidarity between European neighbours. Nonetheless, over a year into the pandemic our health systems should not be in this situation.

  148. says

    Guardian – “How Covid derailed the great hope of the Dutch far right”:

    …The one thing that was constantly said about Covid last year, was that it was a great revealer; it revealed the gap between rich and poor, the employed and the unemployed, the old and the young. Covid has also now revealed what [Thierry] Baudet really is; not just the flamboyant and outspoken intellectual that he wanted people to believe he is, but a conspiracy-mongering antisemitic populist, willing to undermine facts, health care, the free press and even democracy, to remain a focal point in Dutch politics….

  149. says

    From the Guardian US-politics liveblog summary:

    Yesterday House Democrats passed a sweeping expansion of federal voting rights. The For The People act would be the most significant enhancement of federal voting protections in decades.

    They also passed the ambitious George Floyd Justice in Policing Act which would ban chokeholds and qualified immunity for law enforcement.

    The US Capitol Police warned yesterday that it has “obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group” today. The House has cleared its voting schedule as a result.

  150. says

    Guardian US-politics liveblog:

    …The Senate is expected to start work on the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package later today, kicking off a days-long process to get the bill passed.

    Republican Senator Ron Johnson has said he plans to force Senate clerks to read the bill in its entirety, which will take about 10 hours.

    After the bill has been read, the Senate will begin its “vote-a-rama” on amendments for the bill, and Republicans plan to introduce many amendments to force Democrats to take uncomfortable votes on controversial issues.

    The vote-a-rama could potentially extend into the weekend, but once it’s done, the Senate will vote on final passage of the bill. Assuming it passes, the bill will then go back to the House, so the lower chamber can pass the final version of the package.

    With all that in mind, it seems likely that Joe Biden will be able to sign the bill sometime next week. The president has said he wants the bill on his desk by March 14, when extended unemployment benefits are currently set to expire….

  151. says

    VOA (AP) – “Inspector General Finds Misuse of Office by Elaine Chao at Transportation Dept”:

    The Transportation Department’s watchdog asked the Justice Department to criminally investigate Elaine Chao late last year after it determined she had misused her office when she was transportation secretary under President Donald Trump but was rebuffed, according to a report released Wednesday.

    The report said the Justice Department’s criminal and public integrity divisions declined in December to take up the case for criminal prosecution following the inspector general’s findings that Chao inappropriately used her staff and office for personal tasks and to promote a shipping business owned by Chao’s father and sisters. That company does extensive business with China.

    “A formal investigation into potential misuses of position was warranted,” deputy inspector general Mitch Behm wrote in a letter to lawmakers.

    Chao, the wife of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, stepped down from her job early this year in the last weeks of the Trump administration, citing her disapproval over the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol by Trump’s supporters.

    Chao has denied wrongdoing. In the report released Wednesday, she did not specifically respond to allegations, instead providing a September 2020 memo that argued promoting her family was an appropriate part of her official duties at the department.

    “Asian audiences welcome and respond positively to actions by the secretary that include her father in activities when appropriate,” that memo said.

    The watchdog report cited several instances that raised ethical concerns. In one, Chao instructed political appointees in the department to contact the Homeland Security Department to check personally on the status of a work permit application for a student who was a recipient of her family’s philanthropic foundation.

    Chao also made extensive plans for an official trip to China in November 2017 – before she canceled it – that would have included stops at places that had received support from her family’s business, the New York-based Foremost Group. According to department emails, Chao directed her staff to include her relatives in the official events and high-level meetings during the trip.

    “Above all, let’s keep (the Secretary) happy,” one of the department’s employees wrote to another staffer regarding Chao’s father. “If Dr. Chao is happy, then we should be flying with a feather in our hat.”

    The report found that Chao also directed the department’s public affairs staff to assist her father in the marketing of his personal biography and to edit his Wikipedia page, and used staff to check on repairs of an item at a store for her father.

    The IG report said Justice Department officials ultimately declined to take up a criminal review, saying there “may be ethical and/or administrative issues” but no evidence to support possible criminal charges.

    As a result, the inspector general’s office said in the report it was now closing its investigation “based on the lack of prosecutorial interest” from the Justice Department.

    Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, chairman of the House transportation committee, who requested the investigation, expressed disappointment that the review was not completed and released while Chao was still in office.

    “Public servants, especially those responsible for leading tens of thousands of other public servants, must know that they serve the public and not their family’s private commercial interests,” he said.

    Walter Shaub livetweets his response.

  157. says

    “To be super clear the Seuss estate announced they themselves had decided to stop actively publishing certain books.

    The Fox lemmings immediately spun this into government censorship and are now defiantly sending truckfuls of cash to the very company that made the decision.”

  158. says

    Bits and pieces of campaign news:

    * In a bit of a surprise, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) yesterday filed the paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for re-election next year. The Iowa Republican will be 89 years old on Election Day 2022. [I wish he had decided to retire.]

    * With Gina Raimondo joining the White House cabinet this week, Dan McKee (D) was sworn in as Rhode Island’s new governor. He will serve the remainder of Raimondo’s second term, which ends next year, and it’s not yet clear whether McKee will seek a term of his own or whether he’d face Democratic primary rivals.

    * In Wyoming, state Rep. Chuck Gray became the latest Republican to launch a primary campaign against House GOP Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.). For the record, I’d find it ironic if the congresswoman won re-election because her intra-party rivals diluted the anti-Cheney vote. [:-)]

    * Though Donald Trump has gone after Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) with a vengeance, and the former president is reportedly intent on destroying the governor’s career, the Georgia Republican told Fox News yesterday that he would “absolutely” support Trump’s candidacy if he wins the GOP nomination in 2024. [head/desk]

    * In Florida, a new Mason-Dixon poll found incumbent Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) leading state Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) by nine points and Rep. Charlie Crist (D) by 11 points in hypothetical general-election match-ups.

    * In the state of Washington, local GOP officials are reportedly pushing Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) to resign from Congress because she voted to impeach Donald Trump in January.

    * And in Missouri, former Gov. Eric Greitens (R) hinted last month that he might take on incumbent Sen. Roy Blunt (R) in a primary next year. This week, Greitens, who was forced to resign in disgrace in 2018, escalated his criticisms of Blunt — he complained that the senator isn’t pro-Trump enough — and said he’s “evaluating” the 2022 U.S. Senate race.

    Link

  159. says

    Why the new revelations about Ronny Jackson are so striking

    Three years ago, Trump said the allegations against Ronny Jackson were “false.” The Pentagon inspector general’s office says otherwise.

    About three years ago, Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, the White House physician at the time, appeared in the briefing room and was overly effusive in gushing about Donald Trump’s health. Describing the then-president’s condition, Jackson used the word “excellent” eight times, before celebrating [Trump’s] “incredibly good genes.”

    […] Almost immediately, Jackson became known as the White House doctor who delivered a cringe-worthy assessment of Trump’s health. As of this week, however, Jackson will probably be known for something far worse.

    Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, engaged in “inappropriate conduct” while serving as the top White House physician, according to a Pentagon inspector general […] The scathing report alleges abusive behavior toward subordinates including sexual harassment.

    NBC News’ report added that the inspector general’s review, first reported by CNN, says Jackson “drank alcohol, made sexual comments to subordinates and took the sedative Ambien while working as White House physician.” The watchdog also found that Jackson mistreated subordinates and “disparaged, belittled, bullied and humiliated them.”

    Jackson, two months into his first term as a Republican member of Congress, denied any wrongdoing.

    If these allegations seem at all familiar, it’s not your imagination. In fact, it’s worth taking a stroll down memory lane.

    Three years ago this month, Trump announced that he wanted Jackson to join his presidential cabinet as the secretary of Veterans Affairs. Jackson was clearly unqualified, but Trump liked the physician personally, appreciated Jackson’s over-the-top praise, and was wholly indifferent as to whether officials on his team were prepared to do the jobs Trump invited them to do.

    The process, however, collapsed a month later. There were multiple public reports about Jackson’s alleged pattern of substance abuse, harassing women, and creating a “toxic” work environment. Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) — at the time, the ranking member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee — said with a record of allegations like this, there was simply no way Jackson could be confirmed. Some Republicans reluctantly agreed.

    Trump went a little berserk, lashing out at Tester as a “very dishonest and sick” man who needed to resign from the Senate. (Tester was re-elected later in the year, despite Trump’s personal effort to tear him down.) The then-president, pointing to nothing in particular, insisted that the allegations against Jackson were “proving false.”

    The White House doctor’s nomination nevertheless collapsed, and now, according to the Pentagon inspector general’s office, it appears the allegations weren’t “false” at all.

    In theory, the revelations could do real harm to Jackson’s new career as a politician, but the Texas Republican currently represents the single reddest district in the United States, so the congressman probably isn’t too worried about the electoral fallout.

  160. says

    Giuliani Gets Dunked On For Crying Foul Over ‘Misinformation’ He Peddled

    Conveniently ignoring his history of pushing former President Trump’s falsehoods, Rudy Giuliani took to Twitter Wednesday night to fire off a tone-deaf tweet calling for the end of “misinformation” — which the former Trump personal lawyer is notorious for spreading.

    On Wednesday night, Giuliani got on a pedestal about the dangers of “misinformation” and how it endangers democracy. Giuliani’s months-long jaunt of fruitless legal battles contesting the legitimacy of the election process fed into the Trumpian rhetoric that incited the pro-Trump mob behind the deadly Capitol insurrection earlier this year.

    Misinformation has become a daily occurrence on social media platforms. If continued unaddressed, it will eventually lead to Jefferson’s worst nightmare of a poorly informed citizenry, which he saw as the greatest danger to democracy. [clueless Giuliani tweeted]

    Giuliani’s peddling of Trump’s false election fraud claims have even landed him in hot water with voting technology companies Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic that have become the center of debunked Trumpworld conspiracies. Both Dominion and Smartmatic allege in their lawsuits against Giuliani that he and Sidney Powell conspired to spread disinformation.

    Twitter users quickly called Giuliani out for, well, unwittingly calling himself out as the purveyor of misinformation.

    [Twitter snippets]

    Four Seasons Total Mindscaping.
    ——————-
    Rudy Giuliani warns of the dangers of misinformation, during keynote speech at global irony summit.
    ———————
    Guess what’s worse than misinformation, the President’s lawyer lying about the outcome of the election and working with foreign adversaries to interfere in the election. Also worse, what you did in the Borat movie. [from Clint Watts]
    ——————–
    When one gaslights one’s self. [from Keith Olbermann]
    ———————–
    Rule #1: find the adamant nut job with the wildest conspiracy theory and present that person in a court of law as an expert witness.
    ————————–
    If only there was a way to figure out the source of the misinformation ….

  161. says

    Dr. Anthony Fauci rebuked Republican governors who have decided to end restrictions put in place to curb the spread of coronavirus in their states:

    “I don’t know why they’re doing it, but it’s certainly from a public health standpoint ill-advised,” Fauci said during a CNN interview on Wednesday night.

    “It’s just inexplicable why you would want to pull back now,” Fauci added.

    “We’ve been to the scene before months and months ago when we tried to open up the country and the economy when certain states did not abide by the guidelines we had rebounds which were very troublesome,” Fauci said. “What we don’t need right now is another surge.”

    “First of all, they’re not arbitrary,” Fauci said of restrictions that have been put in place to curb the spread of the virus. “They’re based on evidence and data from science.”

    “We know that these interventions work. It’s very clear. When you implement them, you see the cases go down. When you pull back, the cases go up,” he added.

    “Now is not the time to pull back,” Fauci warned. “Now’s the time to really crush this by doing both public health measures and accelerating the vaccinations like we’re doing.”

    Yep, Fauci is right. And he stated the dangers clearly.

  162. says

    Far-right misinformation received highest engagement on Facebook

    Content posted from news outlets rated as far-right received the highest levels of engagement on Facebook in the months surrounding the 2020 elections, according to a new study.

    Moreover, researchers found that among far-right outlets, sources identified as spreading misinformation had on average 65 percent more engagement per follower than other far-right pages, according to the study released by New York University’s Cybersecurity for Democracy on Wednesday.

    The study evaluated a total of 8.6 million Facebook and Instagram posts between Aug. 10 and Jan. 11 downloaded from the tool CrowdTangle. Researchers used lists of U.S. news sources and their Facebook pages from two independent data providers that rate the political leaning and quality of media and identified 2,973 news and information sources.

    […] Far-left sources were a distant second in earned engagement, according to the study, even on days where engagement peaked for the more politically “extreme” outlets, such as on Election Day or Jan. 6.

    […] The study also found that far-right sources did not suffer what researchers deemed a “misinformation penalty,” meaning sources of misinformation from far-right outlets outperformed far-right pages that were not identified as sources of misinformation. Researchers define a misinformation penalty as “a measurable decline in engagement for news sources that are unreliable.” […]

  163. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Cuba has begun late stage trials of its most advanced experimental Covid-19 vaccine, edging closer to a potential home-grown inoculation campaign.

    The country started this week recruiting around 44,000 volunteers in Havana between the ages of 19 and 80 for its randomised, placebo-controlled trial of the two-shot vaccine in which some will receive a third booster shot with another Cuban vaccine candidate, Reuters reports.

    If the vaccine proves effective, Cuba has said it would inoculate its entire population of 11 million with what would be the first Covid-19 jab developed and produced in Latin America. Cuba said it would also export the vaccine and offer it to tourists.

    While Latin American and Caribbean countries are largely competing with richer nations to access limited vaccine supply produced abroad, Cuba has chosen to bet on its own shots even as it faces its worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic.

    The country’s most advanced experimental vaccine is Soberana, which means sovereignty, 2, reflecting national pride in Cuba’s relative self-reliance in areas like healthcare in spite of the crippling decades-old US trade embargo.

    Neighbouring countries like Mexico, Venezuela and Jamaica have already expressed an interest in acquiring Soberana 2 should it succeed. The large Phase III trial should be complete in November, with final results available in January 2022, according to Cuba’s official registry of clinical trials.

  164. says

    Oh, FFS.

    Why Hawley is now pointing to a 2020 ‘attack on the White House’

    Hawley would have us believe there was a left-wing attack on the White House, comparable to the right-wing attack on the Capitol. That’s ridiculous.

    For many Republicans, the idea that the left was secretly responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol had great appeal. After all, reality — it was pro-Trump forces that engaged in insurrectionist violence — made some right-wing elements right look like dangerous criminals, so it stood to reason that much of the GOP would embrace conspiracy theories about “leftists” being responsible for the riot.

    That line of argument will likely maintain some appeal indefinitely in unhinged circles, but FBI Director Chris Wray helped discredit the idea quite thoroughly in sworn testimony this week.

    And that, in turn, forced some Republicans to consider an alternative: maybe GOP officials can’t blame the left for attacking the Capitol, but they could try to blame the left for attacking the White House.

    Indeed, in apparent reference to social-justice protests held outside the White House last summer, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), reading prewritten remarks, insisted at a committee hearing this week that there was “a three-day siege on the White House,” starting in late May.

    There was no such “siege,” but as MSNBC’s Hayes Brown noted, one of Grassley’s colleagues echoed the sentiment.

    Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., upped the stakes Wednesday during a hearing with the head of the D.C. National Guard and officials from the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security. Bouncing off one witness’s answer, Hawley referred to “the events of the spring, which we’re all familiar with.”

    [Josh Hawley] went on to refer to last summer’s “attack on the White House,” as if it were an event we’d all remember.

    The subtext from Grassley and Hawley was hardly subtle. “Fine, there was a right-wing attack on the Capitol,” they effectively argued, “but there was also a left-wing attack on the White House, so the scales should be seen as even.”

    The problem, of course, is that there was no attack on the White House, at least not since the British set it on fire 207 years ago.

    As a Washington Post analysis explained, “Hawley’s framing is ludicrous. The protesters weren’t seeking to attack the White House, nor did they. In fact, the protesters in Lafayette Square just north of the White House were eventually the target of a violent effort to disperse them by law enforcement at the scene.”

    […] the Post’s analysis concluded, “If there had been an attack on the executive mansion as there was an attack on the legislature, Hawley might better wave away questions about his decision to oppose the counting of electoral votes. But that is not what happened.”

    Postscript: Both Grassley and Hawley emphasized that Trump was taken to a secure bunker during last summer’s protests, which is true. But at no point was the then-president in actual danger — it’s not as if protestors roamed the halls of the White House chanting about “hanging” anyone — making this largely irrelevant.

    Let’s also note for context that Trump brazenly lied about what happened, as then-Attorney General Bill Barr helped prove.

  167. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    After two consecutive days of record Covid-19 deaths in Brazil, the president Jair Bolsonaro on Thursday told Brazilians to stop “whining” and move on, in his latest remarks attacking distancing measures and downplaying the gravity of the pandemic.

    The country has the world’s second-highest death toll over the past year, after the US. While the US outbreak is ebbing, Brazil is facing its worst phase of the epidemic yet, pushing its hospital system to the brink of collapse.

    “Enough fussing and whining. How much longer will the crying go on?” Bolsonaro told a crowd at an event. “How much longer will you stay at home and close everything? No one can stand it anymore. We regret the deaths, again, but we need a solution.”

    Brazil’s surging second wave has triggered new restrictions in its capital, Brasilia, and its largest city, São Paulo. Tourist mecca Rio de Janeiro on Thursday announced a city-wide curfew and early closing time for restaurants.

    Particularly worrying to health authorities is the emergence of a new coronavirus variant from the Amazonas region that appears more contagious and more able to reinfect those who previously had Covid-19.

    “We are experiencing the worst outlook for the pandemic since it started,” said Gonzalo Vecina Neto, a medical doctor and former head of Brazilian health regulator Anvisa. “Mutations are the result of the increased reproduction of the virus. The greater the number of viruses, the faster the transmission, the more mutations we have.”

    State governors and doctors have complained that the federal government has mismanaged the coronavirus crisis, as Bolsonaro has downplayed its severity and opposed lockdowns. The government’s delay in acquiring and distributing vaccines means that less than 3.5% of the population have had at least one shot.

    Nevertheless, Bolsonaro’s popularity has been supported by 322 billion reais ($57.7 billion) in emergency aid payments to poorer Brazilians last year.

    The senate voted on Thursday to renew the aid program at a smaller scale, handing out 250 reais per month for four months, at a cost of up to 44 billion reais. The proposal must still be approved by Brazil’s lower house of Congress.

    France aims to vaccinate at least 10 million people by mid-April, 20 million by mid-May and 30 million by the summer, prime minister Jean Castex has said. Castex added that so far 3.2 million people have been vaccinated, including 1.8 million who have received two doses.

  168. says

    Follow-up to SC @150.

    Trump’s Justice Dept failed to prosecute cabinet members (4 times)

    In a normal term, having a cabinet secretary referred to the Justice Department for prosecution would be extraordinary. With Trump, it happened four times.

    First, there was Ryan Zinke. Corruption allegations involving Donald Trump’s scandal-plagued Interior secretary were referred to Justice Department prosecutors, but Trump’s DOJ declined to charge the Montana Republican.

    Then there was Alex Acosta, Donald Trump’s scandal-plagued Labor secretary, who was also referred to Justice Department prosecutors, only to have Trump’s DOJ decline to charge the Florida Republican, too.

    And who can forget Robert Wilkie, Donald Trump’s controversial VA secretary, who was — you guessed it — referred to Justice Department prosecutors, only to have Trump’s DOJ choose not to charge him, either.

    […] this club has a fourth member.

    The Transportation Department’s watchdog asked the Justice Department to criminally investigate Elaine Chao late last year over concerns that she misused her office when she was transportation secretary […]

    the allegations against Chao are pretty remarkable. Indeed, the list of possible transgressions isn’t short.

    For example, Chao was accused of retaining shares in a company that supplies road-paving materials, despite the fact that she was the secretary of Transportation. She was similarly accused of, among other things, using her position to arrange official travel and official government meetings intended to benefit her family’s business.

    Investigators determined that the corruption allegations against Chao were serious enough to be referred to the Justice Department, […] decided not to pursue the matter.

    […] each of these controversies were largely overlooked by the public because they were eclipsed by even more dramatic scandals involving the sitting president.

    As regular readers may recall, Trump declared with pride in 2019, “There are those that say we have one of the finest cabinets.” In reality, no one ever made such an assessment — and no one ever will.

  169. tomh says

    ‘It Is a Direct Challenge to Roe v. Wade’: Arkansas Lawmakers Send Bill Banning All Elective Abortions to Governor’s Desk
    JERRY LAMBE Mar 4th, 2021

    The state of Arkansas is one signature away from enacting the strictest anti-abortion law in the United States. Lawmakers in the state House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to approve Senate Bill 6 (SB6), a measure that would ban all abortions except in cases of a medical emergency where the procedure is required to save the life of the mother.

    The bill, which has already been approved by the Senate, passed the House by a vote of 76-19. It does not allow for any exceptions in cases of rape or incest.
    […]

    …it would immediately face vehement legal challenges—something Arkansas lawmakers are counting on in hopes that the high court’s new conservative majority will upend decades-old reproductive rights decisions.

    “Arkansas is asking and pleading that the U.S. Supreme Court take a look at this and make a decision that once again allows the states to protect human life,” the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Jason Rapert…

    That sentiment was reiterated Wednesday by another co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Mary Bentley.

    “It’s time for this decision to be overturned in the Supreme Court,” Bentley told her colleagues in reference to Roe…It is the will of the people of Arkansas to save the lives of unborn children and to help women in this state…

  170. says

    The delaying tactic employed by Ron Johnson may not buy him as much time as he had hoped:

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) proclaimed on Twitter Wednesday that he’s “going to make the Senate clerk read the Democrats’ $1.9 trillion bill. All several hundred pages of it.”

    Johnson estimated that it’ll take 10 hours to read through the whole COVID-19 relief package. It clocks in at 630 pages.

    Luckily, the clerks who will be forced to carry out that stalling tactic have a plan.

    “We can read two pages a minute,” Mary Anne Clarkson, senior assistant legislative clerk, told TPM matter-of-factly. “It won’t take 10 hours.”

    […] “We all know this will merely delay the inevitable,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said on the floor Thursday. “It will accomplish little more than a few sore throats for the Senate clerks who work very hard day in day out to help the Senate function. And I want to thank our clerks profoundly for the work they do every day, including the arduous task ahead of them.”

    […] Republicans will draw out the bill stuffed with critical COVID-19 aid as long as possible to try to bolster their complaints that the package is bloated with what they describe as unnecessary measures. Johnson has called it “abuse,” a “boondoggle” for Democrats.

    […] After the vote to proceed with the bill, expected to come this afternoon, there will be some procedural motions and hours of Johnson’s forced bill read. Then there will be 20 hours of debate before the “vote-a-rama,” when the senators will introduce their amendments, many of which will be just for show.

    Senate Republicans are hoping to force their Democratic peers into uncomfortable amendment votes to use on the campaign trail later. While it only takes 51 votes to pass the amendments, Schumer can introduce a final amendment at the end that would strip the bill of any changes.

    “It’s all about TV commercials,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) told CNN. “Make people accountable for their votes. There is not much they can do if they are determined to hang together there is nothing we can do to change the outcome. If they really want to do this, they can probably get it done.”

    Democrats are eager to get the package passed as soon possible, especially because of the March 14 cliff when millions of Americans will start losing their federal unemployment benefits.

    Link

  171. says

    DeSantis is giving vaccines meant for Black communities to wealthy white Floridians

    It’s no surprise that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis cares more about the rich than the economically vulnerable. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, DeSantis has not only downplayed the virus, but prioritized the health and safety of those he can profit from.

    While a majority of Florida’s eldest residents have struggled to not only sign up but receive their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, almost all wealthy people 65 years and older were vaccinated by mid-January, according to a community newsletter obtained by the Miami Herald. Additionally, those being vaccinated were ensured that despite most of the state being unable to receive their first dose, they would have access to both the first and second dose of the vaccine.

    […] But that’s not all. After prioritizing vaccinating the white and rich, DeSantis’ political committee raised at least $2.7 million in the month of February alone. Records indicate this is the highest amount he has raised in a single month since he first ran for governor in 2018. After the community was vaccinated, former Republican governor of Illinois Bruce Rauner, who is also a resident of Ocean Reef, wrote the DeSantis campaign a check for $250,000.

    While it is unclear where these communities got their vaccine doses from, according to the Florida Division of Elections, the only people from Key Largo who gave to DeSantis’ political committee live in Ocean Reef, the community that was prioritized for COVID-19 vaccines.

    […] while DeSantis’ office claims that they have been prioritizing vaccinating seniors, data indicates otherwise. The reality is DeSantis has been prioritizing wealthy and white seniors, with vaccinations meant for rural Black communities being given to wealthy white people. State records indicate that while 17% of the state’s population is Black, by the end of February only 5.6% of those vaccinated in the state were Black. Investigations into the racial disparities of vaccinations and DeSantis’ political selection process are being called for.

    But Ocean Reef isn’t the only example in which those vaccinated early in Florida were connected to DeSantis. Last month DeSantis set up a pop-up vaccine clinic for Manatee County residents. However, instead of offering the vaccinations to all those eligible in the county as advertised, the clinic was limited to people living in only two zip codes: 34202 and 34211. Those zip codes represent the most affluent areas in the county, with a majority white community. Additionally, it was noted that one of the communities with access to the vaccines DeSantis provided is home to the family of one of his biggest campaign donors.

    […] He then set up two other pop-up clinics with similar zip code restrictions in Charlotte and Sarasota counties, the Herald-Tribune reported. By selecting communities that get the vaccine, DeSantis not only makes political moves to his benefit but allows these residents to bypass state and local vaccine registration systems.

    […] DeSantis is clearly not only prioritizing the white and rich but profiting off of the craven move. Instead of working to vaccinate all residents in his state, DeSantis is playing political games in efforts to advance his career. Not only is he leaving out people of color and the most vulnerable in his efforts to vaccinate the rich, but DeSantis also refused to vaccinate teachers and educators under 50. As a result, CVS pharmacies in the state are taking matters into their own hands and vaccinating teachers despite age limits on vaccine recipients imposed by the state, the Associated Press reported.

    […] With one of the highest rates of coronavirus infection, Florida still lags behind in its prevention and vaccination efforts. Since the start of the pandemic, DeSantis has actively ignored efforts to stop the spread of the virus and seems to have no intention of changing his motives. His actions need to be investigated and he must be held accountable.

  172. says

    After recklessly lifting restrictions, Texas governor falsely calls asylum-seekers COVID risk

    Just one day after he recklessly lifted novel coronavirus pandemic restrictions, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is now trying to blame asylum-seeking parents and children for cases in his state, falsely claiming in a tweet that the “Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities.”

    With all due disrespect to the governor, he’s full of shit. “This is an utter lie, and it is even worse because it comes the day after Abbott ended all statewide precautions for COVID,” tweeted immigration policy expert Aaron Reichlin-Melnick. “In total, 108 people who tested positive have been released in Texas since late January. That’s not ‘hundreds.’ It’s not even 4 per day on average!” […]

    Abbott’s Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick similarly pointed his racist finger at asylum-seeking families. Recall that Patrick at the very beginning of the pandemic had suggested that senior citizens would be willing to sacrifice themselves to save Walmart or some shit. It looks like he and Abbott are now ready to kill more Texans, and are setting the stage to blame immigrants for their deadly shenanigans: […] [Video is available at the link.]

    […] Disgraced former speaker and forgotten politician Newt Gingrich also joined in on the racism, falsely claiming that “[t]he greatest threat of a covid surge comes from Biden’s untested illegal immigrants pouring across the border. We have no way of know how many of them are bringing covid with them.” By Thursday, the tweet was gone from his feed, but it was unclear if he deleted it or it was removed by Twitter.

    “The US has more Covid cases THAN ANY OTHER COUNTRY IN THE WORLD,” Jack Herrera tweeted. “And asylum seekers are not at fault.” There was likely no preventing all of our nation’s suffering amid this pandemic, but it did not have to be this bad. Instead, nearly a year ago today, the previous president went onto television to say it would just go away. Half a million dead later, it has not gone away.

    “He knows HIS decision to end the mask mandate will cause COVID spread & death just as his premature opening did last year,” El Paso Rep. Veronica Escobar responded. “His deflecting and distracting is bad enough. But his use of xenophobic fear-mongering is vile. He knows it fuels hate crime. Shame on you @GregAbbott_TX.”

  173. says

    Shimon Prokupecz:

    Federal investigators are examining records of communications between members of Congress and the pro-Trump mob that attacked the US Capitol, as the investigation moves closer to exploring whether lawmakers wittingly or unwittingly helped the insurrectionists.

    The data gathered so far includes indications of contact with lawmakers in the days around January 6, as well as communications between alleged rioters discussing their associations with members of Congress, the official said.

  174. says

    Did the Pentagon wait for Trump’s approval before defending the Capitol?

    Washington Post link

    Three hours and 19 minutes.

    That’s how long it took from the first, desperate pleas for help from the Capitol Police to the Trump Pentagon on Jan. 6 until the D.C. National Guard finally received permission to help put down the bloody insurrection.

    During those 199 minutes, the mob sacked the Capitol. People died. Overwhelmed Capitol and D.C. police were beaten. Lawmakers’ lives were jeopardized. And violent extremists defiled the seat of government, temporarily halting the certification of Joe Biden’s victory.

    “At 1:49 p.m., I received a frantic call from then-chief of United States Capitol Police, Steven Sund, where he informed me that the security perimeter of the United States Capitol had been breached by hostile rioters,” Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, commander of the D.C. Guard, testified Wednesday to a joint Senate committee investigating the attack on the Capitol. “Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency at the Capitol, and he requested the immediate assistance of as many available national guardsmen that I could muster.”

    Walker immediately alerted senior Army leadership — and then waited. And waited. Approval to mobilize the guard wouldn’t be received until 5:08 p.m.

    At best, this was a catastrophic failure of government. At worst, political appointees and Trump loyalists at the Defense Department deliberately prevented the National Guard from defending the Capitol against a seditious mob.

    The man ultimately responsible for the delay, Christopher Miller, had been a White House aide before Donald Trump installed him as acting defense secretary in November, as the president began his attempt to overturn his election defeat. Miller did Trump’s political bidding at another point during his 10-week tenure, forcing the National Security Agency to install a Republican political operative as chief counsel.

    Also involved in the Pentagon delay was Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, brother of disgraced former Trump adviser Michael Flynn, convicted (and pardoned) for lying to the FBI. Michael Flynn had suggested Trump declare martial law, and he helped to rile Trump supporters in Washington the day before the Capitol attack. The Pentagon had falsely denied to Post journalists that Charles Flynn was involved in the pivotal call on Jan. 6.

    Representing the Pentagon on Wednesday fell to Robert Salesses, who haplessly tried to explain the delay. An hour and six minutes of the holdup was because then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy “was asking a lot of questions” about the mission. Another piece of the delay: The 36 minutes between when the Pentagon claims Miller authorized the action and when the D.C. Guard was informed of the decision. “That’s an issue,” Salesses allowed.

    Curiously, the Pentagon claims Miller’s authorization came at 4:32 — 15 minutes after Trump told his “very special” insurrectionists to “go home in peace.” Was Miller waiting for Trump’s blessing before defending the Capitol?

    The Pentagon’s 199-minute delay looks worse in light of a Jan. 4 memo Miller issued saying that without his “personal authorization” the D.C. Guard couldn’t “be issued weapons, ammunition, bayonets, batons or ballistic protection equipment such as helmets and body armor.”

    The Army secretary added more restrictions the next day, saying in a memo that he would “withhold authority” for the D.C. Guard to deploy a “quick reaction force” and that he would “require a concept of operation” before allowing a quick reaction force to react. McCarthy even blocked the D.C. Guard in advance from redeploying to the Capitol guardsmen assigned to help the D.C. police elsewhere in Washington.

    Without such restrictions, Walker, the D.C. Guard commander, could have dispatched nearly 200 guardsmen soon after the Capitol Police mayday call. “That number could have made a difference,” Walker testified.

    Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, was incredulous. “There are three unarmed national guardsmen who are helping with traffic control … and they were not permitted to move a block away without getting permission from the secretary of the Army?”

    “That’s correct,” Walker replied.

    Miller “required the personal approval of the secretary of defense for the National Guard to be issued riot gear?” Portman asked.

    “That’s correct,” Walker replied. “Normally for a safety and force-protection matter, a commander would be able to authorize his guardsmen to protect themselves.”

    […] The Pentagon claims the restrictions were in response to criticism of the heavy-handed deployment of the National Guard in Washington during racial justice protests last summer. Maybe so. But Walker testified that when the police chiefs “passionately pleaded” for the Guard’s help on Jan. 6, senior Army officials on the call said it wouldn’t be “a good optic.” They thought “it could incite the crowd” and advised against it.

    During this moment of crisis — an attempted coup in the Capitol — the defense secretary and the Army secretary were “not available,” Walker testified.

    The nation deserves to know why.

  175. says

    The Senate voted Thursday afternoon to begin debate on President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief plan with the assistance of Vice President Kamala Harris to make the vote 51-50. Yes, Republicans unanimously opposed even moving forward on providing essential aid to the American people to get out of this pandemic.

    Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ron “Genius” Johnson became the face of the GOP, surpassing his usual ridiculousness in his opposition to the COVID-19 relief bill that 77% of voters support, including 59% of Republicans […]

    The relief plan will provide more funding to rural hospitals and to expanding broadband—so more for rural states represented by Republicans who are opposing the bill. At least Democrats are looking out for Republican voters. It will also provide more funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency for helping the homeless, and changes the formula for state and local aid to give smaller population states more money.

    Once again, Democrats are looking out for Republican voters. Especially those in Alaska, which will see its fisheries and tourist industry get some added boosts, along with the other small state aid. For all that, Lisa Murkowski, the senior Republican senator from Alaska, voted no on the initial procedural vote to bring the bill to the floor. But we’re all in this together, excepting the Republican lawmakers who don’t want any of this to happen.

    Link

  176. says

    TPM – “Cancel Culture: Jordan Cheers Capitol Threat Canceling House Vote And Stalling Dem Agenda”:

    Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), one of the fiercest warriors against the “cancel culture” boogeyman widely feared by conservatives, celebrated the House cancelling its session on Thursday due to the threat of another pro-Trump assault on the Capitol.

    “Maybe in a way it’s good, because in the next two weeks think about what the Democrats are going to do,” Jordan told Fox News on Wednesday night, ticking off a doomsday list of ways Democrats will “radically change” election and policing laws.

    “Maybe it’s a good idea that we’re not here,” the Ohio Republican repeated.

    Jordan also cast doubt on the seriousness of the threat.

    “I don’t know that the threat is that critical,” he said, adding that he had not received a briefing on the matter.

    “But my guess is this is probably not that serious,” Jordan asserted. “But I just don’t know for sure.”

    The Capitol Police announced earlier on Wednesday that they had “obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group” on March 4, which is the day QAnon conspiracy theorists falsely believe ex-President Donald Trump will be inaugurated.

    Law enforcement has heightened security on Capitol grounds in response to the threat.

  178. says

    SC @176, yes that good news about the increasing rate of vaccines per day.

    No, I still have not been vaccinated. I signed up on the waiting list before my brother did. He has been vaccinated and he has a second dose scheduled for March 16. I’m happy for him, but frustrated for myself. It seems there was some mistake when it came to contacting me. I have checked back three time and I still can’t get a good answer, nor can I get any assurance that I will be given an appointment for vaccination. As far as I can tell, the system here is only sporadically well-run. The rest of the time, incompetence and disorganization rule. Also, the supply of vaccinators does not seem to match the need.

    I am wondering if I have to move to Florida and make a cash donation to Governor Santis’s campaign in order to get vaccinated.

    Good new: so far I am still alive.

  179. says

    The Wasting of the Evangelical Mind

    New Yorker link

    It was among the most jarring scenes of the Capitol invasion, on January 6th. As rioters milled about on the Senate floor, a long-haired man in a red ski cap bellowed, from the dais, “Jesus Christ, we invoke your name!” A man to his right––the so-called QAnon Shaman, wearing a fur hat and bull horns atop his head, and holding an American flag—raised a megaphone and began to pray. Others in the chamber bowed their heads. “Thank you, heavenly Father, for being the inspiration needed to these police officers to allow us into the building, to allow us to exercise our rights, to allow us to send a message to all the tyrants, the Communists, and the globalists, that this is our nation, not theirs, that we will not allow the America, the American way of the United States of America, to go down,” he said. “Thank you, divine, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent creator God for filling this chamber with your white light and love, your white light of harmony. Thank you for filling this chamber with patriots that love you and love Christ.”

    Falsehoods about a stolen election, retailed by Donald Trump and his allies, drove the Capitol invasion, but distorted visions of Christianity suffused it. One group carried a large wooden cross; there were banners that read “In God We Trust,” “Jesus Is My Savior / Trump Is My President,” and “Make America Godly Again”; some marchers blew shofars, ritual instruments made from ram’s horns that have become popular in certain conservative Christian circles, owing to its resonance with an account in the Book of Joshua in which Israelites sounded their trumpets and the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. The intermingling of religious faith, conspiratorial thinking, and misguided nationalism on display at the Capitol offered perhaps the most unequivocal evidence yet of the American church’s role in bringing the country to this dangerous moment.

    […] more than a quarter of white evangelicals believe that Donald Trump has been secretly battling “a group of child sex traffickers that include prominent Democrats and Hollywood elites,” a core tenet of the QAnon conspiracy theory. […] nearly three-quarters of white evangelical Republicans believe widespread voter fraud took place in the 2020 election, compared with fifty-four per cent of non-evangelical Republicans; sixty per cent of white evangelical Republicans believe that Antifa, the antifascist group, was mostly responsible for the violence in the Capitol riot, […] white evangelicals are much more skeptical of the covid-19 vaccine and are less likely than other Americans to get it, potentially jeopardizing the country’s recovery from the pandemic.

    How did the church in America––particularly, its white Protestant evangelical manifestation––end up here? […] faith and reason are antipodes––the former necessarily cancels out the latter […] Cultivating the life of the mind, however, has been an important current throughout much of Christianity’s history, a recognition that intellectual pursuits can glorify God. [snipped examples]

    Evangelicalism in America, however, has come to be defined by its anti-intellectualism. The style of the most popular and influential pastors tend to correlate with shallowness: charisma trumps expertise; scientific authority is often viewed with suspicion. […] In 1994, Mark Noll, a historian who was then a professor at Wheaton College in Illinois, the preëminent evangelical liberal-arts institution, published “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind.” In the opening sentence of the book’s first chapter, he writes, “The scandal of the evangelical mind is there is not much of an evangelical mind.”

    […] The English Puritans who landed at Plymouth Rock and settled throughout New England had a deep scholarly tradition, which led to the founding of Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth. Puritan clergy were expected to be paragons of both learning and piety. American Christianity took a decisive shift, however, toward religious “enthusiasm,” as Hofstadter puts it, during revivals that swept the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, a period that came to be known as the First Great Awakening. […] Revivalism changed the nature of Protestant Christianity. Religious faith became more individualistic and less tethered to institutional authority; immediate experience took priority over tradition. A marketplace of religion took shape in America […]

    […] The social and intellectual upheaval of the late nineteenth century eventually led to a rupture in Protestantism. Some drifted toward theological liberalism, rejecting historically orthodox beliefs about Jesus’s birth, humanity’s need for salvation, and other supernatural parts of the Bible; others retrenched and formed the fundamentalist movement. Crucially, fundamentalists came to embrace a number of theological innovations that were previously not at all central to Christian orthodoxy, including premillennial dispensationalism––a focus on biblical prophecies as a road map to different epochs in history and, in particular, the coming of the end times––and a simplistic, literal approach to the Bible. […] Fundamentalists also believed that they needed to separate themselves from an increasingly secular society. […] “Evangelicals pushed analysis away from the visible present to the invisible future,” Noll writes. “Under these influences, evangelicals almost totally replaced respect for creation with a contemplation of redemption.”

    […] During the Trump era, it became clear that the wasting of the evangelical mind could even have dire consequences on American democracy. […]

    Recently, some pastors and other evangelical leaders have begun to express alarm at how unmoored some members of their congregations have become. More leaders in the American church need to recognize the emergency, but, in order for evangelicals to rescue the life of the mind in their midst, they need to acknowledge that the church is missing a vital aspect of worshipping God: understanding the world He made.

  180. says

    Lynna, gah, that’s so frustrating. I can’t get over how clunky the network of systems for getting appointments seems to be across so many states. I hope you’re able to get it soon!

  181. says

    USA Today:

    The state’s top health official said Wednesday he did not speak with Greg Abbott before the governor announced Tuesday he would end his mask order and ‘open Texas 100%,’ a decision criticized by public health experts, city and county leaders and President Joe Biden…. Two of the other medical advisers also said they were not consulted before the governor’s decision.

  182. says

    Thanks, SC @179. It’s good to know that someone cares and is wishing me well.

    In other news, Matt Gaetz makes friendly with white nationalists when they invade CPAC gathering in Florida

    Trumpist Republican politicians like Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz appear to be mimicking their role model’s ability to send comforting signals out to white nationalists while managing to keep them at arm’s length for the sake of plausible deniability. He showed how it’s done this past weekend at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s annual convention in Orlando.

    A cluster of young white nationalists attending the simultaneous America First Political Action Committee convention—organized by notorious “Groyper Army” leader Nicholas Fuentes—invaded the CPAC gathering, where Fuentes has been banned, on Saturday. They managed to find Gaetz, who took photos with one of the group’s leaders [photo is available at the link]—an outspoken neo-Nazi who uses the nom de plume “Speckzo”—and briefly conversed with them, apparently acknowledging his familiarity with Fuentes.

    The video of the interaction shows one of the Groypers asking Gaetz if he was familiar with Fuentes. Gaetz made an indistinct reply while walking away with an aide, pointing a raised index finger in the direction of the young men.

    Gaetz has a history of such dalliances with far-right extremists. In 2018, he invited notorious white nationalist Chuck Johnson to the State of the Union address, giving Johnson one of his tickets to the event. Gaetz claimed disingenuously that Johnson had just happened to drop by his office the day before to discuss their mutual political interests—which Johnson claimed were marijuana, bitcoin, Trump, and animal welfare—and a spare ticket had become available.

    In 2019, Gaetz hired a white nationalist named Darren Beattie to work in his office as a speechwriter. […] Gaetz later ran into trouble with House ethics rules for using taxpayer funds for Beattie’s salary.

    Fuentes himself had attempted to enter the CPAC convention hall on Saturday with a group of fellow “Groypers,” but was turned away by organizer and security. “CPAC sucks. It’s gay,” Fuentes told the people who had gathered to watch the confrontation. “We made our point. Masks don’t work. CPAC is gay. They’re not conservative.”

    […] “Speckzo,” whose identity is currently unknown but who has boasted on social media that he lives in New York and makes $100,000 annually from his online video rants, is noteworthy for openly embracing Nazism, denying the Holocaust, and expressing sympathy for Adolf Hitler. He also has said he considers electoral democracy a failure, blaming women’s suffrage and allowing poor people to vote, adding that he considers monarchy the best political system. […]

    “Speckzo” also managed to get a selfie portrait of himself with Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar […]

    Gaetz no doubt will claim he had no idea who he was posing with on Saturday and brush off the association. But the problematic aspect of the selfies he took is less who he associates with, but instead the kind of people who seek out his approval.

  183. says

    Guardian – “India’s top judge tells accused rapist to marry victim to avoid jail”:

    India’s top judge is facing calls to resign after telling an accused rapist to marry his schoolgirl victim to avoid jail.

    More than 5,000 people have signed a petition demanding that the chief justice Sharad Arvind Bobde quit after he told the government technician at a hearing: “If you want to marry [her] we can help you. If not, you lose your job and go to jail.”

    Bobde’s comments sparked a furore and prompted women’s rights activists to circulate an open letter that gained more than 5,200 signatures calling for his resignation.

    According to the letter, the defendant is accused of stalking, tying up, gagging and repeatedly raping the girl and threatening to douse her in petrol, set her alight and have her brother killed.

    “By suggesting that this rapist marry the victim-survivor, you, the chief justice of India, sought to condemn the victim-survivor to a lifetime of rape at the hands of the tormentor who drove her to attempt suicide,” the letter said.

    India’s abysmal record on sexual violence has been a focus of international attention since the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus. Victims are regularly subjected to sexist treatment at the hands of police and courts, including being encouraged to marry their attackers in so-called compromise solutions.

    The letter drew attention to another hearing on Monday during which Bobde reportedly questioned whether sex between a married couple could ever be considered rape. “The husband may be a brutal man, but can you call the act of sexual intercourse between a lawfully wedded man and wife as rape?” he said….

  184. says

    Guardian – “A few rightwing ‘super-spreaders’ fueled bulk of election falsehoods, study says”:

    A handful of rightwing “super-spreaders” on social media were responsible for the bulk of election misinformation in the run-up to the Capitol attack, according to a new study that also sheds light on the staggering reach of falsehoods pushed by Donald Trump.

    A report from the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a group that includes Stanford and the University of Washington, analyzed social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok during several months before and after the 2020 elections.

    It found that “super-spreaders” – responsible for the most frequent and most impactful misinformation campaigns – included Trump and his two elder sons, as well as other members of the Trump administration and the rightwing media.

    The study’s authors and other researchers say the findings underscore the need to disable such accounts to stop the spread of misinformation.

    “If there is a limit to how much content moderators can tackle, have them focus on reducing harm by eliminating the most effective spreaders of misinformation,” said said Lisa Fazio, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University who studies the psychology of fake news but was not involved EIP report. “Rather than trying to enforce the rules equally across all users, focus enforcement on the most powerful accounts.”

    The report analyzed social media posts featuring words like “election” and “voting” to track key misinformation narratives related to the the 2020 election, including claims of mail carriers throwing away ballots, legitimate ballots strategically not being counted, and other false or unproven stories.

    The report studied how these narratives developed and the effect they had. It found during this time period, popular rightwing Twitter accounts “transformed one-off stories, sometimes based on honest voter concerns or genuine misunderstandings, into cohesive narratives of systemic election fraud”.

    Ultimately, the “false claims and narratives coalesced into the meta-narrative of a ‘stolen election’, which later propelled the January 6 insurrection”, the report said.

    “The 2020 election demonstrated that actors – both foreign and domestic – remain committed to weaponizing viral false and misleading narratives to undermine confidence in the US electoral system and erode Americans’ faith in our democracy,” the authors concluded.

    …

    Out of the 21 top offenders, 15 were verified Twitter accounts – which are particularly dangerous when it comes to election misinformation, the study said. The “repeat spreaders” responsible for the most widely spread misinformation included Eric Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and influencers like James O’Keefe, Tim Pool, Elijah Riot, and Sidney Powell. All 21 of the top accounts for misinformation leaned rightwing, the study showed.

    …

    On nearly all the platforms analyzed in the study – including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – Donald Trump played a massive role.

    …

    …Trump had a unique ability to amplify news stories that would have otherwise remained contained in smaller outlets and subgroups, said Matt Gertz of Media Matters for America.

    …

    “Super-spreader” accounts were ultimately very successful in undermining voters’ trust in the democratic system, the report found….

    …

    Researchers said the refusal to take action or establish clear rules for when action should be taken helped to fuel the prevalence of misinformation. For example, only YouTube had a publicly stated “three-strike” system for offenses related to the election. Platforms like Facebook reportedly had three-strike rules as well but did not make the system publicly known.

    Only four of the top 20 Twitter accounts cited as top spreaders were actually removed, the study showed – including Donald Trump’s in January.

    Twitter has maintained that its ban of the former president is permanent. YouTube’s chief executive officer stated this week that Trump would be reinstated on the platform once the “risk of violence” from his posts passes. Facebook’s independent oversight board is now considering whether to allow Trump to return.

    “We have seen that he uses his accounts as a way to weaponize disinformation. It has already led to riots at the US Capitol; I don’t know why you would give him the opportunity to do that again,” Gertz said. “It would be a huge mistake to allow Trump to return.”

  185. says

    Guardian – “China unveils Hong Kong electoral changes as it tightens grip on city”:

    China’s top lawmaking body has formally unveiled plans to ensure only “patriots” can govern Hong Kong, as Beijing tightens its grip on the city with electoral changes including a vetting process for all parliamentary candidates.

    In an annual “work report” delivered on Friday to Beijing’s most important political meeting, Premier Li Keqiang swore to “resolutely guard against and deter” interference by external forces, amid growing international alarm at Beijing’s attacks on pro-democracy voices.

    Li also pledged to “resolutely deter any separatist activity” in Taiwan, and revealed significant economic and population goals for China’s future, including GDP growth above 6%.

    Li delivered his speech to 3,000 delegates of the National People’s Congress (NPC) on the first day of the rubber-stamping legislative body’s annual week-long meeting, which along with a parallel meeting is part of what is known as the “two sessions”.

    A draft decision was submitted to the NPC on Friday morning, said Wang Chen, the vice-chair of the NPC’s standing committee. The text is not yet public, but Chen flagged major changes to parts of Hong Kong’s mini constitution that govern elections, including a change in the size of the committee that elects the chief executive. The changes would also grant the committee new powers to “directly participate in the nomination of all legislative council members”, and establish “a qualification vetting system for the whole process”.

    “The rioting and turbulence that occurred in the Hong Kong society reveals that the existing electoral system in [Hong Kong] has clear loopholes and deficiencies,” Chen said, according to state media. “Necessary measures must be taken to improve the electoral system and remove existing institutional risks to ensure the administration of Hong Kong by Hong Kong people with patriots as the main body.”

    Willy Lam, a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told Agence France-Presse that the proposed vetting committee would allow Beijing authorities and Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, to disqualify any candidates deemed not to be fully loyal to the Chinese Communist party and “effectively wipe out any remaining opposition”.

    Hours after the announcement, Beijing’s liaison office, its highest representative in the city, said people “from all walks of life in Hong Kong have voiced their support”.

    “The situation has a solid foundation of the rule of law, political foundation, and public opinion,” the office said.

    The changes to the electoral system further strengthen Beijing’s grip on Hong Kong, after it announced a sweeping new national security law at last year’s NPC meeting….

  186. says

    Here’s a link to the March 5 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    From there:

    EU says pandemic has disproportionately affected women

    Women in European Union countries have been “disproportionately affected” by the coronavirus pandemic because they make up the vast majority of workers in health and other frontline jobs, according to the EU’s annual report on gender equality.

    The pandemic has also brought a rise in domestic violence against women, the EU’s annual report on gender equality said. Moreover, women have since had more difficulties finding new jobs.

    The report said:

    There is already ample evidence that the hard-won achievements of past years have been ‘rolled back’…progress on women’s rights is hard won but easily lost.

    Women’s overrepresentation in lower paid sectors and occupations, such as hospitality, retail, or personal services, make them particularly vulnerable in the labour markets struck by the COVID-19 crisis.

    In contrast, service sectors that were not as disrupted due to the nature of their activity such as information and communication, finance and insurance, primarily employing men, saw an increase in employment rates.

  188. says

    Politico – “Trump appointee arrested in connection with Capitol riot”:

    The FBI on Thursday arrested Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, on charges related to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, marking the first known instance of an appointee of President Donald Trump facing criminal prosecution in connection with the attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.

    Klein, 42, was taken into custody in Virginia, said Samantha Shero, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Details on the charges against him were not immediately available.

    Klein worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and was then hired at the State Department. As of last summer, he was listed in a federal directory as serving as a special assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and was designated as a “Schedule C” political appointee.

    Klein worked for a time in the State Department’s Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs before being transferred to the office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a former colleague who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

    On Trump’s 2016 campaign, Klein — also known as Freddie — worked as a “tech analyst,” according to Federal Election Commission records. He earned $15,000 there, according to a financial disclosure he filed when he joined the State Department. He was paid an additional $5,000 by the campaign in 2017, the FEC records show….

  190. says

    Reuters – “Exclusive: U.S. blocked Myanmar junta attempt to empty $1 billion New York Fed account – sources”:

    Myanmar’s military rulers attempted to move about $1 billion held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York days after seizing power on Feb. 1, prompting U.S. officials to put a freeze on the funds, according to three people familiar with the matter, including one U.S. government official.

    The transaction on Feb. 4 in the name of the Central Bank of Myanmar was first blocked by Fed safeguards. U.S. government officials then stalled on approving the transfer until an executive order issued by President Joe Biden gave them legal authority to block it indefinitely, the sources said.

    …

    The attempt, which has not been previously reported, came after Myanmar’s military installed a new central bank governor and detained reformist officials during the coup.

    It marked an apparent effort by Myanmar’s generals to limit exposure to international sanctions after they arrested elected officials, including de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who had won a national election in November….

    …

    The United States, Canada, the European Union and Britain have all issued fresh sanctions following the coup and the army’s subsequent deadly crackdown on demonstrators. The United Nations said on Thursday that at least 54 people have been killed since the coup. More than 1,700 people had been arrested, including 29 journalists….

  191. says

    TPM – “An Inside Look At How Trump Scrubbed Obamacare From HHS Websites”:

    There was no better symbol of the Trump administration’s plans for sabotaging the Affordable Care Act than how, soon after the inauguration, its Department of Health and Human Services prioritized erasing mentions of the law on its web page.

    The removals, as blatant as they were petty, quickly caught the attention of health care experts and portended a broader Trump effort to shirk its duties to implement the law, even after it became clear Congress was going to be unable to repeal it.

    But the extent of the erasure effort is only just now becoming clear. New documents recently obtained by TPM give a fresh view into how sweeping and systematic this purge of ACA mentions was, and how, four years later, federal public health websites are still devoid of key references to the law.

    The documents confirm long-held suspicions that the Trump administration ordered federal contractors to conduct an expansive keyword search for any place that the 2010 law was mentioned on the webpages of various HHS offices.

    The search turned up hundreds of examples, and without much apparent debate, many of those mentions were ordered removed. The administration wasn’t taking a scalpel to the Affordable Care Act’s web presence to make it more reflective of Trump’s goals for reworking the law. It was pounding the law off the website with a sledgehammer.

    While there were some carve-outs in the project for certain types of Obamacare references, other allusions to the ACA were scrubbed with seemingly no regard to the public health consequences of obscuring information about the law.

    Providers who might be looking for regulatory information on Obamacare policies no longer see a link to the law on the HHS’ main regulations page, thanks to the 2017 removal job. Women seeking information about contraceptive care had information withheld from them about the Affordable Care Act’s coverage requirements for those preventative services.

    The documents detailing the way in which mentions of the law were removed from federal websites were obtained by TPM through a 2017 Freedom of Information Act request.

    Indications that the Trump administration was making aggressive efforts to suppress information about the law — going far beyond how a new administration typically may boost or play down its predecessors’ policy initiatives — were picked up on in 2017, as Congress embarked on its repeal effort.

    The administration did not wait to see whether Congress would succeed before it remade the HHS websites as if the law didn’t exist. Nor did it restore the scrubbed mentions once Congress signaled it was moving on from repeal, a review of the newly obtained documents shows….

    Much more atl.

  192. says

    CNN – “House impeachment manager Eric Swalwell sues Trump and close allies over Capitol riot in second major insurrection lawsuit”:

    Former House impeachment manager Eric Swalwell has sued former President Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and Republican Rep. Mo Brooks in a second major lawsuit seeking to hold Trump and his allies accountable for inciting the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6.

    The new lawsuit filed on Friday by Swalwell, a California Democrat who helped to lead impeachment arguments against Trump for inciting insurrection, follows a similar suit filed last month by Rep. Bennie Thompson against Trump, Giuliani and the extremist groups the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys. Swalwell’s case makes some of the same claims as Thompson’s — citing a civil rights law meant to counter the Ku Klux Klan’s intimidation of elected officials.

    But it also alleges Trump, Trump Jr., Giuliani and Brooks broke Washington, DC, laws, including an anti-terrorism act, by inciting the riot, and that they aided and abetted violent rioters and inflicted emotional distress on the members of Congress.

    “The Defendants, in short, convinced the mob that something was occurring that — if actually true — might indeed justify violence, and then sent that mob to the Capitol with violence-laced calls for immediate action,” the lawsuit, in Washington, DC’s federal District Court, alleges.

    The lawsuits will unfurl as Trump faces mounting pressures in investigations by House committees that seek his financial records, as well as in criminal probes related to his private business and his post-election actions. He has not been charged with any crime.

    Friday’s suit could bump up against free speech protections for speakers at the rally, as well as immunity Trump could try to claim he had while serving as president. All of the elected officials in the lawsuit, including Trump, are named in their personal capacities in court, meaning they would use private lawyers and not be shielded by their public offices.

    But should either this suit or Thompson’s proceed, it would mean the former President and his allies would be subject to discovery and depositions, potentially exposing details and evidence that weren’t released during the Senate impeachment trial.

    Swalwell, who was locked down in the House chamber during the siege, claims Trump, Trump Jr., Giuliani and Brooks prompted the attack on Congress with their repeated public assertions of voter fraud, their encouragement that supporters come to DC on January 6, and in their speeches that day. Each man had told the crowd that Joe Biden’s electoral certification in Congress could be blocked, and that Trump’s supporters should fight, the lawsuit alleges.

    “Trump directly incited the violence at the Capitol that followed and then watched approvingly as the building was overrun,” the lawsuit said. “The horrific events of January 6 were a direct and foreseeable consequence of the Defendants’ unlawful actions. As such, the Defendants are responsible for the injury and destruction that followed.”

    …

    The new lawsuit and Thompson’s claims are likely to go hand-in-hand in DC’s federal trial court, potentially even before the same judge, Amit Mehta, who was appointed by Barack Obama. They may take months or even years to reach resolutions and proceed as the same federal court hears criminal cases against around 300 alleged rioters and other Trump supporters who came to Washington on January 6.

    Swalwell, in his lawsuit, is seeking an order from the court that forces Trump and his three allies to give at least seven days notice before holding any gathering of more than 50 people in DC or state capitols on important days related to elections, so the House member might have the opportunity to go to court to try to block the gatherings.

    Like Thompson’s lawsuit, the second insurrection lawsuit is also seeking damages but hasn’t named an amount….

  193. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Italy registered more deaths in 2020 than in any other year since World War Two, according to data that suggest the virus caused thousands more fatalities than were officially attributed to it, Reuters reports.

    Total deaths in Italy last year amounted to 746,146, statistics bureau ISTAT said, an increase of 100,525, or 15.6%, compared with the average of the 2015-2019 period.

    Looking at the period from when Italy’s outbreak came to light on 21 February to the end of the year, the “excess deaths” were even higher at 108,178, an increase of 21% over the same period of the last five years.

    The Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Italy’s top health institute, officially attributed 75,891 deaths to the new coronavirus last year, some 70% of this total excess mortality.

    Italy has continued to register hundreds of Covid deaths per day this year. Its updated tally stood at 98,974 on Thursday.

    Officially, Covid accounted for 10% of deaths in Italy last year with marked regional disparities.

    It was the cause of 14.5% of all deaths in the northern regions where the outbreak was first reported in Italy. In central areas it was responsible for 7% of all deaths and in southern ones it accounted for 5%.

    Of the 100,525 excess deaths last year, 76% of the total were among people over the age of 80 and 20% were among those aged between 65 and 79, ISTAT said.

    Also, Canada has approved the J&J vaccine.

  194. says

    Why the debate on the relief bill will be shorter than the GOP hoped

    Senate Republicans forced clerks to read the entire COVID relief bill. The party would’ve been better off, from their own perspective, forgoing the stunt.

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) followed through on his threat last night and forced Senate clerks to read every word of the COVID relief bill out loud. The time-wasting stunt, which served no substantive purpose, had the intended effect: instead of working, the Senate halted for 10 hours and 44 minutes to indulge the Wisconsin Republican’s wishes.

    The Senate wrapped up its work for the day a little after 2 a.m. — though a funny thing happened before all the senators exited the chamber.

    Under the procedural rules, at least one Republican senator had to be on the Senate floor during the bill reading. If not, a Democrat would motion to end the time-wasting stunt and there’d be no objections. As a result, Johnson spent several hours on the floor last night in order to protect his pointless gambit, occasionally being relieved by GOP colleagues.

    Once the reading of the bill was finished, Republicans left, satisfied that the exercise was complete and the hours had ticked by. But a handful of Senate Democrats lingered, and as USA Today noted, they got something they wanted, too.

    The Senate was originally set to begin 20 hours of debate on the bill Friday, but at the end of Thursday’s session, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., motioned for the chamber to reduce the debate time to three hours. With no Republicans left in the chamber shortly after 2 a.m. ET on Friday, Van Hollen succeeded.

    Got that? Once Senate Republicans left. Maryland’s Chris Van Hollen stuck around, asked to shrink the floor debate on the relief package from 20 hours to three. Republicans intended to use as much of the 20 hours as possible, in part to drag this out, and in part to attack the popular legislation.

    But since no GOP senators were there, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), who was presiding over the Senate at the time, banged the gavel and that was that.

    Just so we’re all clear, if Ron Johnson hadn’t bothered with the bill reading, the 20 hours of debate would’ve started yesterday. But because of the way Senate Republicans handled the process, they’ll end up wasting less time and having less debate.

    The party would’ve been better off, from their own perspective, forgoing the stunt — and giving the clerks a break.

    As for what to expect after the truncated floor debate, senators are gearing up for something called the “vote-a-rama”: a silly name for an exasperating process in which, thanks to arcane budget rules, senators can push non-binding votes on literally hundreds of politicized amendments.

    Those amendments must be deemed “germane” — which is to say, relevant — to the budgetary process, but Republicans are preparing several hundred attempts. During the last vote-a-rama, held exactly a month ago today, the process took 15 hours.

    The bill still appears to be on track for passage, but probably not until sometime tomorrow.

  195. says

    Cheney Scolds Gosar For Speaking At Conference Organized By White Nationalist

    House Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-WY) chided Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who was one of the leaders of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” cause that led to a violent insurrection, on Thursday for speaking at a conference that was organized by a white nationalist.

    “I think the organization that [Gosar] spoke to is one that has expressed views that are clearly racist,” Cheney told Politico. “This is not the kind of an organization or an event that other members of Congress should be participating in.”

    “I’ve been very clear about the extent to which we have to stand against white supremacists, stand against anti-Semitism,” she continued. […]

    On February 27, the Arizona Republican participated in a panel at the America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC), which was organized by infamous white nationalist Nick Fuentes.

    After Fuentes’ panel ended, Fuentes went onstage to bemoan the notion of the U.S. losing its “White demographic core” and “the influence of European civilization.”

    […] Several days before Gosar’s appearance at AFPAC, Cheney had urged Republicans to “make clear that we aren’t the party of white supremacy.”

    “It’s very important for us to ignore the temptation to look away,” she said.

  196. says

    Josh Hawley was right to worry, because the FBI really is reading his communications with insurgents

    […] New testimony from those present on that day [January 6], video not previously seen by the public, and evidence developed by investigation is revealing a situation that was even more violent, more destructive, and more threatening to the nation than was obvious from the jaw-dropping scenes that appeared on television screens.

    And in addition to evidence of destructive violence, there is also increasing evidence of involvement from Republican officials. That includes both a State Department official now wanted for taking an active role in the violence [see SC’s comment 187], and increasing signs of coordination between those breaking into Congress and the Republican legislators inside.

    […] emails, photos, and other documents collected from those present around the Capitol on January 6 is painting a more complete image of the actions of the pro-Trump insurgents. […]

    Included in this material is the story of a pair of Arlington firefighters who came to the Capitol on Jan. 4, and stuck around to assist the Capitol Police during what was expected to be a large protest. Instead, the two found themselves the only medics on the scene while operating right under the feet—and flagpoles—of an angry mob. Lost in the confusion and hemmed in by thousands of screaming Trumpists, the firefighters attempted to triage dozens of officers who had been injured, but had no way to get them to safety.

    Meanwhile, police were trying to respond to dozens of different threats that seemed to be breaking out everywhere at once. Not only were violent extremists grappling with police and bashing their way into buildings, there were threats of potential snipers in trees, a report that the Proud Boys intended to destroy the local water supply, the pipe bombs at both the RNC and DNC headquarters, and reports of still more armed militia groups incoming. Police were unable to concentrate forces at the Capitol steps, because chaos seemed to be happening everywhere.

    This explosion of violence may have appeared chaotic and overwhelming to the police, but it clearly did not happen without planning. And as CNN reports, some of that planning may have been coordinated by the people who police were literally dying to protect. […] a number of Republicans—most notably senators Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz—have repeatedly expressed concern about the idea of the FBI looking into phone records of those in Congress. Hawley in particular has fumed about this “violation of privacy” in multiple hearings.

    He may have good reason to be concerned. Because it appears that investigators are, in fact, checking out communications between members of Congress and some of the 300 people who have already been charged with crimes related to the insurgency. Some of this seems to be records showing that criminal insurgents claimed to be working in coordination with members of Congress. […]

    Investigators are not just looking at communications that took place on Jan. 6, but contacts between officials and the attackers over the period leading up to the insurgency. That might finally produce some information about the large tour that Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert gave in the days just before the assault.

    Those investigators might also want to take a look at the 2,000 page report compiled by Rep. Zoe Lofgren that looks at the social media of her Republican colleagues over the weeks leading up to Jan. 6.

    “This review lists public social media posts from Members of the U.S. House of Representatives who were sworn-in to office in January 2021 and who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election.”

    […] Investigators are also looking into the funding of the extremists who attacked the Capitol. While Republicans frequently make false claims about “antifa busses” and Black protesters being sent to locations by a Jewish billionaire, the truth is that numerous militia groups really did meet up at a series of locations and coordinate their arrival in D.C. And it seems entirely possible that those operations were funded by Republican donors […]

    […] Federico Klein, a former State Department aide appointed by Donald Trump, was arrested Thursday on multiple felony charges. On Jan. 6, Klein joined the insurgents confronting police in a tunnel beneath the Capitol. There he wrenched a riot shield away from one officer and used it to beat others. He also used that shield to hold open a door so that more insurgents could enter the building. At the time, Klein was an active employee at the State Department and enjoyed a Top Secret clearance. His appointment to the State Department followed a paid position in the Trump campaign.

    Ron Johnson will not explain how Klein was actually a member of an antifa sleeper cell.

  197. says

    Weird … and even more weird:

    Jacob Chansley, who has the gall to call himself the QAnon Shaman, wants you to know that he was only doing his civic duty during the insurrection of Jan. 6. In fact, he was there to stop a more serious crime from happening: wanton theft of baked goods.

    More specifically, the howling, shirtless conspiracy theorist with the horns and face paint claims he protected muffins from his fellow violent insurrectionists.As reported by the Daily Beast:

    The notorious “QAnon Shaman” has insisted his actions during the Capitol riot were not an attack on the United States—and that he can prove it because he stopped other rioters from stealing muffins.

    Jacob Chansley, who became arguably the most infamous Capitol rioter due to his furry and be-horned costume, has given a bizarre interview to CBS News in his latest attempt to beg for mercy. The first glimpse of the 60 Minutes interview was broadcast Thursday morning.

    The Daily Beast does a quick reality check:

    While preventing muffin theft is all well and good, the accusations against Chansley are very serious. On top of storming into the Capitol building, Chansley is also accused of leaving an ominous note for Vice President Mike Pence at his desk in the Senate chamber that read: “It’s only a matter of time, justice is coming.” That day, he was also carrying a spear attached to a flagpole, which prosecutors considered to be a weapon.

    [video is available at the link]

    But the interview of Chansley’s mother, Martha, by 60 Minutes’ Laurie Segall is most definitely the pièce de resistance.

    As Segall advises, it’s best to watch the whole clip [video clip is available at the link.]

    When asked if she thought her son did anything wrong, Mother Chansley bent over backward to keep their shared delusion alive.

    “He was escorted into the Senate. So, I don’t know what’s wrong with that,” she said. “I know that he is sorry but again it all comes back to he walked through open doors.” […] [She goes on to say that the election was not won fairly, that it was won fraudulently.]

    Wow. Just wow.

    Link

    https://twitter.com/LaurieSegall/status/1367499159125819398

  198. says

    Ayiyiyi, misogynist much?

    A state GOP lawmaker in Idaho apologized this week for making “misguided” and “sexist” remarks about mothers while coming out against a federal grant going to fund child care and early learning programs.

    State Rep. Charlie Shepherd (R) said he opposed the funds because, he argued, it jeopardized “the family unit” and encouraged mothers to “come out of the home.”

    “I don’t think anybody does a better job than mothers in the home, and any bill that makes it easier or more convenient for mothers to come out of the home and let others raise their child, I don’t think that’s a good direction for us to be going. … We are really hurting the family unit in the process,” Shepherd said in the Idaho House on Tuesday, the Idaho Press reported.

    The bill, which was struck down in a 36-34 vote, would have allowed child care and early education programs to be funded by a federal grant […]

    […] “My intent was to compliment mothers in every way possible. I stand before you now to admit that I failed miserably. After hearing my remarks played back, I recognize how my remarks sounded derogatory, offensive and even sexist towards the mothers of this state. … Single working mothers are the strongest and most courageous people that I know,” Shepherd said.

    […] Gov. Brad Little (R) supported the bill and said he will “try again” to address the concerns of those opposed to the bill. […]

    Concerns about the legislation included fears that the bill would push a “social justice curriculum” onto kids […]

    “We don’t dictate curriculum,” said Beth Oppenheimer, executive director of the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children.

    “The whole purpose of it is to ensure that families, child care providers, anyone who’s working and caring for children birth through age 5 has information they need to best prepare their child for school,” Oppenheimer said.

    Link

    Keeping Idaho locked in the 1950s, and preventing early childhood education. Good plan.

  199. says

    Wonkette: COME THE FCK ON AND PASS THIS FCKING THING

    The US Senate is moving forward with the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, AKA the American Rescue Plan, […] despite This One Stupid Republican Trick that was intended to drag out the process forever, but ultimately failed. Let’s look at where the hell we are with this thing, which will probably see a final vote late tonight or possibly over the weekend, depending on how much time Republicans and a few of our favorite Dems devote to delaying help for millions of Americans who are suffering through the pandemic and the resulting economic recession, both of which Republicans have made worse for the last year. […]

    The bill was initially moved forward for debate yesterday on a 51-50 vote, with Vice President Kamala Harris providing her first tie-breaking vote, not that we’re planning on keeping a running tally from here on. Then, rather than actually beginning debate, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-He Comes From Wisconsin) started the delaying tactics […] Johnson deployed a weird little Senate rule that forced the clerks to read the entire 628-page bill aloud, not that Republicans stayed to listen, because that wasn’t the point. The point was delay for delay’s sake.

    The reading took 11 hours in all, and when that was finally finished in the wee hours this morning, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer congratulated the Senate clerks for their endurance, noting “I can’t imagine that’s anyone’s idea of a good time.” However, the delaying tactic actually ended up backfiring for Senate Rs. Since very few Republicans could be arsed to actually hang around until the marathon reading session ended, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) introduced a motion to shorten what would have been 20 hours of debate to just three today, so Johnson’s delaying tactic ultimately moved the clock forward a net six hours.

    […] We’d imagine Senate Republicans may pledge to be a bit more diligent in their fuckery going forward […]

    In the lead-up to today’s three hours of debate, there has been another goddamn “compromise,” apparently driven by the Manchin wing of Senate Dems; this time, instead of the House bill’s plan to increase the emergency federal unemployment benefit to $400 a week through the end of August, the amount the federal government will pay over state benefits will remain at $300 a week, but the payments will extend through the end of September. Not that Republicans will suddenly fall in love with the bill. As with the narrowed eligibility for individual payments, we can only ask the party leaders Why the fuck are you doing this? The Republicans aren’t going to stop their stupid delaying tactics, for fuckssake.

    […] If any Republican signs on as a result, we will let you know, at least if we can be heard over the furious oinking of all the flying pigs.

    The change did come along with one sweetener, at least; the first $10,200 of those emergency unemployment benefits will now be non-taxable, which should head off some unpleasant surprises as people who are unemployed now do their taxes next year.

    Currently, we’re in one more round of vote-a-rama in progress, in which any senator can offer an amendment, and Republicans will bring as many amendments to the bill as they can think of, on everything from abortion to cutting Amtrak funding (you know, to rub it in the face of that train-loving socialist Joe Biden). The entire exercise is pointless, since at the end of the process, Chuck Schumer can introduce his own amendment to strip out any amendments he doesn’t like. Kamala Harris will no doubt be kept very busy breaking ties this afternoon and evening.

    As expected, Bernie Sanders brought up an amendment to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour by 2025; it was voted down, as expected, although we didn’t really expect eight Democrats to vote against it. Here’s the list of people to be pissed at, for future reference:

    Jon Tester, Montana
    Joe Manchin, West Duh Of Course
    Kyrsten Sinema, Arizona
    Angus King, Maine (Independent, caucuses with Democrats)
    Jeanne Shaheen, New Hampshire
    Maggie Hassan, New Hampshire
    Tom Carper, Delaware
    Chris Coons, Delaware and we thought we liked you […]

    Link

  200. says

    Paul Krugman:

    Relieving yourself in public is illegal in every state. I assume that few readers are surprised to hear this; I also assume that many readers wonder why I feel the need to bring up this distasteful subject. But bear with me: There’s a moral here, and it’s one that has disturbing implications for our nation’s future.

    Although we take these restrictions for granted, they can sometimes be inconvenient, as anyone out and about after having had too many cups of coffee can attest. But the inconvenience is trivial, and the case for such rules is compelling, both in terms of protecting public health and as a way to avoid causing public offense. And as far as I know there aren’t angry political activists, let alone armed protesters, demanding the right to do their business wherever they want.

    Which brings me to my actual subject: face mask requirements in a pandemic.

    Wearing a mask in public, like holding it in for a few minutes, is slightly inconvenient, but hardly a major burden. And the case for imposing that mild burden in a pandemic is overwhelming. The coronavirus variants that cause Covid-19 are spread largely by airborne droplets, and wearing masks drastically reduces the variants’ spread.

    So not wearing a mask is an act of reckless endangerment […] Covering our faces while the pandemic lasts would appear to be simple good citizenship, not to mention an act of basic human decency.

    Yet Texas and Mississippi have just ended their statewide mask requirements.

    […] We’ve made a lot of progress against the pandemic over the past couple of months. But the danger is far from over. There are still substantially more Americans hospitalized with Covid-19 now than there were, say, last June, when many states were rushing to reopen and Mike Pence, the vice president then, was assuring us that there wouldn’t be a second wave. Roughly 400,000 deaths later, we know how that worked out.

    It’s true that there is now a bright light at the end of the tunnel: The development of effective vaccines has been miraculously fast, and the actual pace of vaccinations is rapidly accelerating. But this good news should make us more willing, not less, to endure inconvenience now: […]

    And keeping infections down over the next few months will also help rule out a potential epidemiological nightmare, in which new, vaccine-resistant variants evolve before we get the existing variants under control.

    So what’s motivating the rush to unmask? It’s not economics. As I said, the costs of mask-wearing are trivial. […]

    Furthermore, a resurgent pandemic would do more to damage growth and job creation, in Texas and elsewhere, than almost anything else I can think of.

    Of course, we know what’s actually going on here: politics. Refusing to wear a mask has become a badge of political identity, a barefaced declaration that you reject liberal values like civic responsibility and belief in science. (Those didn’t used to be liberal values, but that’s what they are in America 2021.)

    […] These days conservatives don’t seem to care about anything except identity politics, often expressed over the pettiest of issues. Democrats appear to be on the verge of enacting a huge relief bill that embodies many progressive policy priorities. But the Republican response has been remarkably low energy, and right-wing media are obsessed with the (falsely) alleged plot to make Mr. Potato Head gender-neutral.

    Unfortunately, identity politics can do a lot of harm when it gets in the way of dealing with real problems. I don’t know how many people will die unnecessarily because the governor of Texas has decided that ignoring the science and ending the mask requirement is a good way to own the libs. But the number won’t be zero.

    New York Times link

  201. says

    Why the House police reform bill named for George Floyd matters

    The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is a police-reform measure, but it should also be seen as civil-rights legislation.

    […] the police-reform bill matters, too. NBC News reported this week:

    The bill, among other things, would ban neck restraints and “no knock” warrants in drug cases at the federal level. It would also reform qualified immunity, which is a doctrine that makes it difficult to sue officers…. The Biden administration threw its support behind the bill Monday. The White House said trust between law enforcement and communities can’t be rebuilt unless police officers are held accountable for abuses of power.

    The list of major provisions in the bill isn’t short. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act also bans discriminatory profiling at every level of U.S. law enforcement, mandates dashboard cameras and body cameras for federal law enforcement, and establishes a National Police Misconduct Registry to prevent “problematic” officers from moving between precincts and jurisdictions.

    Indeed, to describe this as a police-reform bill is accurate, but in some ways, the label is also incomplete: this should also be seen as civil-rights legislation.

    It passed the House on a 220-to-212 vote, which fell largely along party lines […]

    Regardless, the bill now heads to the 50-50 Senate, where Democratic leaders will no doubt try to advance it. We already know, however, that it faces long odds: even if conservative Senate Dems were willing to vote for the reforms, there’s no realistic chance 10 GOP senators would break ranks and end a Republican filibuster.

    But before we give up on the idea of progress altogether, it’s probably worth noting that some Senate Republicans did propose a reform bill last summer, in an apparent attempt to persuade voters that the GOP took the issue seriously in an election year. Sure, the bill was flawed. And sure, Republicans didn’t want to bother with hearings or buy-in from experts and stakeholders. And sure, the bill predictably died, at which point GOP senators quickly moved on in ways suggesting they didn’t really take the issue too seriously.

    But at least the Republican bill existed, and it’s hard not to wonder if the White House might try to reach out to its proponents to see if there’s room for some kind of compromise on the issue.

  202. says

    […] a new CDC report issued on Friday. That report drives home the facts that: “Mandating masks was associated with a decrease in daily COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days of implementation.” States that put mask mandates in place and kept them in place, have been rewarded with lower cases of COVID-19, lower hospitalizations, and a lower rate of deaths. On the other hand: “Allowing on-premises restaurant dining was associated with an increase in daily COVID-19 case growth rates 41–100 days after implementation and an increase in daily death growth rates 61–100 days after implementation.”

    Now, guess which way Republicans have been moving.

    […] It’s been understood from early in the pandemic that in-restaurant dining was one of the activities that was most likely to spread the disease. After all, packing people into close quarters in a situation where opening their mouths much of the time seems like a perfect formula for exchanging a virus in wholesale quantities. It’s understandable that restaurant and bar owners have been upset about the restrictions—especially since owning a restaurant is often a extremely risky proposition in the best of times. But populating restaurants to the level necessary to keep them profitable, and at the same time keeping them safe, may be simply impossible.

    […] Republicans may shout about early statements from Dr. Anthony Fauci, or claim that transmission of the virus through aerosol means masks are ineffective, but … they’re just wrong. Despite “experts” that claim masks don’t stop viruses, but can somehow block transmission of infinitely smaller oxygen molecules, the CDC, World Health Organization, and every serious academic study has demonstrated the effectiveness of masks.

    The new CDC report gives that effectiveness a big fat underline. In states that issued mask mandates, it took less than three weeks to find an associated decrease in daily COVID-19 cases. This same drop could be seen in counties and localities that implemented mask mandates even when the state government refused to take action.

    What is new is the the extended confirmation of just how strong the effect can be from these simple actions. A mask mandate profoundly affected the rate of growth of COVID-19 for the better. Opening restaurants for on-site dining profoundly affected that rate of growth for the worse. [charts available at the link]

    […] The mask mandate charts show that these were, on average, issued at a time when the rate growth of COVID-19 was increasing. In other words, governors put these mandates in place when things were bad and getting worse. Even so, the mask mandate rapidly turned the situation around, cutting the rate of growth to levels well below the point of implementation.

    […] One last time, the conclusion to the report:

    “Community mitigation measures can help reduce the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. In this study, mask mandates were associated with reductions in COVID-19 case and death growth rates within 20 days, whereas allowing on-premises dining at restaurants was associated with increases in COVID-19 case and death growth rates after 40 days.”

    The report also notes that with “the emergence of more transmissible COVID-19 variants” these measures are even more important.

    The effectiveness of the social distancing measures implemented to fight COVID-19 can be seen in another widely repeated statistic. The winter of 2020-2021 has essentially seen no sign of the usual flu season. […]

    Link

    Chris Hayes:

    This stat blew my mind: do public health measures like social distancing, mask wearing and hand-washing really reduce the transmission of viral respiratory illnesses? Uh, yes.

    Hayes’ tweet is accompanied by a graphic showing 174,037 positive flu specimens in week 7 of flue season from 2019 to 2020; and, wow, showing only 1,499 positive flu specimens in 2020-2021.

    https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1367699305411338241

  203. says

    Psaki: ‘We don’t take advice’ from Trump on immigration

    White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Friday defended the Biden administration’s immigration agenda as Republicans, including […] Trump, argue that President Biden’s rhetoric and policies have spurred a surge in migration at the southern border.

    Psaki responded directly to Trump during a press briefing after the former president issued a lengthy statement decrying the Biden immigration agenda.

    “We don’t take our advice or counsel from former President Trump on immigration policy, which was not only inhumane but ineffective over the last four years,” Psaki said. “We’re going to chart our own path forward, and that includes treating children with humanity and respect.”

    Trump derided the Biden administration’s immigration agenda, arguing that the reversal of numerous Trump era policies intended to restrict immigration had led to a crisis on the border.

    “The spiraling tsunami at the border is overwhelming local communities, depleting budgets, crowding hospitals, and taking jobs from legal American workers,” Trump said in a statement. “When I left office, we had achieved the most secure border in our country’s history. Under Biden, it will soon be worse, more dangerous, and more out of control than ever before. He has violated his oath of office to uphold our Constitution and enforce our laws.” [bullshit … and it is bullshit obviously not written by Trump, but by one of his more literate lickspittles]

    The Biden administration is grappling with a rapid influx of migrants, with thousands of unaccompanied minors being apprehended in the president’s first several weeks in office.

    […] the [Biden] administration is taking additional steps to try to get a handle on the rising number of migrants at the border, including opening additional facilities to house young migrants.

    “President Biden has asked senior members of his team to travel to the border region in order to provide a full briefing to him on the government response to the influx of unaccompanied minors and an assessment of additional steps that can be taken to ensure the safety and care of these children,” White House assistant press secretary Vedant Patel said in a statement late Thursday.

  204. says

    Cartoon: Texas Drops Precautions

    New Yorker link

    Shows a cowboy wearing one of his boots on his head as he rides bucking bronc. Another cowboy stands at a bar, drinking a glass of bleach. Yet another tries to rope a speeding pickup truck. Nice artwork by Barry Blitt.

  205. says

    Wall Street Journal:

    The Public Utility Commission of Texas on Friday signaled it didn’t intend to reverse $16 billion in electric overcharges that an independent market monitor had flagged as stemming from the state’s weeklong blackouts.

  206. says

    NBC News:

    President Joe Biden called off an airstrike against a second target in Syria last week after a woman and children were spotted in the area, a senior administration official told NBC News.

  207. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Watching the Reid Out on MSNBC. Joy is wearing a shirt/blouse with the message Good Trouble Maker. Clenched tentacle salute!

  208. says

    FBI Uncovers Communication Between Proud Boys Member And Trump Associate Before Riot

    A member of the Proud Boys was in communication with a person associated with the White House in the final days before the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, the New York Times reported on Friday.

    A law enforcement official briefed on the investigation told the Times that location, cellular and call record data revealed a call linking a member of the far-right hate group to the Trump White House.

    The FBI is investigating what was discussed which remains unclear at this point, and the official would not reveal the names of either party, the Times said.

    The connection revealed by the communications data comes as the FBI further examines contacts among far-right extremists, Trump White House associates and conservative members of Congress in the days leading up to the Capitol attack.

    The official said that the data revealed no evidence of communications between the rioters and members of Congress during the deadly insurrection. Records have shown, however, evidence of communications in the days leading up to Jan. 6 between far-right extremists who were planning to appear at the Trump rally and lawmakers, an official told the Times.

    […] The recent developments revealing communications between the Proud Boys and people associated with the White House highlights how extremist groups were given a platform in an administration that appeared at times to willfully defend them.

    […] More than a dozen members of the Proud Boys have been charged with crimes related to the attack, including conspiracy to obstruct the final certification of President Joe Biden’s electoral victory and to attack law enforcement officers.

    [snipped details of communications between Roger Stone and Oath Keepers].

  209. says

    Congressional Tweets Show ‘Antifa’ Capitol Attack Lie Forming In Real Time

    […] the lie begins to form in the middle of the attack. Check out Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) transition seamlessly from live-tweeting the hearing to sowing seeds of the antifa story.

    .
    @RepGosar OF ARIZONA = Objection sponsor. GOP #7.

    Details massive AZ election fraud compounded by AZ officials refusing to investigate fraud allegations, thus aiding voter fraud & election theft.

    DOORS LOCKED! CAPITOL COMPLEX BREACHED! CHAMBER DOORS LOCKED. SPEAKER LEAVES!

    HOUSE RECESSSED UNTIL ORDER & SAFETY CAN BE ASSURED.

    Rumor: ANTIFA fascists in backwards MAGA hats. Time will tell what truth is.

    Capitol Police Announcement: Capitol breach. Locked down! DO NOT LEAVE CHAMBER!

    That night, Brooks quoted an unnamed “retired Huntsville police officer” who’d been at the Capitol who claimed individuals had asked for his support attacking the police. “States he was ANTIFA,” Brooks wrote of one purported provocateur.

    Of course, the following morning, we get a lesson in responsibility from the congressman. “Please,” he tweeted, “don’t be like #FakeNewsMedia, don’t rush to judgment on assault on Capitol.”

    Does this mean Brooks will stop spouting his antifa lie? No. The tweet continues: “Evidence growing that fascist ANTIFA orchestrated Capitol attack with clever mob control tactics.”

    His evidence was pathetic: An unnamed congressman warned him Monday of an antifa threat, Brooks said, and Capitol Police had informed the unnamed congressman that antifa would infiltrate the rally dressed like Trump supporters. “Again, time will reveal the truth,” the wise congressman counseled.

    Brooks, like others, cited a Washington Times article that purported to support the theory, and which was later corrected and edited beyond recognition. (Today, the article is titled “CORRECTED: Facial recognition identifies extremists storming the Capitol.”)

    Originally, the post claimed “A retired military officer told The Washington Times that the firm XRVision used its software to do facial recognition of protesters and matched two Philadelphia Antifa members to two men inside the Senate.”

    But the retired military officer was unidentified, and eventually, XRVision itself called the article out: Its software had made no such determination. The article was based on a lie.

    Around the same time Gaetz tweeted the article, a few minutes after 9 p.m., another looming presence on Lofgren’s report — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — shared the same post.

    “We’ve seen what they’ve done all year long,” she wrote.

  211. says

    Now Marjorie Taylor Greene is irritating her own GOP colleagues:

    Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s efforts to delay congressional business by forcing futile procedural votes to adjourn the House each day are disrupting committee hearings and virtual constituent meetings — and ticking off a growing chorus of Republican colleagues.

    Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.) had to rush out of a committee hearing with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on monetary policy. Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) had to step out of a video conference with an international conservation group. And Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) had to halt a Zoom meeting with local chambers of commerce from the Great Lakes region.

    “Aggravated,” Wagner replied when asked by The Hill how she felt about having to vote on one of Greene’s motions to adjourn one recent morning.

    […] Greene’s guerilla tactics are also inflicting pain on her GOP colleagues, who have complained that they serve no purpose and interrupt the flow of the workday for lawmakers, particularly meetings that are planned around anticipated vote schedules.

    Some point out the irony: Greene complained that ousting her from committees “stripped my district of their voice” and “stripped my voters of having representation to work for them.” Now, Republicans are turning the tables on Greene, arguing that her obstruction is making them less effective at representing their own constituents. […]

    Link

  212. says

    Follow-up to comment 209.

    The Senate finished its vote. Romney voted “no” on the rescue plan. Senator Murkowski from Alaska also voted “no.” That’s bad. One of Murkowski’s amendments offered on the bill yesterday was approved! That didn’t help.

    Dan Sullivan, also from Alaska, did not vote. He had to return to Alaska for a family emergency.

    It looks like the vote will be 50 “aye” and 49 “no.” The bill will be passed along party lines. Kamala Harris will not be required to come in today to break a tie.

    The good news: passage of this bill marks the beginning of the end for the pandemic. We will eventually get control.

  213. says

    The Senate on Saturday approved a sweeping coronavirus relief bill strictly on a party-line vote after a marathon session, giving Democrats their first legislative victory since reclaiming the majority.

    Democrats cheered the 50-49 vote as it was gaveled closed. […]

    The package provides another round of stimulus checks, aid for state and local government, and more help for small businesses and schools.

    The Senate was in session for more than 24 hours, including all night Friday and well into Saturday, ahead of the final vote as Democrats fended off attempts by GOP senators to make changes to the legislation, which now has to go back to the House before it can be sent to President Biden’s desk.

    The hours-long debate wasn’t without a significant injection of chaos as Democrats tried to navigate their first big legislative battle with a narrow 50-50 majority that required all Democrats to stick together in order to pass the bill.

    Democrats started their first amendment vote at 11:03 a.m., and held it open for nearly 12 hours as they tried to negotiate a deal on the unemployment language. […]

    Link

  214. says

    From Josh Marshall:

    The passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill is a massive political triumph. In the nature of online conversations there’s focus on the negatives. But it is difficult to convey how surprising and remarkable it is they managed to get this bill through all but untouched. This was a very aggressive proposal and almost certainly part of that was an effort to make a high opening bid because the need to get literal unanimity in the 50 senator Democratic caucus would get it whittled down. But they got it through all but untouched.

    But I’ll say this again. A big, consistent and concerted messaging plan is critical to explain to the public just what is in the bill, how those things which are in it will connect to events over the next year and where everyone stood. There’s time. But I see little evidence of that happening so far. And it is critical because – as I keep saying – everything that happens from January 20th on needs to be part of an argument to voters (an explicit and voluble argument) about why they should keep Democrats in power in the 2022 midterm election.

  215. says

    A few more details about the process that led up to passage of the American Rescue plan:

    […] Out of the nearly 600 Republican amendments, only a fraction were brought to the floor and most were defeated. Sen. Susan Collins tried to replace the entire bill with her $650 billion proposal and failed; oddly, Sen. Josh Hawley voted with Democrats on that one. Sen. Marco Rubio tried to tie school funding to reopening for in-person instruction, and failed. An alternative amendment from Democrat Sen. Maggie Hassan was adopted, requiring that elementary and secondary schools that receive aid release their plans for a “safe return to in-person instruction” within 30 days of receiving the funds.

    The worst poison came from freshman Republican Tommy Tuberville, an anti-trans effort that would have stripped federal funding to “(s)tates, local educational agencies, and institutions of higher education that permit any student whose biological sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity designed for women or girls.” It required 60 votes, but failed on party lines anyway—with two exceptions: Manchin voted for it, Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski against. Another attempt from Sen. Ted Cruz to bar undocumented immigrants from getting survival checks failed, with Democrats holding together against him.

    Those survival checks, by the way, have not been altered from the last agreement Democrats came to: $1,400 one-time payment to everyone, adults and children, including adult dependents; people making up to $75,000/annually, $150,000 for couples filing jointly, receive the full payments, cutting off at $80,000 for single people, $160,000 for couples. That is based on 2019 income for those who have not filed their 2020 returns yet, so if you had a big loss of income in 2020, get your taxes filed.

    The Senate’s bill will have to go back to the House for another vote, as it has been changed pretty substantially from that version.

    Link

  216. says

    America may never reach ‘herd immunity,’ thanks to anti-vax Republicans

    The actions of Republican governors—like Texas’ Greg Abbott or Mississippi’s Tate Reeves—who are outlawing mask mandates and insisting that businesses rush back to full capacity, are an obvious threat to public health […] However, they may not be the worst thing that Republicans are doing to extend the pandemic in the United States and bring a fourth wave of disease and deaths.

    […] When Biden came into office, not enough vaccines had been secured to provide for all American adults. Biden moved quickly to change that, and by the end of February, announced that vaccines would be available by the end of July. Then, after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine gained approval, Biden moved again, using the Defense Production Act to secure additional manufacturing from Merck and accelerate other vaccine deliveries. As a result, Biden announced on Tuesday that enough vaccine for all American adults would be available by the end of May; enough vaccine for 75% of adults should be available by April.

    All of that rightly has many Americans feeling the end is in sight. After a seemingly endless year of horrors in which death from COVID-19 has become so common that 2,000 Americans dying each day doesn’t even merit a mention on national news, there seems to be a genuine light at the end of this dark tunnel. But that light could still be an oncoming train, as it’s not just Republican governors doing everything they can to throw a spanner into the works.

    […] For weeks, polling results from Civiqs have shown that there are some groups in America still don’t intend to be vaccinated. When the first polls were taken back in November, that included 65% of Black people, who were either unsure about the vaccine or determined not to take it. Considering the long history of the United States government either treating the Black population like experimental subjects, or failing to collect data on Black patients when conducting medical research, that apprehension was understandable. […]

    But with Biden in office, science clearly back in vogue at the White House, and a regular, reasoned message on COVID-19, the number of Black Americans who intend to take the vaccine has steadily improved. That 65% of unsure/no response in polling back in November dropped to 36% by the end of January. It’s currently at 27%.

    It’s now white Americans who stand in the way of vaccine rollout. Back in November, 27% of white Americans placed themselves in the solidly anti-vax “no” category. That number hasn’t changed in the last four months. The number who are “unsure” has declined, but still stands at 11%. That means that over a third of white American adults have not committed to getting the vaccine. […]

    Before moving on from the racial aspect of this issue, it’s also important to note that, despite having a higher desire for the vaccine than white Americans, when it comes to actually being vaccinated, Black Americans are running well behind. Why? Because vaccine distribution continues to be left to the states, where governors favor white rural areas and suburbs. Vaccine has been handed out as a reward to counties that voted big for Republican governors, and as a favor to big-money donors. Meanwhile, areas with higher Black populations have been shortchanged. That’s before factoring in a system where actually getting that vaccine is often dependent on good internet access.

    […] Fully 41% of Republicans are a solid “no” on the vaccine. Another 15% are unsure. Compare that to Democrats where just 5% are no and 7% are unsure. White Democrats are even more likely that Black Democrats to say “yes” to vaccine.

    […] Just as happened with masks, being vaccinated for COVID-19 has become an issue so politicized, that a majority of Republicans are unwilling to take a basic step to protect themselves from a deadly disease. […]

    The overall result of this is that a quarter of all American adults are currently a “no” on COVID-19 vaccination, and another 11% are unsure. So even as President Biden makes vaccine available to every American adult, it seems entirely possible that a third of those adults will pass. […]

    That’s a formula that makes it almost inevitable that COVID-19 won’t go away. The numbers will certainly drop, but the disease will stick around, rumbling through the remaining population as an endemic infection, coughing up new variants and constantly threating to become evasive of vaccines or capable of reinfecting those who have already suffered through a previous bout. It means that thousands more will die. […]

    Pew Research looked at the same topic this week. Their findings tracked almost exactly with those of Civiqs.

    […] Republican governors stripping away mask mandates and removing social distancing limits is an immediate threat to public health, but the anti-vax sentiment that has settled in among Republican voters may be the greater threat, especially over the long term.

  217. says

    These 22 companies donated to sponsors of voter suppression bills

    With more than 50 bills threatening to further restrict voting rights in Georgia, state Democrats have taken their fight to protect voting rights up a notch and are demanding corporate interests align with Black voters, for once. A consortium of voting and civil rights organizations from the Georgia NAACP to the voter registration nonprofit New Georgia Project kickstarted a campaign this week to “divest support from ALL elected officials” looking to pass bills that enable voter suppression.

    LaTosha Brown, a co-founder of the voter outreach organization Black Voters Matter, tweeted her support for the initiative on Thursday. “Black people spend $106+ Billion in the Georgia economy,” she said in the tweet. “We expect the businesses that we support to SUPPORT us and fight against racist policies that undermine voting rights. […]”

    The campaign took root after the independent journalism site Popular Information reported top corporations in the state that have since 2018 given millions of dollars to Republican lawmakers supporting proposed legislation to restrict voting rights. AT&T donated $99,700; Aetna/CVS/Caremark gave $43,300; and even Lyft gave $6,000, the news site reported.

    It listed Walmart, SunTrust/Truist, UnitedHealth, Publix, General Motors, Home Depot, UPS, Coca-Cola, Southern Company, Comcast, and Delta Air Lines as companies that have given more than $20,000 to GOP legislators backing restrictive voting bills. Others on the list include Pfizer, AllState, Anthem/BCBS Georgia, Anheuser-Busch, Verizon, Walgreens, T-Mobile, and Aflac. […]

  218. says

    Wonkette: “Senate Passes COVID Relief Bill Along Party Lines, Because Republicans Don’t Care About Other People.”

    It’s over! Finally! Well, sort of, anyway! The Senate voted this morning to pass the COVID relief bill, bringing relief to the many Americans who are currently struggling to make ends meet during the pandemic, as well as to the businesses that rely on those Americans being able to spend money.

    The final vote was 50-49, with all Republicans voting against, except for Dan Sullivan of Alaska, who was not present for the vote. […] The bill will include $1400 checks, funding for vaccine distribution, and money to help schools and colleges open up once our long national nightmare is over. […]

    Mitch McConnell, of course, was a regular Mitch McConnell about it.

    Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., countered that “the Senate has never spent $2 trillion in a more haphazard way or through a less rigorous process.”

    Seems like it was actually pretty darn rigorous. And he should be happy, frankly, because it’s still less than many economists think we need for our economy to recover from the pandemic.

    We all pay taxes […] and the reason that we pay them is so we can survive things like this. It sure would be silly (and counterproductive!) to spend almost a trillion every year on a military supposedly meant to protect us from international bad guys only to let a virus just lay waste to our entire country.

    […] what [the bill] does do is pretty great and will be very helpful to people.

    – Provides most Americans earning up to $75,000 a $1,400 stimulus check.
    – Extends a $300 weekly federal boost to unemployment benefits through August
    – Sends $350 billion to state and local governments whose revenue has declined because of COVID-19’s impact on the economy.
    – Allocates $130 billion to help fully reopen schools and colleges.
    – Allots $30 billion to help renters and landlords weather economic losses.
    – Devotes $50 billion for small-business assistance.
    – Dedicates $160 billion for vaccine development, distribution and related needs.
    – Expands the child tax credit up to $3,600 per child.

    So that’s nice!

    The bill will now go back to the House, which will likely vote to approve […] the revised bill on Monday. The goal is to get it passed and signed by President Biden by mid-March, before the current unemployment boost expires. Fingers crossed!

  219. says

    Wonkette:

    Let all subjects be advised: Princess Goya von Nepotism will not be speaking about politics today. According to CNN, Ivanka Trump is “so over the political bubble she has told friends and colleagues of late to not utter anything to do with Washington.” Not a word!

    Four years of playing dress-up as a Very Serious DC Professional Person has taken its toll, and now she’s going back to being the feckless heiress she always was. As has Jared, the Boy Wonder, who would prefer not to be associated with the Fat Elvis stage of his father-in-law’s decline.

    “Right now, he’s just checked out of politics,” a friend said of Kushner, who recently packed up his family and moved to Miami.

    Trump is currently holed up at Mar-a-Lago plotting his own ’68 Comeback Tour with what remains of his motley crew, but Kushner has had a lifetime’s worth of breathing in Brad Parscale’s beer farts and watching Jason Miller spritz Binaca in his face every time he sees Hope Hicks coming.

    Even so, Kushner’s pals are shocked to see the recent Tech Guru/Opiate Czar/Middle East Envoy/Trade Deal Negotiator/Chief MBAsplainer on the White House COVID Task Force just cut himself off from politics completely.

    “That’s about as 180 a turn as he could ever make,” a source who worked inside the Trump White House with Kushner told CNN. “This was a guy who for four years did everything on behalf of President Trump. He lived that job.”

    […] Two sources told CNN that Kushner and Trump’s relationship has been “fractured” since November, with the old man blaming his son-in-law for the election loss.

    So Trump is “blaming his son-in-law for the election loss.” Now that’s funny. LOL

    “We know the boss isn’t going to blame himself,” one said. But he will take credit for Republican House pickups and Mitch McConnell’s come from behind victory in … Kentucky.

    Kushner hasn’t shaken DC off entirely, though. Old habits — and delusions! — die hard, and the young prince still fancies himself a GOP power broker.

    “He is trying to be someone you would go to on the Republican side to put a deal together,” a source told CNN. Through gales of laughter, we assume.

    […] “Trump’s advisers have discussed identifying a Black or female running mate for his next run, and three of the people familiar with the matter said Pence likely won’t be on the ticket.”

    Ooooooh, a lady! Well, Princess may have no presidential qualifications, but she does have aspirations! So perhaps she’ll be back at Daddy’s side, with an official residence in a state other than Florida, by 2022.

    If not, she and Jared can always retreat back into their money or their vast carelessness […] Let Bill Stepien and Dan Scavino clean up the mess — isn’t that what the help is for?

    Link

  220. says

    “Biden administration rushes to accommodate border surge, with few signs of plans to contain it.”

    Washington Post link

    As the Biden administration races to find shelter for a fast-growing migration surge along the Mexico border, they are handling the influx primarily as a capacity challenge. The measures they have taken are aimed at accommodating the increase, not to contain it or change the upward trend.

    The administration has quickly turned detention centers into rapid-processing hubs for families with young children, relaxed shelter capacity rules aimed at lessening the spread of the coronavirus, deployed hundreds of backup border agents to the busiest crossings and tried to mobilize the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with coronavirus testing and quarantining those who test positive. With bed space filling quickly, officials have drafted plans to put families in hotels in Texas and Arizona.

    On several days this week, U.S. agents took more than 4,000 migrants into custody, nearly double the number in January. Roughly 350 teens and children have been crossing the U.S. border without their parents each day in recent weeks, four times as many as last fall, and many are stuck for days in dour detention cells waiting for shelter openings. While most adult migrants are turned away, unaccompanied minors are allowed to stay, as are some families with young children.

    […] Theresa Cardinal Brown, an immigration analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, said the administration is treating the strain as a logistical and operational problem […]

    Minors arriving without their parents are the one group not being returned to Mexico under Biden, and their fast-growing numbers have created the most immediate challenge. One agent in Arizona described grim conditions at a Border Patrol station where dozens of teens have been waiting for as long as six days for space to open up in shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services, despite U.S. laws mandating their transfer within 72 hours. Agents brought in soccer balls and sports equipment for the teens to play with in the garage area of the station. “As a parent with kids, it’s tough to see,” said the agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.

    […] “I think the end goal is to be able to hear as quickly as possible the asylum claims of all those who need protection,” Isacson said. “But they’re not going to swing the gates open.” […]

  221. tomh says

    WaPo:
    Trump sends cease-and-desist letter to GOP organizations to stop fundraising off his name
    Amy B Wang, March 6, 2021

    Former president Donald Trump has sent a cease-and-desist letter to at least three Republican organizations demanding they stop using his name and likeness to fundraise, two Trump advisers confirmed Saturday.

    The letter, which was first reported by Politico, was sent to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee…

    Now, if they would pay for the privilege, I’m sure something could be worked out.

  222. KG says

    Republican governors stripping away mask mandates and removing social distancing limits is an immediate threat to public health, but the anti-vax sentiment that has settled in among Republican voters may be the greater threat, especially over the long term. – Lynna, OM@215 quoting Mark Sumner@Daily Kos

    Early in the pandemic, I speculated (I don’t recall if I posted the speculations here) on the possibility that the world would become divided into states that had eliminated the virus, those that had completely failed to do so, and those that kept it suppressed at a low level, but couldn’t expunge it entirely – with continued limits on travel from more to less infected countries. Of course at that point, we didn’t know when or even whether vaccines would be developed, whether infection produced immunity, what the long-term sequels of infection might be in survivors, or how the virus itself might evolve; and indeed, there’s still a lot about these factors that remains unknown. In the medium term, it seems likely that only rich countries, and small island states, will be able to maintain or achieve complete elimination, but one thing I never guessed at was that the viral pandemic would be accompanied and intensified by one of anti-science conspiracist idiocy. It’s beginning to look likely that this will be the determining factor in where the virus becomes endemic in the longer term. And those countries that have eliminated it will want to maintain travel restrictions on those where it’s endemic, indefinitely, even after they have vaccinated enough of their population to prevent the known variants setting off a new epidemic – for fear of the entry of an unknown and vaccine-evading one. This whole story is still in its early stages.

  223. tomh says

    NYT:
    Parents urged children to burn masks at a demonstration on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol.
    Anushka Patil

    A group of parents urged their children to burn masks on the steps of the Idaho State Capitol on Saturday, videos show, in a state that has never had a statewide mask mandate.

    “Destroy them! Feed them to the fire! We don’t want them in our world anymore!” young children are heard shouting as they grab handfuls of surgical and cloth masks and toss them into a barrel of flames. Adults in the background cheer them on.
    […]

    The videos, taken by an Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter and a New York Times contributor, Sergio Olmos, show about 100 people on the steps of the state capitol building…Idaho State Police said in a statement that open flames were not allowed on State Capitol grounds and that the incident was under review.
    […]

    The demonstrations were in part organized by Darr Moon, the husband of Dorothy Moon, an Idaho State representative…In a video posted to YouTube on Friday, Ms. Moon, along with another state representative, Heather Scott, called the demonstrations a “grass-roots project that we have become aware of and fully support.”

    Idaho, where the law fully protects parents who decline medical care for their children in favor of faith healing. In the past five years at least 13 children have died because parents prayed over sick children rather than seek medical care. State law ensures there are no consequences for the parents.

  224. says

    https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1368224683624177664

    Aaron Rupar:

    Durbin immediately debunks Cruz’s amendment seeking to ban stimulus money from going to undocumented immigrants — something that’s not happening anyway

    Video is available at the link.

    CRUZ: “This amendment, just like the one we just voted on that Sen. Cassidy and I introduced, this amendment before us today provides that the stimulus checks should not go to illegal aliens in this country. The question for the American people to answer is, should your money, should taxpayer money, be sent, $1,400, to every illegal alien in America. This amendment provides that it should not, that stimulus checks should only go to American citizens or to people lawfully present. Now, the Democrats may say their language allows for that, but they know that the IRS treats someone who is illegally present in the United States for 31 days last year as a resident alien, and so this corrects that and ensures that illegal aliens are not eligible for taxpayer-funded stimulus checks.”

    SEN. DICK DURBIN: “Mr. President, the statement of the senator from Texas is just plain false. False. Let me be clear. Undocumented immigrants do not have Social Security numbers, and they do not qualify for stimulus relief checks, period. And just in case you didn’t notice, they didn’t qualify in December when 92 of us voted for that measure, and they don’t qualify under the American Rescue Plan. Nothing has changed. And for you to stand up there and say the opposite is just to rile people up over something that’s not true.”

    CRUZ: “Will the senator yield for a question?”

    DURBIN: “No, I won’t. It is not true, and we know what’s going on here. They want to be able to give speeches to say the checks go to undocumented people. In the circumstance where there is a parent … receiving the check for the child, that’s it. But no money going to undocumented people under the American Rescue Plan.”

    Commentary:

    […] Let’s scapegoat and demonize some of the most hardworking and vulnerable people in the world a little more, why don’t we? He’s almost worse than Trump, honestly. Trump’s lies were like popcorn farts. Unpleasant, but they were easy enough to wave away. Cruz’s lies leave a viscous ooze behind. They’re not as frequent as the former guy’s (or maybe I just haven’t observed him for long enough), but they somehow seem more gross. Maybe it’s his aristocratic posing.

    […] Naturally, Cruz wanted his little Senate floor soundbite so he could shoehorn it in between his eventual opponents’ voluminous “Cancún Cruz” ads. Hopefully, Texan voters are wise to his nonsense by now. If that cold snap didn’t wake them up, though, I’m not sure what will.

    Link

  225. says

    A year after the frightening beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the world stands on the brink of a fourth wave of infection as nations race to vaccinate their populations and stave off a new surge in hospitalizations and deaths.

    Total reported cases rose across the globe in the last week of February after six weeks of decline, driven in part by new, more virulent variants that transmit between people at startlingly higher rates than the initial strains out of Wuhan, China, and northern Italy.

    […] The United States recorded about 66,000 new cases a day over the last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), down 73 percent from the apex reached in early January and similar to levels of transmission from October. But the precipitous decline of late January and early February has plateaued in recent days, raising fears that a new wave is just around the corner.

    “We could not have made a more wonderful environment for this virus to take off than we have right now,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention at the University of Minnesota. “We are not driving this tiger, we’re riding it. And the first time we may be able to drive it is with widespread use of the vaccine, and we’re not there yet.”

    […] “You’re seeing a lot of states loosening mask restrictions at a point where they’re having more cases per day than they had over the summer when they put the mask restrictions in place,” said Rich Besser, a former CDC director who now runs the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. “That just doesn’t make sense.” […]

    Link

  226. says

    Dr. Antony Fauci:

    Historically, if you look back at the different surges we’ve had, when they come down and start to plateau at a very high level… plateauing at a level of [60,000] to 70,000 new cases per day is not an acceptable level, that is really very high.

    Europe is usually a couple of weeks ahead of us in these patterns […] about a 9 percent increase in cases.

    We do want to come back carefully and slowly […] but don’t turn the switch on and off, because it really would be risky to have yet again another surge, which we do not want to happen, because we’re plateauing at quite a high level.

  227. says

    tom @220

    Now, if they would pay for the privilege, I’m sure something could be worked out.

    Ha! Good point.

    In other news, some cultural strangeness:

    Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace did not investigate Prince Andrew’s ties to a convicted sex trafficker and allegations of his own sexual abuse.

    In response to:

    In a highly unusual statement, Buckingham Palace announced it would investigate whether Megan, Duchess of Sussex, bullied her staff https://wapo.st/38a8fUe

    And a bit of good news and celebrating from Jon Ossoff:

    Thanks to Georgia voters, the United States Senate just passed the most generous economic relief package for working and middle class families in American history.

  228. says

    Wonkette:

    […] McCarthy tweeted Friday, “I still like Dr. Seuss, so I decided to read Green Eggs and Ham. RT if you still like him too!” Green Eggs and Ham isn’t one of the six titles that Dr. Seuss Enterprises has decided not to publish because of offensive content. Neither is The Cat in the Hat, but as Jake Tapper noted, the National Republican Congressional Committee is sending copies of that book to contributors. Here’s the fundraising appeal:

    “Cancel Culture is TOXIC!”
    Patriots proudly declare.
    “Free Speech must be defended!”
    Dems retort: “Too bad. Don’t care.”
    If you really appreciated Dr. Seuss’ work, you wouldn’t mock his style so pathetically.

    Republicans are lying about the Seuss situation and refusing to publicly read or show images from the actual offensive work. They’re also lying about what actually matters to Americans right now. This is the war they want to fight, not the COVID-19 pandemic or poverty. This is what riles up a Republican electorate with a kink for having their intelligence insulted. They want to live in this alternate reality.

    This brings us to WandaVision.

    I’ve reviewed this series over at AV Club for the past two months, and a commenter offered an interpretation that seems relevant here. SPOILERS, of course:

    Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) finds real life too overwhelming and retreats into a fake world, shaped by nostalgia and her desire for “simpler” times that never actually existed. Because this is Marvel, Wanda’s nervous breakdown manifests in a literal sense: She magically creates a classic sitcom reality for herself, but while her actions aren’t malicious or even intentional at first, they aren’t harmless. She’s trapped an entire town within her delusions. They have no choice but to play along.

    This is what it feels like to live among a significant number of Republican voters these days. It’s impossible to engage with people who are desperate to believe lies. Whenever Wanda was confronted with the truth, she rewrote reality, often defiantly, and even physically banished a Black woman from her pleasant neighborhood.

    McCarthy and other conservative “anti-cancel culture” warriors are appealing to what I call “toxic nostalgia.” Conservatives resent that life is complicated and no longer defined on their terms. They don’t want to reexamine anything they enjoyed from their youth (e.g. Dr. Seuss, The Muppet Show, or Gone With the Wind).They even object to warning labels before offensive programming or discussions about problematic content. New York Times columnist Charles Blow made headlines when he called out the old Pepe Le Pew cartoons for promoting rape culture. The very same “free speech” advocates were incensed that Blow would question their nostalgia for cartoons where a bad French stereotype attempts to sexually assault a cat. They weren’t interested in debate. They wanted to banish Blow from the false reality.

    While Wanda’s version of a 1950s and 1960s sitcom is more racially diverse than the actual shows of that period were, the gender roles are quite regressive. Wanda seemingly enjoys her life as a stay-at-home sitcom mom, but she’s forced that “simplicity” upon the other women in her “perfect world.” We also don’t see any queer couples. This ideal sitcom world is anything but.

    Most conservatives will claim that life was “simpler” before rampant “political correctness” or “wokeness.” This isn’t true, of course. Marginalized groups lacked the power to make their voices heard. The “simple life” actively silenced them. We learn that Wanda’s inadvertent victims suffer internal anguish beneath their smiling exteriors. This hit home. Minorities and women have never liked racist or sexist jokes or images, but it was usually in our best interest not to speak out publicly, especially in the workplace. We were just trying to “fit in” (a theme in an early WandaVision episode) and live as peacefully as the dominant culture would permit.

    Ultimately, only Wanda could reject her false reality and free everyone imprisoned within it. I wish conservatives will have the courage to do likewise, but I’m not optimistic. […]

    Link

  229. says

    Clyburn Warns Manchin, Sinema Against ‘Catastrophic’ Filibuster Denying Voting Rights

    House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) warned Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) against the “catastrophic” move of letting the filibuster stand in the way of passing The For the People Act, known as HR1, that would expand voting access, especially in communities most affected by the voting restrictions being pushed by Republicans in many states.

    “There’s no way under the sun that in 2021 that we are going to allow the filibuster to be used to deny voting rights. That just ain’t gonna happen. That would be catastrophic,” Clyburn said in an interview published in The Guardian […]

    Clyburn went on to call out Manchin and Sinema. Both of the centrist Democratic senators have faced criticism from those in their party over their opposition to eliminating the filibuster.

    “If Manchin and Sinema enjoy being in the majority, they had better figure out a way to get around the filibuster when it comes to voting and civil rights,” Clyburn said.

    […] HR1, which includes provisions such as making Election Day a federal holiday and requiring states to provide at least 15 days of early voting, was passed by the House last week. Along with other Republicans, former Vice President Mike Pence decried HR1 as “unconstitutional, reckless, and anti-democratic” while pushing the bogus election fraud claims that former President Trump continues to peddle.

    Although Manchin on Sunday maintained that he won’t change his mind when it comes to his opposition against getting rid of the filibuster, he expressed that he is open to making it “a little bit more painful” to use.

    […] Manchin appeared to float the idea of bringing back something like the “talking filibuster,” where a member of the minority would have to take the Senate floor and speak at length in order to block a vote. Manchin seemed to lean into a framing that some Democratic activists have suggested for centrist Democrats — conveying that reforms to the filibuster are necessary to “save” it, rather than eliminating it.

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/clyburn-manchin-sinema-filibuster-hr1

  230. says

    Follow-up to comment 228.

    Comments posted by readers of the TPM article:

    Voting rights favor Democratic Senators from red states. Filibuster support only favors Republicans now and forever, and it ought to be done away with. Manchin and Sinema can earn a few bargaining chips here to make their futures a little bit less painful.
    ——————–
    also like the idea of requiring a 40 person block to even START a filibuster. Zero people have to stand in front of a camera and state they are behind the filibuster. Having one person stop the works is wrong.
    ———————
    Smart people listen to James Clyburn.
    ———————-
    Could be the tipping point. Explicitly linking HR1 to the underlying racial issues it’s addressing.

    Make a lot of Karens who might be on the fence about it generally to come over to the other side.
    ——————–
    The way the filibuster process operates now requires no effort and no penalty from the party that opposes any bill. The anonymous blocking of any legislation must end, preferably with the nihilists forced to stand up and out themselves as such. @rhea I agree. Make it painful for them to deny voting rights, economic relief, and a living wage. In other words, make it painful for them to announce their opposition to popular policies.
    ———————-
    The only way Sinema comes back from her performance vote against the minimum wage is to vote against the filibuster. Otherwise she is a effectively a Republican and should be primaried. Manchin is the Joe Lieberman of this class and I suspect this may be either be his last term or he is thinking he always has the option to switch parties if things get really bad.
    ———————–
    This legislation is more important in my view than any other. It needs to be passed – the need is desperate.

    IF we want to maintain a democracy we have to act
    ———————–
    I am getting fucking tired of these goddamned Republicans using racial hatred to gut this country and its people.

    We need to get some Momentum and turn the American People loose.

    It’s Time

  231. says

    Arrrggghh, Texas. Texas patrons threaten to call ICE on Mexican restaurant for keeping mask mandate.

    Patrons at a Mexican restaurant in Texas threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on employees over their refusal to work maskless, according to the establishment’s owner.

    “This has been ongoing through COVID,” Steven O’Sullivan, an owner of Cantina Barba in Houston, told The Washington Post.

    “We’ve had threats of calling ICE,” O’Sullivan said. “I had one guy just stand there and berate one of my bartenders and tell her, ‘You’re an absolute idiot, you don’t know what you’re doing. If you think these masks are going to save your life, you’re stupid,’ blah, blah, blah. Nobody wants to deal with that stuff.”

    […] The Post chronicled a number of businesses in Texas whose owners say they will require anyone at their establishments to wear face coverings out of safety for their employees and customers.

    Monica Richards, a co-owner of Picos Mexican restaurant, said she and her staff have received harassing messages on social media and at the store via phone.

    “It was just horrific,” Richards told the Post. “People don’t understand unless you’re in our business what it felt like, how hard it was to go through everything we went through during COVID. For people to be negative toward us for trying to remain safe, so that this doesn’t continue to happen, just makes zero sense to us.”

    Several other Texas businesses say they will still require masks despite Abbott’s order.

    Federal health officials have blasted Abbott’s decision on mask mandates and similar moves by governors in states such as Mississippi.

    “I understand the need to want to get back to normality, but you’re only going to set yourself back if you just completely push aside the public health guidelines — particularly when we’re dealing with anywhere from [55,000] to 70,000 infections per day in the United States,” Anthony Fauci said this week.

  232. says

    Follow-up to tom’s comment 2222.

    Wonkette: “That Idaho Mask Burning Was Creepy AF”

    Conservatives are always burning things. Tiki torches, Harry Potter books, Bibles that aren’t the King James Bible, books by Cuban-American author Jennine Capó Cruce after she suggested to Georgia Southern University students that white privilege is a thing that exists, disco records, copies of the Qur’an, more Harry Potter books (ironically, JK Rowlings turn towards the transphobic is the thing that will probably put an end to this), Nike shoes over an ad featuring Colin Kaepernick … crosses.

    Yesterday, a bunch of right-wing freaks decided to burn masks in Idaho.

    Idaho, for the record, does not actually have a mask mandate. So these people were clearly just angry at the idea of keeping people healthy in general. […]

    One of the organizers of the event was Darr Moon, the husband of state Rep. Dorothy Moon. Mr. Moon is an actual member of the actual John Birch Society. Like from olden times. In fact, he is on the National Council of the John Birch Society. Of course, it is probably not too difficult to rise up very high in the JBS, given that probably most of their members are dead.

    Here he is explaining that the mask-burning was a “rally” and not a “protest,” probably because protests are for commies. [Video is available at the link.]

    Text:

    I think people need to realize that we’re standing here today to rein back government, uh, to reestablish our Republican form of government, a government that has balance between the branches, and we’re kind of that belief that we need well-defined government and certain boundaries. And that’s not what we have today. Our governor is appropriating money and pretty much running the show here in Idaho, and I know governors elsewhere.

    Well that was certainly … non-specific.

    To be fair, “We just like burning things!” probably would not have sounded very good. But they did. They did like burning things. Even the little kids got in on it! [More video is available at the link>

    […] Of course, some of these super normal people protesting restrictions that were not even in effect in their own state may end up getting in some trouble, as you’re actually not supposed to burn stuff on state Capitol grounds.

    Via NBC:

    No one was arrested, and organizers had permits, but the rally was under review because a fire was started, Idaho State Police said in a statement.

    “During the event, an open flame was ignited in a barrel,” police said. “Those involved with the event were informed both before and during the event that open flames are not allowed on State Capitol grounds.”

    I guess they’re lucky they’re Republicans or the police might not have been so nice about it while they were doing it.

  233. says

    The U.S. Supreme Court this morning rejected the last of Trump’s challenges to state election procedures.

    Trump had appealed lower court rulings that upheld Wisconsin’s handling of mail-in ballots. The Supreme Court refused to take up the lawsuit. It was the last in a string of defeats before the court.

    NBC News

  234. says

    And then there were five: Missouri’s Blunt to retire from Senate

    If Senate Republican leaders are trying to discourage their members from retiring, their pitches are apparently proving unpersuasive.

    As a rule, party leaders on Capitol Hill make every effort to limit incumbent retirements. There’s no great mystery as to why: incumbents tend to have built-in advantages in re-election campaigns; wide-open primaries can get awfully messy; and competitive general elections require the parties to invest scarce resources.

    […] The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported this morning:

    In an announcement that instantly shook up Missouri’s political landscape, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt announced Monday morning that he would not run for reelection in 2022…. Blunt’s retirement potentially clears the way for a crowded GOP primary in a state that has increasingly shifted toward Republicans over the last decade.

    For those keeping score, there are now five Senate Republicans retiring in 2022: Missouri’s Blunt, North Carolina’s Richard Burr, Ohio’s Rob Portman, Alabama’s Richard Shelby, and Pennsylvania’s Pat Toomey.

    That list may yet grow: Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson promised voters he’d only serve two terms and he hasn’t yet said whether he intends to break his word, and Iowa’s Chuck Grassley will be 89 years old on Election Day 2022.

    As for Blunt, his retirement announcement comes as something of a surprise. The longtime Missouri politician — a member of the Senate GOP leadership — was very likely to win another term next year. […] Republicans should be seen as the favorites to hold onto this Senate seat. There was a point in the not-too-distant past at which Missouri was seen as a swing state, but those days are largely over. Consider this tidbit: in the 2020 presidential race, Kansas was more competitive than Missouri for the first time in several decades.

    That said, it’s best not to make sweeping assumptions, especially this early in the cycle. Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) was expected to lose in 2012 (right up until Republicans nominated Todd Akin) and Jason Kander was a big underdog in 2016 before losing by only a few points. If, for example, the GOP nominates a disgraced former governor and Democrats settle on a competitive candidate, all while the economy soars thanks to a Democratic economic package that Republicans opposed, a contest like this may yet prove to be interesting.

    Update: In case anyone was curious, McCaskill, who is now an MSNBC political analyst, announced this morning that she’s not running, either. In a tweet, the former Democratic senator said, “…I will never run for office again. Nope. Not gonna happen. Never. I am so happy I feel guilty sometimes.”

  235. says

    McCarthy Shoots The Messenger As Honoré Preps To Brief House On Jan. 6 Failures

    House Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on Sunday lambasted retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honoré and his “notorious partisan bias,” a statement he put out a day before Honoré briefs House members on security failures around the Capitol attack.

    “While there may be some worthy recommendations forthcoming, General Honore’s notorious partisan bias calls into question the rationality of appointing him to lead this important security review,” McCarthy said. “It also raises the unacceptable possibility that the Speaker desired a certain result: turning the Capitol into a fortress.”

    […] While McCarthy’s fortress jab is likely a reference to the metal detectors guarding the House floor that are particularly abhorred by Republican members, a dislike of the militarization of the Capitol post-attack has been a unifier between Democrats and Republicans at hearings on the breach so far.

    Honoré, known for his standout job in the disastrous aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the colorful, gruff leadership style with which he did so, sent out a now-deleted tweet before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tapped him to head the security review which has rankled Republicans.

    “This little peace of shit with his @Yale law degree should be run out of DC and Disbarred ASAP @HawleyMO @tedcruz aaa hats,” it read. “These @Yale and @Harvard law grads is high order white privilege.”

    […] [Republicans] also may have some political motivation to preemptively discredit Honoré and his findings. It’s well-known that many elected Republicans publicly stoked the election fraud conspiracy theory which helped fuel the attack. In addition, the U.S. Attorney’s office is investigating rioters possibly being giving tours by members before January 6. Rep. Tim Ryan’s (D-OH) office confirmed to TPM that related security footage has been turned over as part of the investigation.

    Pelosi has also proposed an independent commission, in the style of the much lauded 9/11 commission, to investigate the attack, though there is already significant partisan disagreement over the composition and scope of the commission. Pelosi’s office told TPM last week that there is no update on when legislation to stand up the commission will come to a vote, leaving the commission’s fate in limbo.

  236. says

    Follow-up to comment 234.

    Responses posted by readers of the TPM article:

    I wonder why this person famous for his brusque honesty would be so unpopular among the Republicans. [LOL]
    ——————
    The party that wears it’s faith as a badge is actually the party of bad faith. Shocking. I’m mostly surprised that they haven’t gone on OAN and called the general “uppity”, although maybe it will happen later today. Asshats.
    —————-
    And he’s frank and honest while being black, too. Quelle horreur!
    ———————
    The Republicans want to make it harder to vote, but the Democrats want to make it harder to overthrow the government with violence.
    ———————
    The statement Partisan Bias coming from any Republican is a classic example of the pot calling the kettle black
    ——————–
    It’s almost, as if, he’s afraid of what the report may contain.
    ———————-
    Disparage a highly respected Black military officer. Always a winner.
    ————————
    I guess we have established for all time the principle that nobody can ever be investigated or criticized by anyone who does not fully agree with them politically.
    ———————
    For Republicans, straight talk equals notorious partisan bias.
    ——————–
    If they were interested in regrouping in attempt to hold offices legally there would be different sounds coming from these pieces of shit.
    —————–
    Hey Kevin. Honore’ is retired from the Army. His bias, whatever it is …is legal now.

  237. says

    Biden marks International Women’s Day with orders to roll back some of Trump’s gender-based damage

    Monday is International Women’s Day, and President Joe Biden is taking the opportunity to start rolling back some of the related damage done by Donald Trump and his administration.

    Biden is planning to sign an executive order establishing a White House Gender Policy Council, effectively replacing an Obama-era White House Council on Women and Girls that was eliminated by Trump. The changed name signals a substantive change to include transgender people […]

    The council will consider the intersections of gender and race in a “whole of government approach” to gender equity, sexual harassment, gender-based violence, family caregiving, and structural barriers to women’s workforce participation, both in the U.S. and globally.

    Another key move coming from Biden on International Women’s Day targets a key Betsy DeVos policy on campus sexual assault. DeVos had dramatically expanded protections for accused sexual assailants, including giving them the right to personally cross-examine their alleged victims. The DeVos rules also tightened up the definition of actionable sexual misconduct to include “unwelcome conduct that a reasonable person would determine is so severe, pervasive and objectively offensive that it effectively denies a person equal access to the school’s education program or activity,” “school employee conditioning education benefits on participation in unwelcome sexual conduct,” or “sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking.”

    In short, DeVos instituted a policy under which a victim of sexual harassment or assault could hope for action from a college or university only if she was experiencing something so severe it was guaranteed to scar her for life, and she would then face a process in which the deck was stacked in favor of her assailant or harasser, who would be given the opportunity as part of the official process to revictimize her. Biden is taking the first step toward undoing that, though since DeVos got it written into an official regulation, it will take significant time and effort to fix.

    […] Biden will also address International Women’s Day in remarks from the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris will speak to the European Parliament.

    “As we endure the pandemic, the economic instability, the racial injustice, the threats to democracy, and the effects of climate change, the question before us is simple: How do we build a world that works for women?” she will say, according to prepared remarks. “I believe we must ensure women’s safety at home and in every community,” going on to say that “ this is not just an act of goodwill. This is a show of strength. If we build a world that works for women, our nations will all be safer, stronger, and more prosperous.”

    “DeVos instituted a policy under which a victim of sexual harassment or assault could hope for action from a college or university only if she was experiencing something so severe it was guaranteed to scar her for life, and she would then face a process in which the deck was stacked in favor of her assailant or harasser, who would be given the opportunity as part of the official process to revictimize her.”

    That’s yet another reminder of how much damage Trump and his lickspittles did during their term in office. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have a lot of clean-up to do.

  239. says

    Jury selection on pause for ex-cop charged in Floyd’s death

    Derek Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter in George Floyd’s death.

    The judge overseeing the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer accused in the death of George Floyd on Monday paused jury selection for at least a day while an appeal proceeds over the possible reinstatement of a third-degree murder charge.

    As hundreds of protesters gathered outside the courthouse to call for the conviction of Derek Chauvin, Judge Peter Cahill said he does not have jurisdiction to rule on whether the third-degree murder charge should be reinstated against the former officer while the issue is being appealed. But he said prosecutors’ arguments that the whole case would be impacted was “tenuous.”

    Cahill initially ruled that jury selection would begin as scheduled on Monday, but prosecutors filed a request with the Court of Appeals to put the trial on hold until the issue is resolved. The judge then sent the potential jurors home for the day, while prosecutors tried to contact the appellate court. Cahill took a recess to give the Court of Appeals time to respond, but planned to bring attorneys back into the courtroom Monday afternoon to deal with other matters.

    […] Jury selection is expected to take at least three weeks, as prosecutors and defense attorneys try to weed out people who may be biased against them.

    “You don’t want jurors who are completely blank slates, because that would mean they’re not in tune at all with the world,” Susan Gaertner, a former prosecutor, said. “But what you want is jurors who can set aside opinions that have formed prior to walking into the courtroom and give both sides a fair hearing.” […]

  240. says

    Top Democrats urge IRS to extend tax season ahead of passage of relief bill

    Two top House Democrats on Monday urged the IRS to extend the tax-filing season, as President Biden is expected to enact a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package in the coming days that has implications for the 2020 tax returns of people who received unemployment benefits last year.

    The relief package, which the House is expected to pass Tuesday and Biden is expected to sign soon after, would waive taxes on up to $10,200 in unemployment compensation for people with income of under $150,000. Unemployment recipients who already filed their 2020 tax returns will need to file amended returns to get the tax break, and recipients who haven’t filed their returns yet may have questions about how to ensure they receive the relief.

    “Once it is signed into law, the American Rescue Plan will change the tax laws applicable to unemployment benefits received in 2020 and reported on returns filed during this filing season,” Reps. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.) said in a statement. “Taxpayers need more time to file accurate returns and get their questions answered by the IRS.”

    […] “We stand in the midst of the most important tax filing season in recent memory, and taxpayers cannot get the help they need from the IRS,” Neal and Pascrell said.

    The IRS extended last year’s filing deadline from April 15 to July 15 because of the pandemic. Neal and Pascrell said that “many Americans continue to face the same health and economic challenges that necessitated an extension last year.”

    “Facing enormous strain and anxiety, taxpayers need flexibility now,” the lawmakers said. “We demand that the IRS announce an extension as soon as possible.” […]

  241. says

    You’re fully vaccinated? The CDC says you can now have friends and family over for dinner.

    The guidelines still urge caution around meeting up with unvaccinated people at high risk for severe disease. But the new rules are a big step toward normalcy.

    You’ve been fully vaccinated: two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine, or one shot of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine plus several weeks for your immune system to fully respond. Now what can you do?

    New guidelines from the CDC published Monday, March 8, offer good news: You can see your family or have other vaccinated friends over, indoors, without a mask (with a caveat).

    “If you’ve been fully vaccinated,” the new guidelines read:

    You can gather indoors with fully vaccinated people without wearing a mask.

    You can gather indoors with unvaccinated people from one other household (for example, visiting with relatives who all live together) without masks, unless any of those people or anyone they live with has an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19.

    In other words, if you want to have other fully vaccinated friends over for dinner, the CDC says that you should go ahead. The reduced risk of infection and transmission on both sides (yours and theirs) makes this a basically safe activity. [Not 100% safe.]

    If you want to gather indoors with relatives or friends who aren’t fully vaccinated, that also poses much lower risk now that you’re vaccinated — so you can do it. But the risk is not as low as when everyone is vaccinated, so you shouldn’t do it if anyone at increased risk of severe Covid-19 might be affected (including high-risk people who live with those who want to gather). If you have elderly or immunocompromised loved ones who haven’t yet been vaccinated, you should get them vaccinated before you hang out.

    The CDC emphasizes that in order for these rules to apply, you must be fully vaccinated: if you got the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, you need both doses, and for any vaccine, it should be two weeks since you got your last vaccine dose. “If it has been less than 2 weeks since your shot, or if you still need to get your second dose, you are NOT fully protected. Keep taking all prevention steps until you are fully vaccinated,” the guidelines read.

    They also emphasize that even vaccinated people should keep taking precautions in public spaces shared with crowds of strangers, including masks and social distancing. […]

  242. says

    Wonkette: “Lisa Murkowski Put Good Stuff In COVID Relief Bill, Voted Against It Like Weird Person.”

    Republican senators are very happy they remained united against helping people. They were worried about a potential defection from Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, but she ultimately voted against President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 relief package. This means he’s failed at bipartisanship and people can fret over that while cashing their generous stimulus checks and avoiding eviction.

    […] Yes, the bill is partisan because Republicans deliberately withheld support, unlike Democrats who on past stimulus bills voted to keep the lights on in people’s homes, even if it might’ve helped the previous White House squatter. […]

    It’s also annoying when Republicans complain that passing a vital stimulus bill during a pandemic was “rushed” and “hurried.” This isn’t your grandmother shopping at Target. Time is of the essence. Besides, Republicans happily confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in a partisan process that was quicker than ordering a vanilla latte in a Starbucks drive-through.

    […] Murkowski did introduce a damn good amendment to the stimulus bill, which she later voted against like a damn Republican. Amendment No. 1233 allocates $800 million of the Elementary and Secondary School Relief Fund to support “the identification, enrollment, and school participation of children and youth experiencing homelessness.” Murkowski and Joe Manchin introduced the amendment with Kyrsten Sinema, Rob Portman, Susan Collins, and Dan Sullivan.

    […] the CARES Act did not specifically allocate funding to support children experiencing homelessness, one in four homeless children (420,000 homeless children) have gone unidentified and unenrolled in public schools. These students are disproportionately students of color, English learners, and students with disabilities. Without direct funding (not just an allowable use), these children are not being enrolled in school. Homeless children are too easily overlooked among competing demands.

    […] Amendment No. 1233 was so popular it was easily adopted by voice vote. […]

    The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly increased children and youth homelessness due to high unemployment, unstable living conditions, and job insecurity. […] Research has also found that rural areas – like my home state of West Virginia – lack vital resources for our homeless children and youth, adding to their already heavy burdens.

    […] In the end, Manchin’s Republican colleagues, including Murkowski, prioritized sticking it to Biden over helping at-risk children. What’s scuzzy is that Murkowski, Collins, and Sullivan will probably claim credit for all the positives from Amendment No. 1233 even though the bill to which it’s attached would’ve never passed if they’d had their way.

    Link

  243. says

    Wonkette: “Misogynistic Missouri Pastor”

    Photo of overweight pastor is available at the link. Double standard much? Blatant misogyny and stupidity. Plus worship of Melania Trump. And a bit of anti-lesbianism thrown in for good measure.

    Pastor Stewart-Allen Clark of the First General Baptist Church in Malden, Missouri, has not had the greatest first week of March.

    Last week, he went viral with his disturbingly sexist sermon about how much Jesus haaaates it when women “let themselves go” or gain weight after marriage. Specifically, he told women they should aspire to be trophy wives like Melania Trump — or at least “participation trophy wives,” as he so cleverly quipped.

    He explained:

    Now look, I’m not saying every woman can be the epic, the epic trophy wife of all time, like Melania Trump — I’m not saying that at all. Most women can’t be trophy wives, but, you know, like her — maybe you’re a participation trophy. I don’t know. But all I can say is not everybody looks like that! Amen?! But you don’t need to look like a butch either!

    He seems nice.

    During this sermon, Clark also told the story of how, when he was doing marriage counseling, he saved a marriage simply by encouraging a husband when he called his wife a “fat [B-word].” He told the story of how one of his friends put a “divorce weight” on his wife, which seemed to mean he would divorce her were she to hit that weight. (Perhaps divorce would actually be her best option for getting rid of some dead weight.) He said men like to look at stuff and also like having pretty ladies on their arm. Women, on the other hand, absolutely love to be seen in public with a guy with a full-on serial killer name who goes viral for saying a whole bunch of misogynistic crap.

    Nota bene: I am not saying anything about his looks. These statements would be just as crappy coming from a nominally attractive man.

    Clark also explained that this was not just him saying this, but God, citing 1 Corinthians 7:4, which says “The wife has no longer all rights over her body, but shares them with her husband.”

    Well gee, that does sound fun.

    Prior to this, Clark was set to be a featured moderator at the General Association of General Baptists (really?) conference, but now it seems he is a general pariah. The church issued a statement generally distancing itself from him and his sermon, explaining that women are great and Jesus died for them.

    […] Now local television station KCTV is reporting that Clark is seeking psychological help and is officially on leave. The full sermon has also been deleted from his church’s website.

    The thing is, it seems really unlikely this was the first time this guy said anything like this. This doesn’t just come out of nowhere. […]

    Link

  244. says

    International Women’s Day: Hillary Rodham Clinton

    Washington Post link

    Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the world’s most dedicated champions of women’s rights. As a former secretary of state, U.S. senator, first lady and presidential candidate, Clinton leveled the playing field for women in leadership, and her message of progress and resilience continues to inspire the next generation. Clinton joins Washington Post opinions writer Jonathan Capehart on International Women’s Day, Monday, March 8 at 2:00pm ET.

    Register for the program here.

  245. says

    Where Things Stand: America’s Rivals See A Weapon In Vaccine Hesitancy.

    Russian intelligence [agencies], it appears, are attempting to sow distrust in the U.S. COVID-19 vaccine in order to bolster the sale of its own supply. [WTF!]

    According to a new Wall Street Journal report, the State Department’s Global Engagement Center has identified at least four publications that have been used as Russian intel fronts in the past that are publishing articles questioning the safety of the Pfizer vaccine and other Western vaccine companies.

    The publications reportedly have spread disinformation about the side effects of the Pfizer shot and have suggested the development of the U.S. vaccine was dangerously rushed. Experts at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, part of the German Marshall Fund, identified the disinfo as part of a broader effort to boost the sales of the Russia-produced Sputnik V vaccine.

    […] they’re all part of the Russian propaganda and disinformation ecosystem.

    […] Though Trump recently urged followers to get the vaccine, the message may be another case of too little too late. Trump and former first lady Melania Trump received the vaccine while in office, but chose to do so in private, breaking with a wave of politicians — including Biden — and public figures who were getting the shot in public at the time to combat fear of the new vaccine. As the most loud and respected voice of the Party whose voters are now most likely to be skeptical of the vaccine, it’s just one of Trump’s many misfires with regard to the pandemic.

    Link

  246. says

    DA says Colorado students could face criminal charges over violent mask-less gathering.

    The district attorney of Boulder County, Colo., says some participants of a weekend gathering that turned violent may face criminal charges.

    “I hear people refer to it as a party,” District Attorney Michael Dougherty said Sunday, according to The Washington Post. “I don’t regard people flipping over a car as a party. I don’t regard people throwing bottles and rocks at firefighters and police officers as a party. Those are criminal acts and will be treated as such.”

    Police Chief Maris Herold reportedly said that although the scene was too chaotic for police to make arrests on-site, arrests would be made later based on body-camera footage. [really?]

    […] As many as 800 predominantly unmasked University of Colorado at Boulder students gathered late Saturday afternoon, later firing off fireworks and eventually flipping a car. When police attempted to clear the crowd and threatened arrests and use of tear gas, about 100 people charged officers. […]

    Link

  247. says

    Why It’s ‘Nearly Impossible’ For A Capitol Attack Commission To Operate Like The 9/11 One

    Soon after the January 6 Capitol attack, lawmakers from both parties were eager to endorse establishing a commission to investigate the historic security meltdown.

    “We need a 9/11 commission to find out what happened and make sure it never happens again, and I want to make sure that the Capitol footprint can be better defended next time,” said Sen. Linsey Graham (R-SC) in January.

    But once House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) formally proposed the commission, a small step toward nailing down the specifics of composition and scope, partisan bickering broke out. Republicans bristled at Pelosi’s suggestion of Republicans picking four commissioners to Democrats’ seven; some Democrats balked at Republicans getting any seats at all, given that many elected GOPers publicly supported the election conspiracy theory that led to the attack.

    While Pelosi indicated that she’d be flexible on the commissioner split, other central issues, like the scope of the commission’s probe, remain very much unresolved.

    […] A key ingredient of the 9/11 commission was its bipartisanship, which lent its findings credibility. In 2021, an attempt at bipartisanship could have the opposite result, granting Republicans, still largely supportive of former President Trump, ample opportunity to undermine the commission. For one, they could appoint Trump loyalists who would refuse to find fault with the former president or his Republican allies, creating an automatic schism with the Democratic appointees who’d want to hold them accountable. They could also hijack the focus of the commission: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has already implied that if Democrats insist on expanding the scope of the investigation to include the lead-up to the attack, he’ll push a focus on supposed violence from left-wing groups.

    If Democrats, seeking to circumvent that sabotage, try to pick the Republican appointees themselves, the legislation to set up the commission might not pass in the Senate, where it can be filibustered.

    […] For the 1/6 commission to be a true fact-finding mission addressing the question of accountability for the attack, congressional leaders McConnell and Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) would have to be willing to appoint commissioners comfortable enough to put blame on Trump and elected Republicans. To achieve the broad acceptance of the 9/11 report, those people, an endangered species in the Republican party, would somehow also have to have credibility with GOP constituents.

    […] If McConnell and McCarthy instead selected those of the MAGA persuasion, a bipartisan investigation of the events that led up to Jan. 6 would be dead on arrival. […]

    […] “The 9/11 commission basically shelved questions of accountability,” Tama said. “The story itself details the shortcomings of both administrations,” he added, but the recommendations at the end focus much more on systemic failures and needed reforms than whose fault it was.

    […] The accountability problem is already one Republicans are trying to skirt, by suggesting narrowing the probe to the security failures around the Capitol alone. […] Some in the GOP have been trying to establish an equivalence between left-wing protesters in 2020 and the Capitol mob. In reality, antifa is more a philosophy than a cohesive group, and the Black Lives Matter protests were overwhelmingly peaceful.

    If Republicans ultimately conclude that the commission would be a political liability, they could sink it. […]

    If a commission does come together […] the result could end up looking more like the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission of 2009.

    The partisan split on the commission was so bad that it ultimately issued a report and two dissenting statements: the report from the six commissioners appointed by Democrats, one dissent from three of the commissioners appointed by Republicans and yet another dissent from a Republican appointee who split off from the group.

    Among other disputes, the Republicans had refused to use the words “Wall Street,” “shadow banking,” “interconnection” and “deregulation” in the final report. [FFS]

    […]That squabbling blunted the report’s impact at the time.

    Those with memories of kinder times, like the 9/11 Commission’s Roemer, are holding out hope for a sudden return to civility.

    “I’m hopeful, I’m optimistic,” he said. “Maybe my glasses are a little rose-colored these days, but you have to be to be an American.”

  248. says

    Follow-up to comment 246.

    From a reader:

    The 9/11 Commission did NOT include Al-Qaida.

    Why should the GQP be part of the 1/6 Commission?

  249. says

    House bill blocks deportation of military veterans

    House Democratic legislators including the chair of the chamber’s Veterans’ Affairs committee have reintroduced legislation that would block the deportation of noncitizen U.S. military veterans, and allow eligible deported veterans to return home to the U.S. Because federal immigration officials don’t follow even their own policy, it’s unknown exactly how many veterans have been kicked out of the U.S. over the years. Advocates have estimated the number to be around 230.

    […] “Deported veterans are exiled from the country that they call home and that they fought to defend, and they face significant barriers to access the benefits they are entitled to and eligible for under the law. Congress must act and fix this injustice, and passing this comprehensive legislative package can help us achieve that.”

    “Legal permanent residents are allowed to serve in our military, and systemic failures across many levels of our government have led to an unknown number of noncitizen veterans to be deported from the country they risked their lives to defend,” legislators said. “Many deported veterans believed their service automatically conferred citizenship upon them, and often times, the military does not provide immigrant recruits clear information or guidance on the naturalization process. Because of this failure to disseminate information and gaps in the law, many veterans have been deported to a country they do not call home.”

    […] President Joe Biden’s rollback of the previous administration’s immigration policies includes a review of that administration’s deportation of U.S. military service members and family members. Under this new legislation, “the Departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security would be mandated to conduct a joint study and report on all of the veterans that have been deported in the past two decades.” Legislators note the 2019 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report finding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “has not been tracking the number of veterans who have been deported, or been adhering to internal policies regarding potentially removable veterans.” […]

  250. KG says

    The former President of Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has had all his convictions for alleged corruption quashed and his political rights restored. It seems likely he will run against Bolsonaro in 2022. The Guardian article has a rather odd (because unnecessary and uninformative) quote from an obscure (at least to me, and I suspect to anyone not an expert on Brazilian politics) political commentator, one Thomas Traumann, admitting that this is good news for those “absolutely opposed to Bolsonaro” (which should mean any non-fascist, and one would think might even include some fascists given what a bad name Bolsonaro is giving fascism), but adding:

    The problem is that there is a pretty reasonable number of people who don’t want either of them [as president] – and if these people don’t get together and come up with a [third] candidate now, there will be no room for them

    IOW, those “absolutely opposed to Bolsonaro” might unify behind Lula, who has remained popular and would probably win.

  251. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    The “Reid In” the worst tonight. Anti-mask protestors.
    Tomorrow I should receive my second vaccine. I can start driving for ElderCARE again, taking seniors to their medical appointments after a couple of weeks to ensure full immunization. I won’t transport somebody who won’t wear a mask over their nose while the car, while I’m double masked…..

  252. says

    Guardian – “‘Shoot me instead’: Myanmar nun’s plea to spare protesters”:

    Kneeling before them in the dust of a northern Myanmar city, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng begged a group of heavily armed police officers to spare “the children” and take her life instead.

    The image of the Catholic nun in a simple white habit, her hands spread, pleading with the forces of the country’s new junta as they prepared to crack down on a protest, has gone viral and won her praise in the majority-Buddhist country.

    “I knelt down … begging them not to shoot and torture the children, but to shoot me and kill me instead,” she said on Tuesday.

    Her act of bravery in the city of Myitkyina on Monday came as Myanmar struggles with the chaotic aftermath of the military’s overthrow of the civilian leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, on 1 February. As protests demanding the return of democracy have rolled on, the junta has steadily escalated its use of force, using teargas, water cannon, rubber bullets and live rounds.

    Protesters took to the streets of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin state, on Monday wearing hard hats and carrying homemade shields. As police started massing around them, Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng and two other nuns pleaded with them to leave.

    “The police were chasing to arrest them and I was worried for the children,” she said.

    It was at that point that the 45-year-old nun fell to her knees. Moments later, as she was begging for restraint, the police started firing into the crowd of protesters behind her.

    …

    First she saw a man shot in the head fall dead in front of her – then she felt the sting of teargas. “I felt like the world was crashing,” she said. “I’m very sad it happened as I was begging them.”

    A local rescue team confirmed to AFP that two men were shot dead on the spot during Monday’s protest, though it did not confirm whether live rounds or rubber bullets were used.

    On Tuesday, one of the deceased, Zin Min Htet, was laid in a glass casket and transported on a golden hearse covered in white and red flowers. Mourners raised three fingers in a symbol of resistance, as a musical ensemble of brass instrument players, drummers and a bagpiper in crisp white uniforms led the funeral procession.

    Kachin, Myanmar’s northernmost state, is home to the Kachin ethnic group and is the site of a years-long conflict between armed groups and the military. Tens of thousands have fled their homes to displacement camps across the state, and among the organisations aiding them have been Christian groups.

    Monday was not Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng’s first encounter with the security forces….

    “I have thought myself dead already since 28 February,” she said of the day she made the decision to stand up to the armed police.

    On Monday, she was joined by her fellow sisters and the local bishop, who surrounded her as she pleaded for mercy for the protesters. “We were there to protect our sister and our people because she had her life at risk,” Sister Mary John Paul told AFP.

    Sister Ann Rose Nu Tawng said she would continue to stand up for “the children”.

    “I can’t stand and watch without doing anything, seeing what’s happening in front of my eyes while all Myanmar is grieving,” she said.

    Photo atl.

  253. says

    Here’s a link to the March 9 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    From there:

    Hungarian hospitals are under increasing strain as the number of coronavirus patients rose to 8,270 today, exceeding a peak in December reached during the second wave of the pandemic, the country’s surgeon general has told a briefing.

    Cecilia Muller said infections were expected to rise further in coming days, Reuters reports. Hungary imposed strict new lockdown measures yesterday in an attempt to curb a rise in infections and has accelerated its vaccination campaign.

    Russia has denied Washington’s claims that it was spearheading a disinformation campaign against US-made coronavirus vaccines to boost its own homegrown jab as “absurd and groundless”. [They’re lying.]

    The comments come a day after Washington alleged Russian intelligence was behind four websites involved in a campaign to undermine US-made vaccines, accusing Russia of putting lives at risk….

    From their summary:

    The Covid vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE was able to neutralise a new variant of the coronavirus spreading rapidly in Brazil, according to a laboratory study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Monday.

    …

    …The US House of Representatives will take up by Wednesday the Senate version of the sweeping $1.9tn coronavirus relief package backed by President Joe Biden, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Monday.

    …

    China’s Sinovac jab is effective against Brazil variant, preliminary study suggests. Preliminary data from a study in Brazil indicates that the Covid-19 vaccine developed by China’s Sinovac Biotech Ltd is effective against the P1 variant of the virus first discovered in Brazil, a source familiar with the study told Reuters on Monday.

  255. says

    CNN – “Biden German Shepherd has aggressive incident and is sent back to Delaware”:

    The two German Shepherds belonging to President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden were returned to the Biden family home in Delaware last week after aggressive behavior at the White House involving Major Biden, two sources with knowledge tell CNN.

    Major, who was adopted by Biden in November 2018 from a Delaware animal shelter, had what one of the people described as a “biting incident” with a member of White House security. The exact condition of the victim is unknown, however, the episode was serious enough that the dogs were subsequently moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where they remain.

    …

    Major, who is 3 years old, is the younger of the two Biden dogs, and has been known to display agitated behavior on multiple occasions, including jumping, barking, and “charging” at staff and security, according to the people CNN spoke with about the dog’s demeanor at the White House. The older of Biden’s German Shepherds, Champ, is approximately 13 and has slowed down physically due to his advanced age.

    …

    A person familiar with the dogs’ schedule [LOL] confirms to CNN they are in Delaware, but noted they have been known to stay there with minders when the first lady is out of town. Biden departed Monday afternoon for a two-day trip to Washington and California to visit military bases.

    Poor pup. You’re still a good boy, Major.

  256. says

    Axios – “‘No more money for RINOS’: Trump urges supporters to donate to his PAC”:

    Former President Trump asked supporters in an email Monday to donate directly to his PAC and not other Republicans — hours after the Republican National Committee rejected his demand to stop using his name and likeness to fund-raise.

    …Trump remains popular among Republican voters and his name is seen as a key part of fundraising ahead of the 2022 midterms. But Trump is seeking to control the use of his name and image “as he aims to position himself as the undisputed leader of the GOP,” AP notes.

    …RNC chair Ronna McDaniel stated earlier Monday that Trump had personally approved the use of his name for fund-raising.

    …”No more money for RINOS [Republican in name only],” Trump said in his statement.

    -“They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base — they will never lead us to Greatness.”

    -He asked supporters to donate to his Save America PAC via his personal website, adding, “We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!”

  257. says

    TPM – “Oath Keeper Tied To Roger Stone Arrested On Charges Connected To Capitol Attack”:

    An Oath Keeper member who appeared to serve as one of infamous Trump ally Roger Stone’s security guards on the day of the Capitol siege on January 6 has been arrested on charges connected to the attack.

    The FBI announced on Monday that Roberto Minuta, the Oath Keeper member, had been taken into custody. He will appear in court in White Plains, New York later in the day.

    …

    CNN identified Minuta as one of the men who seemed to provide security detail for Stone outside a hotel in Washington before the attack, which was incited by President Donald Trump at his “Stop the Steal” rally. Minuta was seen wearing the Oath Keepers logo, and the Oath Keepers’ announcement of a “Freedom Rally” in support of Minuta’s tattoo shop identifies him as a member.

    The New York Times pinpointed him as “Guard 6” in their analysis of videos of the Oath Keepers hanging around Stone. ABC News published one of the videos as well….

  258. says

    Business Insider – “More than 1,000 Amazon workers across the US have asked about unionization following the historic union vote at an Alabama warehouse”:

    A historic unionization push in an Amazon warehouse in Alabama appears to have started a domino effect.

    The Washington Post reports that over recent weeks, more than 1,000 Amazon workers around the US have got in touch with the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) to enquire about setting up union drives at their own workplaces.

    “More than 1,000 Amazon workers from around the country have reached out to the RWDSU seeking information about unionizing their workplaces,” RWDSU spokeswoman Chelsea Connor told the Post.

    Workers at Amazon’s warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama — which has more than 5,800 employees — are in the middle of a unionization vote. If they vote in favor of a union, this would be the first Amazon worker’s union to be established in the US.

    “It would help very much if Alabama votes yes,” an anonymous Seattle-based worker told the Post. “The chances that we’ll do something increases,” they added.

    The voting started on February 8 and is set to run through until March 29. Amazon has aggressively targeted workers with messaging telling them to vote no, including putting up banners and fliers in the bathrooms, according to reports.

    At one point the company started targeting workers with anti-union adverts on streaming platform Twitch. Twitch — which is owned by Amazon — removed the ads, saying they violated its policies on political advertising.

    After Amazon lost a bid to force the voting to happen in-person rather than by mail, a new USPS mailbox popped up outside the warehouse. Vice reported workers received texts telling them to place their ballots in that mailbox by March 1 — despite the fact the voting runs until March 29.

    The unionization effort has received high-profile attention, and President Joe Biden even issued a warning to Amazon about interfering in the vote….

  261. says

    Matthew Gertz, MMFA:

    jfc. Berensen tells Tucker’s huge audience that “It is increasingly clear that the vaccines aren’t quite as effective as that 95% headline number,” adds, “CDC is very afraid that there will be cases of people getting vaccinated and sick or dying, as has happened in Israel.”

    [video atl]

    Fox News’ conservative audience is much more hesitant to take the vaccine than the overall population. Its stars could be trying to solve that problem and save their viewers’ lives. But they’re doing this instead.

    Just outright criminal lies that will get people killed.

  263. snarkrates says

    SC@261 “Tweet o’ the day at 11:00 in the AM?” I says. There’s still 13 hours in which to top that, I asserts. Harrumph, I says!

    Watches the spectacle of Nigel Farage telling Carole Cadwalladr to hang in there through the tough times.

    Blinks.

    Blinks again.
    Pours a tall one and says, “Fuck it!”

  265. says

    As president, Biden follows through on his pro-union pledges

    Late last year, Biden assured workers he’d be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.” As it turns out, this wasn’t just hollow rhetoric.

    As a presidential candidate last year, Joe Biden would routinely tell Democratic audiences that his support for labor was so consistent, he earned a reputation as “Union Joe.” The month before his presidential inauguration, Biden assured workers he’d be “the most pro-union president you’ve ever seen.”

    As it turns out, this wasn’t just hollow rhetoric.

    Last week, Biden released a striking video closely tied to an Amazon.com unionization vote in Alabama. As we discussed, it was the boldest pro-labor declaration made by a sitting American president in recent memory.

    […] Biden went a little further, issuing a White House statement endorsing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act).

    The PRO Act is one of the most significant bills for the labor movement in decades: It would remove obstacles to workers forming unions without employer interference, and would effectively end the anti-union “right to work” laws that are currently in effect in 28 states…. The White House’s statement of support, which was issued by the Office of Management and Budget, acknowledged that the PRO Act would protect workers’ rights to organize a union and use collective bargaining to fight for better wages, benefits and workplace conditions.

    “America was not built by Wall Street. It was built by the middle class, and unions built the middle class,” the White House said in its statement of administration policy. “Unions put power in the hands of workers.”

    The PRO Act reached the House Rules Committee yesterday, which is the step that comes before a vote on the House floor.

    But as important as the legislation is — and as discouraging as it is to pro-labor forces that it will struggle to overcome a Republican filibuster in the Senate — the fact that Biden is going to such lengths to support unions is itself a major political development.

    The New York Times added today, “As the Biden administration kicks into gear, it is putting organized labor at the heart of its push to rebuild the economy to a greater degree than any president — Democrat or Republican — in well over half a century.”

  268. says

    An underappreciated part of the relief bill: it boosts the ACA, too

    The COVID relief package is easily the biggest expansion of the ACA system since President Obama first signed the bill into law, 11 years ago this month.

    For four years, Donald Trump’s administration took a variety of steps to undermine the Affordable Care Act. […] “Obamacare” survived the sabotage campaign.

    And now, in a classic elections-have-consequences dynamic, the ACA is about to get a whole lot stronger.

    Almost immediately after taking office, President Joe Biden created a special open-enrollment period, which hundreds of thousands of Americans were eager to take advantage of. Biden and his team also took steps to strengthen the healthcare.gov insurance marketplace, make it easier for people to enroll in Medicaid, and defend the ACA at the Supreme Court.

    But perhaps most important is the Democrats’ COVID relief package, which, as the New York Times noted today, will “fill the holes in the Affordable Care Act and make health insurance affordable for more than a million middle-class Americans who could not afford insurance under the original law.”

    The bill, which will most likely go to the House for a final vote on Wednesday, includes a significant, albeit temporary, expansion of subsidies for health insurance purchased under the act. […]

    For many American consumers, this will mean a dramatic reduction in health care premiums — making “Obamacare” more affordable than ever. In fact, for some lower-income consumers, premiums will drop to zero. […]

    It wasn’t long ago that any proposal to expand the Affordable Care Act would’ve sparked an intense political fight, but in recent weeks, these provisions have gone largely overlooked by the law’s far-right critics. That’s partly due to the fact that Republicans didn’t put up much of a fight on the COVID relief package, investing more time and energy into Dr. Seuss and Potato Head dolls.

    […] The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and top lobbying groups representing insurers, hospitals and doctors have all endorsed the measures […]

    The catch, of course, is that this boost is temporary: there will be lower premiums this year and next, but because of the budget reconciliation process, utilized in order to overcome a Republican filibuster, it became necessary to give these benefits an expiration date.

    And that in turn sets the stage for an interesting election-season fight in 2022. Don’t be surprised if Democrats tell voters next year that they want to make the insurance subsidies permanent, and the only way to make that happen is to keep Congress in Democrats’ hands.

    Health care helped propel Democrats to a U.S. House majority in 2018, but it may yet be one of the defining issues in the next midterm cycle, too.

  269. says

    How desperate is the GOP?

    GOP advances new voting restrictions, worst ‘since the Jim Crow era’

    “I don’t say this lightly,” one scholar wrote. “We are witnessing the greatest roll back of voting rights in this country since the Jim Crow era.”

    The New York Times’ David Leonhardt summarized the landscape nicely: “Republican legislators in dozens of states are trying to make voting more difficult, mostly because they believe that lower voter turnout helps their party win elections. (They say it’s to stop voter fraud, but widespread fraud doesn’t exist.) The Supreme Court, with six Republican appointees among the nine justices, has generally allowed those restrictions to stand.”

    […] Much of the recent attention has focused on Georgia, and for good reason: the Republican-led state government responded to some unexpected defeats in last year’s election cycle by rushing to pass indefensible new voting restrictions — scaling back voting-access laws that Georgia Republicans endorsed just a few years ago.

    […] the problem is not limited to Georgia. Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Monday signed into law a Republican-backed bill that makes it harder to vote early, potentially eroding a key aspect of Democratic campaigns. Republicans in the House and Senate quickly approved the voting changes over the opposition of all Democratic legislators. Republicans said the new rules were needed to guard against voting fraud, though they noted Iowa has no history of election irregularities and that November’s election saw record turnout with no hint of problems in the state.

    This is a classic example of Republicans rushing to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. The integrity of Iowa’s elections is not in doubt, and was never called into question. Indeed, GOP candidates fared quite well in the Hawkeye State in 2020: Donald Trump carried the state easily; Sen. Joni Ernst (R) won re-election by a larger-than-expected margin; and Republicans even flipped two of the state’s four U.S. House seats.

    […] As the Des Moines Register explained:

    The law cuts Iowa’s early voting period from 29 days to 20. Polls will now close at 8 p.m. for state and federal elections instead of 9 p.m. It significantly tightens the rules for when absentee ballots must be received by county auditors in order to be counted. Ballots must now arrive by the time polls close in order to be counted. Previously, ballots placed in the mail the day before Election Day could be counted as long as they arrived by noon the following Monday.

    State Rep. Bobby Kaufmann (R-Iowa) “[…] there are thousands upon thousands of Iowans that do not have faith in our election systems.”

    I wish this made more sense. What the GOP legislator is arguing in effect is that “thousands upon thousands of Iowans” believed lies, so it falls to state government, not to tell people the truth, but rather to make it harder for Iowans to participate in their own democracy.

    […] Fox News reported yesterday that Heritage Action for America, an activist group tied to the Heritage Foundation think tank, is moving forward with plans “to spend at least $10 million on efforts to tighten election security laws in eight key swing states. ”

    The report added that Heritage Action is specifically targeting Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Texas, and Wisconsin.

  270. says

    Follow-up to comment 268.

    Iowa’s Brand New Voter Suppression Law Immediately Smacked With Lawsuit

    […] The lawsuit was filed in district court by lawyers including Marc Elias, who has come to prominence for his nationwide election lawsuits representing Democratic entities […] The defendants are the Iowa secretary of state and attorney general.

    “What makes the Bill baffling — and fatally unconstitutional — is that it lacks any cognizable justification for these burdensome effects on the franchise,” the lawsuit said. “The Bill is largely a grab-bag of amendments and new restrictions that lack any unifying theme other than making both absentee and election day voting more difficult for lawful Iowa voters.”

    […] “The Bill is an exercise in voter suppression, one disguised as a solution for a problem that exists only in the fertile imaginations of its creators,” the lawsuit said.

    The law […] specifically targets county auditors, the officials who run elections in Iowa, three of whom came under heavy fire in the 2020 cycle for sending partially filled-in absentee ballot application forms to voters to facilitate a fast turnaround. The Iowa Supreme Court, less than a month before Election Day, invalidated tens of thousands of absentee ballot requests.

    The new law prohibits auditors from unilaterally setting up satellite early voting sites and from sending out absentee ballot request forms unless a voter requests one. It makes it a felony for auditors not to follow guidance from the Iowa secretary of state, currently a Republican, and establishes fines up to $10,000 for any “technical infractions.” […]

  271. says

    Manhattan DA’s Office Digs Into Forgiven Loan In Trump Chicago Skyscraper Project

    As its investigation into the former president continues, the Manhattan district attorney’s office is eyeing the loan the Trump Organization received from a hedge fund and private equity company […]

    Documents subpoenaed late last year from Fortress Investment Management […] are related to the $130 million loan the company made to the Trump Organization for the construction of a luxury hotel and condo tower in downtown Chicago.

    The documents could be a critical piece in puzzling together ways that Trump persuaded lenders to cut him a break after defaulting on loans, which he may not have recorded as income as required by the Internal Revenue Service.

    […] Trump defaulted on the loan from Fortress, the company had expected to receive more than $300 million from the Trump Organization that included the $130 million in principal and roughly $185 million in anticipated interest and fees.

    According to the Times, Fortress settled for $48 million, which Trump wired to the firm in March 2012.

    […] Partners to Fortress have included former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s Dune Capital, and Cerberus Capital Management, whose co-chief executive, Stephen Feinberg, later became a major Trump fundraiser and later led a White House advisory panel.

    […] The tax records reviewed by the Times show that while Trump accounted for $287 million of income from his canceled debts, he managed to avoid paying income taxes on nearly all of it.

  272. tomh says

    Georgia Senate Passes New Voting Restrictions
    March 8, 2021 KAYLA GOGGIN

    ATLANTA (CN) — In a push to implement voting restrictions that critics say target Black voters, Georgia’s Republican-controlled Legislature on Monday passed a sweeping election bill that repeals no-excuse absentee voting.

    Part of a slew of legislation which Republicans say is necessary to tighten security and restore confidence in the electoral process, SB 241 will allow only a small, highly specific subset of Georgians to vote by mail…

    The Senate is also set to vote Monday on SB 71, a standalone bill which would eliminate no-excuse absentee voting; SB 69, a bill to end automatic voter registration; and two bills to limit absentee ballot application mailings, SB 178 and SB 202.

    SB 241’s passage effectively ends the practice of no-excuse absentee voting in Georgia which was first introduced by Republicans in 2005…

    The bill also creates ID requirements to request an absentee ballot, forcing anyone who does not have a state ID or driver’s license to submit a copy of an approved form of ID when requesting and submitting their ballot…

    Senator Elena Parent, also an Atlanta Democrat, said the bill and others like it stem from the “Big Lie” denying the results of the 2020 presidential election.

    “The foundation for every one of the elections bills introduced today is based on a lie,” Parent said….

    The Georgia House passed similar voting restrictions last week.

  273. says

    Texans Recovering From COVID-19 Needed Oxygen. Then the Power Went Out.

    Mauricio Marin felt his heart tighten when the power flicked off at his Richmond, Texas, home on the evening of Feb. 14, shutting down his plug-in breathing machine. Gasping, he rushed to connect himself to one of the portable oxygen tanks his doctors had sent home with him weeks earlier to help his lungs recover after his three-week stay in a COVID-19 intensive care unit.

    Between the two portable tanks, he calculated, he had six hours of air.

    Marin, 44, and his wife had heard there might be brief, rolling power outages — 45 minutes or an hour, at most — as a massive winter storm swept across Texas last month, overwhelming the state’s electric grid. After more than two hours without electricity, he started to worry.

    Marin tried to slow his breathing, hoping to ration his limited oxygen supply as he lay awake all night, watching the needle on each tank’s gauge slowly turn toward zero. The next morning, his wife, Daysi, made frantic calls to the power company and Marin’s doctor’s office, but nobody was answering in the midst of the storm.

    For the next two days, Marin struggled for air and shivered under a pile of blankets. On the morning of Feb. 17, as they were still without power, his wife begged him to return to the hospital. But they feared driving on icy roads, and by then neither of them could get a consistent signal to call for help, as the widespread outages had knocked cellphone towers offline. And Marin didn’t want to go. He was terrified by the prospect of another hospital stay without visitors.

    Marin’s skin was slowly turning purple, and he began to cry.

    “Honey,” he later remembered telling his wife, straining with each word, “at least I’m going to die with you and my kids and not alone at the hospital.”

    Marin said his life was spared when a neighbor showed up at the door with an oxygen tank a few hours later, sustaining him until the power returned. But he said his doctors fear that the weeklong ordeal inflicted additional damage on his lungs and jeopardized his already tenuous recovery.

    […] sparking calls for investigations of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the nonprofit that operates the power grid spanning most of the state, and the Texas Public Utility Commission, which oversees the state’s electric and water utilities. […] they had not done enough to prepare for winter storms and had ignored warnings about the danger severe weather poses to the state’s electric grid.

    […] medically fragile children and adults suffered permanent or severe injuries because they were unable to get electricity to power life-sustaining medical equipment. […]

    In an effort to reduce the strain on limited hospital resources during the pandemic, it’s become standard practice for hospitals to send most COVID-19 survivors home before their lungs have fully recovered, said Dr. Jamie McCarthy, chief physician executive for the Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston. Those patients often spend several days or weeks dependent on breathing equipment, such as oxygen concentrators or BiPAP machines, that require electricity.

    As a result, McCarthy said, the number of Texas residents dependent on home oxygen was “at an all-time high” as the winter storm hit last month. […] patients recovering from COVID-19 likely didn’t have access to backup power sources or other contingency plans.

    […] hopeful that many of those patients will recover from the damage caused by hours or days spent in frigid homes without access to supplemental oxygen, others may not be able to bounce back.

    When patients with serious respiratory conditions spend several hours or days without access to supplemental oxygen, doctors say, it puts a significant strain on their heart and lungs, limiting the flow of oxygen-rich blood to vital organs and leading to potentially life-threatening complications. Frigid temperatures like those seen during the outages — the inside of many Texas homes dropped below 40 degrees — can further complicate breathing conditions, leading to lung spasms. […]

  274. says

    Follow-up to SC’s comment 260.

    […] the largest sources of news on the right are feeding a constant stream of vaccine-related BS that appears determined to turn every aspect of this health crisis into yet another source of partisan divide. [snipped Berensen’s comments on Tucker Carlson’s show]

    This isn’t a one-off incident. It’s a concerted campaign. As Media Matters reports, Sean Hannity has told his audience he “doubts” he will get vaccinated; Laura Ingraham has brought on Robert Kennedy Jr. to spread anti-vax lies; and Tucker Carlson’s monologue has been filled with claims that experts are “clearly lying” about vaccine safety and efficacy.

    […] stories like that of Putnam County, Missouri, were a vaccine event saw 1,500 doses of vaccine go unused and 150 get thrown away in a county that voted 84% for Trump, are an indication that Republicans are genuinely saying “no” to a return to normality. As KSDK reports, more vaccine is finally being shifted to St. Louis and Kansas City. On Monday, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson made an extraordinary admission: “… we do recognize that some Missourians are less interested in receiving a vaccine than others. Vaccine interest is often highest in urban populations.”

    In other words, the areas of the state that are most Democratic—and also have the highest Black and Latino populations—are the places where vaccine demand is high. In the rural, white, Republican areas, they literally cannot give the vaccine away.

    […] Anyone who gets their news from Fox, OANN, NewsMax, and other right-wing sources has been fed a stream of constant doubt, fear, and plain old lies about the vaccine. There are people who believe it’s genuinely unsafe, or simply ineffective, in addition to those who think that it’s somehow the “mark of the beast” from Revelation. […] they’re still politicizing the vaccine that could save their viewers’ lives. […]

    As a further example, take this Monday story from the Anchorage Daily News. After the annual Alaska Outdoor Council banquet was held—indoors, and without masks—Gov. Mike Dunleavy was just one of at least 15 people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the following days, including at least one Republican legislator.

    However, Dunleavy claims that he didn’t actually catch COVID-19 at the banquet, but got it from “someone he knows.” In efforts to say that the banquet was not a superspreader event, Dunleavy insisted that he was told on Feb. 20 that he had “close contact” with someone who was infected and that he “quarantined.” However, the Outdoor Council banquet was also on Feb. 20. Attending that banquet was apparently part of Dunleavy’s idea of quarantine. Alaska officials claim to still be looking for the source of infection at that banquet … but it sounds like they have a pretty good clue. […]

    Link

  276. says

    Trump waved to ‘lone supporter’ on his first visit to NYC since being 86’d from Washington

    […] when he showed up in Manhattan last night—the town where he first made a shitty name for himself—he wasn’t exactly given a hero’s welcome.

    Former President Donald Trump was spotted outside Trump Tower Sunday night in his first visit back to the Big Apple since leaving office.

    Trump pulled up to the Midtown skyscraper where he stays while in Manhattan just before 9 p.m.

    He was seated in the backseat of a black SUV. Upon his arrival, he waved to a lone supporter who was across the street next to the media.

    […] My cup overfloweth these days with sweet, delicious schadenfreude.

  277. says

    Who Else Is COVID Relief Bill Helping? Black Farmers, Finally!

    […] Among the very good ideas in the bill is a $5 billion package of debt relief and other assistance for Black, Latino, and Indigenous farmers, which will do a lot to begin making up for America’s history — some of which is so recent that it’s actually now — of discrimination against Black farmers. The debt relief was included in the bill through the efforts of Sens. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) and Cory Booker (D-New Jersey) and House Agriculture Committee chair Rep. David Scott. [Yay for Warnock, the new senator who is already doing so much good.]

    […] the current problems faced by Black farmers are a direct result of systematic racism for most of the last century, as a story in Mother Jones summarized:

    By the 1910s, nearly a million Black farmers, a seventh of the nation’s total, owned 41.4 million acres of land, mostly in the South. That turned out to be a peak. Since then, due largely to lingering white supremacy and the racist machinations within the Department of Agriculture, the number of Black farmers has plunged by 98 percent. The remaining few managed to hold on to just 10 percent of that hard-won acreage.

    Warnock’s bill, the Emergency Relief for Farmers of Color Act, was incorporated into the larger relief act, and some agriculture experts are saying it’s among the biggest civil rights gains for Black farmers since the original Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    So what does this thing do? Debt relief is the biggest chunk of the provision, with $4 billion going to loans for Black, Hispanic, and Native American farmers; the loans would cover 120 percent of eligible applicants’ debt. As the AgriPulse blog explains,

    The additional 20% is intended to pay off the taxes the estimated 15,000 farmers would owe as a result of getting the payments. […]

    Not surprisingly, the provision met with Republican opposition; during the long vote-a-rama process, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) complained it’s just not fair to assume that all minority farmers were in debt because of discrimination, because maybe it’s only nearly all of ’em. And what if some of the help goes to people who don’t deserve it enough? […]

    Warnock […] said the debt relief

    has everything to do about COVID-19 relief. The terrible thing about this pandemic is that it has both illuminated and exacerbated long-standing disparities rooted in our racial past.

    For too long, farmers of color have been left to fend for themselves, not getting the support they deserve from the USDA, making it even more difficult for them to recover from this pandemic.

    Toomey’s amendment to strip the funding out of the package failed on a party-line vote.

    In addition to the debt relief, the bill also includes $1 billion aimed at providing minority farmers with tech assistance, financial education, and help with untangling the complicated legal legacy of land ownership — historically, many Black farmers didn’t have clear title to their land, thanks again to fuckery by banks and the government […] That portion of the funding also includes $5 million to set up a racial equity commission within the Department of Agriculture, aimed at eliminating remaining practices that have contributed to discrimination.

    […] now it’s up to the Agriculture Department to make sure it is done right, and for the press and voters to keep a close eye on the USDA to make sure of it. It would really be good to see a ProPublica investigation find that, instead of the usual horrors, the USDA is doing right by Black farmers for a change.

  278. says

    Follow-up to SC’s comment 255.

    Trump and the GOP are kicking the shit out of each other, and it is glorious. The former president has made it clear he’s doing nothing for nobody unless they [pay him], and the Republican Party has got no choice but to get out that checkbook

    […] the RNC announced last night that it will be moving the Saturday night gala portion of the April retreat for high-end Republican donors to Mar-a-Lago. The rest of the weekend will still take place at a luxury hotel in Palm Beach as planned, but Trump will get to pocket the cost of a fancy catered dinner and the ballroom rental. KA-CHING!

    […] the RNC’s lawyer explicitly referred to the party in his response to the cease and desist letter, writing that Trump and McDaniel had kissed and made up, and “that [Trump] approves of the RNC’s current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for our upcoming donor retreat event at Palm Beach at which we look forward to him participating.”

    Subtle! And yet, a rabid animal is always gonna bite. So yesterday the frother in chief foamed out a message to the rabies cultists instructing them to send all their hatebuxx to him and him alone.

    […] Lie down with rabid dogs, wake up with teeth marks. Good luck, Ronna!

    Link

  279. says

    More white supremacy: In Florida, right-wing congressional candidate Laura Loomer (R) described herself as “pro-white nationalism” in a newly surfaced recording from 2017. Loomer lost to Rep. Lois Frankel (D) last fall, but said she intends to try again.

  280. says

    New vaccine eligibility criteria for New York:

    New York is expanding vaccine eligibility to everyone over the age of 60 beginning March 10, officials announced.

    Previously, only residents 65 and up, as well as certain essential workers and people with specific certain underlying conditions were eligible for the vaccine.

    Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) on Tuesday also said public facing essential workers from governmental and nonprofit entities will be eligible beginning March 17.

    This includes public works employees, social service and child service caseworkers, government inspectors, sanitation workers and DMV workers. […]

    Link

  281. says

    New York Times:

    […] The pandemic relief bill that President Biden is on the verge of signing contains a child benefit plan that resembles Blair’s in its ambition. Most families will receive $3,600 a year (paid monthly) for each child age 5 or younger, and $3,000 a year per older child. Other provisions in the bill will further lift income for poor families. The benefits phase out for many households making six-figure incomes.

    […] Over all, the legislation will reduce the child poverty rate this year to about 6 percent from about 14 percent, according to projections by the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia. The biggest declines will be for Black and Hispanic children.

    The most common criticism is that the plan is a form of welfare that could reduce people’s incentives to marry or work. “Monthly cash payments should go only to working households,” Oren Cass, the founder of the policy group American Compass […]

    But the evidence suggests that these concerns may be largely theoretical. In Britain, the changes to child benefits increased employment among single mothers, Waldfogel said. And when a panel of U.S. experts reviewed the research for the National Academy of Sciences, it found that a universal child benefit would have a “negligible” effect on employment.

    “You can’t live on it,” Megan Curran, a research scientist at the Center on Poverty and Social Policy, told me.

    Ultimately, the biggest uncertainty about Biden’s child benefit may not be its impact but its durability. The bill headed to his desk will establish the program for only one year. Its advocates hope that it proves so popular — partly because it’s nearly universal — that Congress will make it permanent. Yet that remains very much in question. […]

  282. says

    Ah, Canada!

    The U.S. Postal Service — like much of the world — has had a tough year, battling budget cuts alongside an increased demand in services and the politicization of its work.

    The agency could likely use some cheering up. Perhaps in the form of a friendly postcard from colleagues across the border at the Canada Post?

    As USPS delays persist, bills, paychecks and medications are getting stuck in the mail.

    Last week, Canada Post began sending out free, prepaid postcards to each of the country’s roughly 13.5 million households. The idea, spokeswoman Sylvie Lapointe said, is for recipients to write to someone they’ve been missing or who may need a smile
    .
    The postcards come in six versions, with phrases such as “I’ve been meaning to write,” “Wishing I were there” and “Sending hugs,” in English and French.

    “Meaningful connection is vital for our emotional health, sense of community and overall well-being,” Doug Ettinger, president and CEO of Canada Post, said in a statement. “Canada Post wants everyone to stay safe, but also stay in touch with the people who matter to them.” […]

    Quoted text is from The Washington Post.

  283. says

    Guardian – “China’s appetite for meat fades as vegan revolution takes hold”:

    The window of a KFC in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou hosts the image of a familiar mound of golden nuggets. But this overflowing bucket sporting Colonel Sanders’ smiling face is slightly different. The bucket is green and the nuggets within it are completely meat free.

    Over the last couple of years, after many years of rising meat consumption by China’s expanding middle classes for whom eating pork every day was a luxurious sign of new financial comforts, the green shoots of a vegan meat revolution have begun to sprout. Although China still consumes 28% of the world’s meat, including half of all pork, and boasts a meat market valued at $86bn (£62bn), plant-based meat substitutes are slowing carving out a place for themselves among a new generation of consumers increasingly alarmed by food crises such as coronavirus and African swine fever.

    China’s most cosmopolitan cities are now home to social media groups, websites and communities dedicated to meat-free lifestyles. VegeRadar, for example, has compiled comprehensive maps of vegetarian and vegan restaurants all across China. According to a report by the Good Food Institute, China’s plant-based meat market was estimated at 6.1bn yuan (£675m) in 2018 and projected to grow between 20 and 25% annually.

    …

    Eating meat has been closely connected with the growing affluence of China. In the 1960s, the average Chinese person consumed 5kg of meat a year. This had shot up to 20kg by the time of former leader Deng Xiaoping’s “reform and opening” of the late 1970s, and to 48kg by 2015.

    But in 2016, as part of its pledge to bring down carbon emissions, the Chinese government outlined a plan to cut the country’s meat intake by 50%. It was a radical move, and so far very few other governments around the world have included meat consumption in their carbon-reduction plans.

    …

    Some of the biggest international chains operating in China have been quick to bet on the growth of alternative meats. KFC is now selling vegan chicken nuggets, Burger King is offering an Impossible Whopper, and Starbucks is serving Beyond Meat pastas, salads and wraps.

    But domestic companies are setting up shop too, betting that state backing will come soon, not least because the government may see alternative proteins as a way to let citizens continue to have the “luxury” of meat while also moving towards its carbon-reduction goals. That optimism has led to several Chinese competitors entering the market alongside international powerhouses such as Cargill, Unilever and Nestlé, as well as the vegan meat poster-children Impossible and Beyond….

    More atl.

  284. says

    From today’s DN! headlines:

    …Italy has passed 100,000 confirmed COVID-19 deaths — the second European country after the U.K. to reach that toll.

    In Peru, a 104-year-old woman on Monday became that nation’s first elderly person vaccinated against COVID. Peru has recorded nearly 50,000 deaths from the disease, though the true number is likely significantly higher.

    Vietnam also rolled out its vaccination campaign on Monday. Vietnam has recorded just 2,500 cases and 35 deaths from COVID-19 after running one of the world’s most successful public health campaigns of the pandemic.

    Meanwhile, Cuba has begun late-stage trials of its Soberana 2 vaccine — with 44,000 volunteers receiving shots this week. It’s the first vaccine candidate produced in Latin America to make it to a phase III trial. [See #162 above for more.]

    …

    South Dakota’s Republican Governor Kristi Noem said Monday she’s “excited” to sign a bill barring transgender women and girls from competing in high school and college sports. Mississippi Republican Governor Tate Reeves has promised to sign similar legislation in his state. South Dakota’s ACLU chapter responded, “The danger this legislation creates is real. The potential harm to South Dakota is significant, and the stakes for transgender students are high. Kids are hurting.”

    …

    Massive women-led marches were held around the world Monday to commemorate International Women’s Day. In Mexico, thousands of women from across the country gathered in Mexico City’s Zócalo protesting skyrocketing femicides. They’re also blasting President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for supporting a gubernatorial candidate for the state of Guerrero who is accused of rape. Protesters were met by police who used tear gas and batons to try to disperse the crowd….

  287. quotetheunquote says

    @Lynna #281.

    We received ours two days ago … they come with step-by-step instructions on how to address and post them (for young people, I was told, who may genuinely have never sent a postcard before!)

    I’m certainly far from being a young person, but I have a different problem – who the heck would I want to send a postcard to? Would you like one?
    “the”

  288. says

    More re #285 (full video at this link) – ABC – “FBI releases new images of DC pipe bomb suspect”:

    The FBI is asking for the public’s help to find the person who left pipe bombs at the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee the night before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot in Washington.

    Newly released video shows what the FBI says is the suspected bomber walking with a backpack and carrying what investigators believe are pipe bombs to their targets.

    At 7:40 p.m. on Jan. 5, the suspected bomber is seen standing in a residential neighborhood on South Capitol Street with the bag, which is briefly set on the ground as a man walking his dog passes by.

    At 7:52 p.m., the person can be seen seated on a bench in front of the DNC, where the first pipe bomb was reportedly placed under a bush. The suspect appears to zip up a bag, stand up and walk away.

    At 8:14 p.m., the suspected bomber is seen in an alley near the RNC, where a second pipe bomb was found. Moments later, a security camera captures the suspect walking in front of the Capitol Hill Club, adjacent to the RNC and less than half a block from the Cannon House Office Building.

    “These pipe bombs were viable devices that could have been detonated, resulting in serious injury or death. We need the public’s help to identify the individual responsible for placing these pipe bombs to ensure they will not harm themselves or anyone else,” the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office said in statement.

    The FBI also released a new wanted poster with images of the suspect and the distinctive Nike “Air Max Speed Turf” shoes with a yellow swoosh they wore.

    “We still believe there is someone out there who has information they may not have realized was significant until now,” D’Antuono said. “We know it can be a difficult decision to report information about family or friends — but this is about protecting human life.”

    In addition to the suspect’s shoes and clothing, the FBI is asking the public to consider whether anyone they know may have exhibited a recent interest in making explosive black powder or may have purchased any of the components of the bomb, including the white kitchen timers used in constructing the devices.

    The videos also show the suspect’s manner of walking, or gait, which investigators hope someone may recognize. It remains unclear if the suspect is a man or a woman.

    …

    A reward for information leading to the arrest of a suspect stands at $100,000….

    Perhaps a press briefing would help to get the message out…

  289. snarkrates says

    SC@284–New: Piers Morgan has quit Good Morning Britain

    Anti-racism is already making the world a better place.

  291. lumipuna says

    Thanks to the recent proliferation of more aggressive coronavirus strains, Finland has finally entered a level of restrictions (except for some rural areas) roughly equivalent to last spring. Infections have clearly surpassed last spring’s peak, and a similar peak we had early this winter. Municipal elections have been rescheduled, at the last moment, from April to June. There’s now even a formal Finnish translation for the term “lockdown”, which hasn’t been officially applied here before, though informally people have used the English term.

    Restaurants are now restricted to takeout only, but otherwise businesses are generally open. Municipal services are largely closed, mainly because they’re much easier to regulate (from legal/administrative point of view) than private businesses. Reportedly, there’s now official mandate (rather than just recommendation) to keep 2 m distance in public indoor venues. Or rather, in practice it means that grocery stores etc. now have to file some additional paperwork to assure health inspectors that they’re guiding their customers and staff to keep distance whenever possible, as they’ve generally been doing all along. There’s still no mask mandate, because the authorities don’t want to figure out the details of enforcement and medical exceptions.

    Finnish media is in a tizzy, because the government is said to be planning some curfew-ish restrictions that might be implemented in biggest city areas if the situation still continues to get worse. Details of these plans are scant, but speculation is rife. Just now, news media has shifted from using the alarmist term “curfew” to the slightly less alarmist “movement restriction”. From what I hear they’re essentially just planning restrictions on private gatherings, which thus far have been unrestricted. At the moment, there’s much public confusion on what exactly would be forbidden and why. I certainly hope this will be well thought out clearly explained to the public, if it comes to that.

  292. says

    quotetheunquote @286, ha! Well, yes, I certainly would like one. I don’t want to post my home address here. If you click on the work history & resumé link at artmeetsadventure.com you can find my snail mail address.

  293. says

    ‘Not A Priority’: WH Knocks Trump For Demanding His Name On Relief Checks

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/white-house-trump-stimulus-checks

    White House press secretary Jen Psaki on Tuesday appeared to jab former President Trump for delaying the release of COVID-19 relief checks last year simply because the then-President insisted on having his name on them.

    Asked during a briefing on Tuesday whether President Biden’s name will appear on the $1,400 COVID-19 relief checks like Trump demanded, Psaki replied that the administration’s priority is to expedite the payments to millions of Americans.

    “Well we’re doing everything in our power to expedite the payments and not delay them, which is why the President’s name will not appear on the memo line of this round of stimulus checks,” Psaki said.

    Psaki added that the COVID-19 relief checks will instead feature the signature of a yet-unnamed career official at the Bureau of Fiscal Service — a standard practice ensuring that government payments are nonpartisan.

    “This is not about him, this is about the American people getting relief,” Psaki said, appearing to take aim at Trump.

    Psaki went on to say that Biden didn’t consider his name on the COVID-19 relief checks “a priority or a necessary step” as the President remains focused on getting the payments into the hands of the public as quickly as possible. […]

  294. says

    Pentagon Set To Extend National Guard Deployment Amid Ongoing Threats

    The Pentagon is set to approve the extended deployment of the National Guard at the U.S. Capitol for roughly two more months, defense officials said Tuesday.

    The Associated Press reported Tuesday that while details are still being worked out, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to give final approval, and have Guard troops continue to provide security in Washington, D.C., after the Capitol Police last week requested that 2,200 members of the National Guard continue to provide security at the Capitol complex for the next two months.

    The anticipated approval of the Guard’s extended stay on Capitol grounds, by request of acting Police Chief Yogananda Pittman comes as the original deadline for security reinforcements was set to expire on March 12. The extension is a sign that threats against lawmakers remains more than a month after the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection.

    In a speech to the Conservative Political Action Committee late last month, Trump singled out the Republicans who voted to impeach him and urged his supporters to “get rid of all of them.”

    Some governors have been reluctant or have otherwise opposed keeping their troops in the city beyond the original deadline for their departure. Defense officials told the AP, however, that there appears to now be enough states willing to commit their troops for continued provision of support amid the ongoing security risks.

    Pittman formally asked the Defense Department on Thursday to retain National Guard troops on Capitol Hill beyond their scheduled departure next week after law enforcement was on alert last week after intelligence warned about a possible threat from an unnamed militia group […]

    […] Pittman appealed to Congress to intervene after the board overseeing her department failed to grant her request to ask for the extension.

    U.S. military officials have said the cost of deploying about 26,000 Guard troops to the U.S. Capitol from shortly after the Jan. 6 riot to this Friday, including housing, transportation, salaries, benefits and other essentials is nearly $500 million. A cost estimate for the two-month extension has not been released.

    Posted by a reader of the TPM article:

    $500,000,000 is somewhat less than .03% of Donnie’s $1.9 Trillion tax cut for the upper crust. That would still be less than .1% of our annual defense spending. It hardly seems a debatable cost for insuring Congress’s safety.

  295. says

    Sen. Tom Cotton puts racism at the center of his attacks on Biden nominee Vanita Gupta

    […] ”She always worked with us to find common ground even when that seemed impossible,” the president of the nation’s largest police union wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Although in some instances our disagreements remain, her open and candid approach has created a working relationship that is grounded in mutual respect and understanding.”

    ”Ms. Gupta has demonstrated a seriousness and willingness to understand the intense challenges, and even dangers, facing police officers with the intent of improving policing at large without degrading the overwhelming number of brave and honorable police officers,” a group of police chiefs wrote.

    Not that this stops the Republican attacks. As usual, Republican politicians only listen to their supposed heroes when it’s convenient to do so.

    Sen. Tom Cotton took another angle in attacking Gupta during her Wednesday hearing. Cotton was outraged, outraged I tell you, at Gupta’s past statements that implicit bias is a thing, and he really thought he was going to get a gotcha out of it, with questions like “Against which races do you harbor racial bias?”

    Gupta responded by owning a universal problem. “I hold stereotypes that I have to manage,” she said. “I am a product of my culture. It’s part of the human condition. And I believe that all of us are able to manage implicit bias, but only if we can acknowledge our own, and I am not above anyone else in that matter.”

    Cotton, though, was ready to pounce with the razor-sharp point that Gupta, in her role at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, had opposed three Trump judicial nominees who were people of color, and since she had admitted to implicit bias, “Should members of those communities be worried that you harbor racial bias against them, because you oppose those judges’ nominations?”

    Pretty sure she opposed the white Trump judicial nominees, too, Tom.

    But of course it’s not about that. It’s about Cotton’s desire to score points with the Republican base by attacking a woman of color who cares about racial justice. […]

    There’s an undeniable pattern here. Republicans, so outraged by the concept that people harbor implicit bias, aren’t really bothering to hide their bias—at least their sense that women of color are easy objects of attack, vulnerable to whatever ridiculous charges get lobbed. Tom Cotton and Mike Lee and their buddies in the Senate like the look of giving women of color a harder time than other Biden nominees. It tells us something about them, and it tells us something about who they’re trying to appeal to.

  296. says

    NBC News:

    The Biden administration notified the Supreme Court on Tuesday that it will no longer defend a government policy seeking to impose new limits on the admission of immigrants considered likely to become overly dependent on government benefits.

    Also from NBC News:

    President Joe Biden is allowing thousands of Venezuelans in the U.S. the chance to apply for temporary protection in the U.S., a strike at Venezuela’s government that could have political benefits for Democrats.

  297. says

    This kind of funny, and definitely pathetic: “Trump’s racist dog whistles after Meghan and Harry and Oprah and gets demolished on Twitter”

    Since losing the election, Trump’s team of incompetent bigots have been moving about, figuring out ways to stay out of prison […] One of the least likable people in the Trump administration is Stephen Miller. Miller’s ability to dig down to the very bottom of a barrel of craven gargoyles is a feat unto itself. Miller has been thankfully out of power for a few weeks now, and is no longer writing C-minus level racist screeds for Donald Trump and the no-longer ruling Republican Party. However, in recent weeks, Miller has been called in to “brief” House Republicans on immigration matters, and remind everyone that the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s dreams of an oligarchy that controls its population through the mythology of an egalitarian ethnostate, are one and the same.

    On Monday, one of the big stories circulating around the internet was Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. In the interview, the couple shared all kinds of thoughts and opinions on the experience of being in the public eye and stepping away from living the life of royalty in the United Kingdom. The tradition of racism was spoken about, the British press lost their minds, and the internet was ablaze with Royals gossip and opinions. The right-wing in our country, not unlike the more conservative elements of England, have had a difficult time dealing with the interracial couple and their decisions to step away from the outdated and stodgy traditions of the Royal family. Some right-wing pundits have chosen to attack the masculinity of Prince Harry, reminding everyone that only classy and intelligent people attack other people based on amorphous concepts like “masculinity.” Other right-wingers have just straight out been racist about Meghan Markle not being white. Predictably Stephen Miller falls on the latter side of the Republican think tank spectrum. Monday Miller sent out two tweets, both of which were met with an avalanche of responses that remind us all how truly despised Stephen Miller is.

    In his first tweet, Miller wrote: “Here’s the question Oprah should have asked Harry & Meghan: isn’t the whole point of the Royal Family that it’s *not* about you but about your country? It’s about service to the UK and the Commonwealth.” He followed up that doozy with one that was a little more on that ruddy red nose. “During President Trump’s head of state visit to the UK, I had the privilege of getting to meet several members of the Royal Family. They were unfailingly gracious & deeply committed to preserving the traditions and heritage of the UK.” For all the canceling us liberals are reportedly doing, Stephen Miller and the dog whistle he has permanently mashed between his lips, seems to get right through, right?

    The responses came fast and funny. [Examples can be viewed at the link.]

    Link

  298. John Morales says

    Well, since it’s quiet, I note that I think sometimes stuff gets posted here with no rigour as to its merit.

    In this case, the above (#296), where the claim is supposedly about “Trump’s racist dog whistles” but the text is actually about some Stephen Miller tweets.
    He ain’t Trump.

    As for the actual claim, I have no idea how the quoted tweets are supposedly racist dogwhistles, or why the writer imagined they’re somehow self-evidently so.

    (And no, examples of responses can’t be viewed at the link, there being no link to follow)

  299. John Morales says

    Um. OK, there is a link.

    What I’m getting from the comments there is that Miller is a bad Jew.

  300. KG says

    Well, since it’s quiet, I note that I think sometimes stuff gets posted here with no rigour as to its merit. – John Morales@297

    Well yes, I’ve noticed you do sometimes post here, John.

  301. John Morales says

    KG, your belaboured tu quoque allegation aside, what do you think about the merits of the claim that those tweets are racist dogwhistles?

    “Here’s the question Oprah should have asked Harry & Meghan: isn’t the whole point of the Royal Family that it’s not about you but about your country? It’s about service to the UK and the Commonwealth.”

    What’s racist about that?

    “During President Trump’s head of state visit to the UK, I had the privilege of getting to meet several members of the Royal Family. They were unfailingly gracious & deeply committed to preserving the traditions and heritage of the UK.”

    What’s racist about that?

  302. says

    John Morales @ #297:

    In this case, the above (#296), where the claim is supposedly about “Trump’s racist dog whistles” but the text is actually about some Stephen Miller tweets.
    He ain’t Trump.

    I was confused at first, too.

    “Trump’s racist [Stephen Miller] dog whistles [verb] after [about] Meghan and Harry and Oprah and gets demolished on Twitter”

    John Morales @ #300:

    “During President Trump’s head of state visit to the UK, I had the privilege of getting to meet several members of the Royal Family. They were unfailingly gracious & deeply committed to preserving the traditions and heritage of the UK.”

    What’s racist about that?

    I don’t know about Australia, but the word “heritage” used by white nationalists like Miller in US politics is dripping with racism. To Miller, preserving US “traditions and heritage” means preserving immigration restrictions; Confederate monuments; and white-supremacist institutions, policies, and practices. It’s a recognizable dog whistle coming from him. It’s also gratuitous here – it has no obvious connection to the (also irrelevant!) remark about their being gracious to white diplomatic guests during short visits. It’s there for a reason: to present Markle not as someone ill-treated by people in a hugely problematic institution but as someone alien and hostile to (white) British “traditions and heritage.”

    I thought this comment from her was quite thoughtful:

    …”In those months when I was pregnant, all around this same time, so we have in tandem the conversation of ‘He won’t be given security. He’s not going to be given a title,’ and also concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born,” she said.

    …

    Markle discussed the conversation in the context of the British Commonwealth and its history of colonialism:

    Especially when — look, I — the Commonwealth is a huge part of the monarchy, and I lived in Canada, which is a Commonwealth country, for seven years. But it wasn’t until Harry and I were together that we started to travel through the Commonwealth, I would say 60%, 70% of which is people of color, right?

    And growing up as a woman of color, as a little girl of color, I know how important representation is. I know how you want to see someone who looks like you in certain positions.

    Even — even Archie. Like, we read these books, and now he’s been– there’s one line in one that goes, “If you can see it, you can be it.” And he goes, “You can be it!”

    And I think about that so often, especially in the context of these young girls, but even grown women and men who when I would meet them in our time in the Commonwealth, how much it meant to them to be able to see someone who looks like them in this position.

    And I could never understand how it wouldn’t be seen as an added benefit. And a reflection of the world today. At all times, but especially right now, to go — how inclusive is that, that you can see someone who looks like you in this family, much less one who’s born into it?

    (Now, monarchies are very weird and silly to me. They cut entirely against my grain and I think they’re harmful in concept and in practice. I’m taking their existence as a given for the purpose of this comment, but I don’t think they should exist.)

  303. says

    Guardian – “France to declassify files on Algerian war”:

    Emmanuel Macron is to allow access to classified national defence documents from more than 50 years ago, covering France’s war in Algeria and other files previously deemed to contain state secrets.

    The Élysée said the move, a week after the admission that French troops tortured and killed the Algerian independence activist Ali Boumendjel in 1957, sought to balance “historical truth” with legitimate “national defence issues”.

    A recommendation to drop the secret défense classification for documents relating to the years up to 1970, particularly those pertaining to French colonisation and the Algerian conflict, was a key element in a recent report by the historian Benjamin Stora commissioned by the president.

    Stora highlighted the need for France to “face up to its history” and also suggested creating a “truth and memory” commission to reconcile “the two shores of the Mediterranean”.

    The declassification, which has to be drawn up into legislation expected to be passed before the summer, has also been welcomed by families of passengers who died onboard an Air France flight from Ajaccio in Corsica to Nice on 11 September 1968.

    Campaigners believe a French navy vessel mistakenly shot down the Caravelle aircraft over the Mediterranean during a military exercise. However, all attempts to obtain official documents from the era have been thwarted by the secret défense classification.

    …

    In an open letter to Le Monde two months ago, a group of French archivists and historians complained about the “systematic application” of refusals to their demands for official documents on the grounds they were classified under national defence.

    “To be blocked from access to documents in this way for months, and sometimes years, has hindered work on some of the most sensitive episodes of our recent past, whether it be the occupation, the colonial wars or the history of the fourth republic and the beginning of the fifth,” they wrote.

    …

    A statement from the Élysée announcing the declassification of files more than 50 years old read: “It is the state’s responsibility to articulate in a balanced manner freedom of access to archives and the fair protection of the higher interests of the nation through the secrecy of national defence.

    “Determined to promote respect for historical truth, the president of the republic has heard the demands of the academic community to facilitate access to classified archives that are more than 50 years old.”

  305. says

    Here’s a link to the March 10 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    From there:

    Covid variant first identified in Britain has ‘significantly higher’ mortality, study finds

    The highly infectious British variant of Covid-19 is between 30% and 100% more deadly than previous strains, Reuters reports.

    In a study that compared death rates among people in Britain infected with the new Sars-CoV-2 variant, known as B.1.1.7, against those infected with other strains, scientists said the new variant had “significantly higher” mortality.

    The B.1.1.7 variant was first detected in Britain in September 2020, and has since been found in more than 100 countries.

    It has 23 mutations in its genetic code – a relatively high number of changes – and some of these have made it far more able to spread. UK scientists say it is about 40%-70% more transmissible than previously dominant circulating coronavirus variants.

    In the UK study, published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, infection with the new variant led to 227 deaths in a sample of 54,906 Covid-19 patients, compared with 141 among the same number of patients infected with other variants.

    “Coupled with its ability to spread rapidly, this makes B.1.1.7 a threat that should be taken seriously,” said Robert Challen, a researcher at Exeter University who co-led the research.

  308. says

    “Brian Kilmeade: ‘Russia and China, our chief adversary I would argue — and Iran — they’re not going through this cancel culture. They plow through it. I don’t want their system of government, but they actually know what the threat is out there’.”

    Video atl.

  309. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    The European commission said on Wednesday it has reached a deal with Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of an additional four million Covid vaccine doses to be delivered this month, according to Reuters.

    The doses to vaccinate two million people will be supplied in addition to the planned deliveries, to ease border movement and to tackle virus hotspots, the commission added…

    Eli Lilly and Co has said that its combination antibody therapy to fight Covid-19 reduced the risk of hospitalisation and death by 87%, in a study of more than 750 high-risk coronavirus patients.

    It is the second large, late-stage study to show that combination therapy of two antibodies, bamlanivimab and etesevimab, is effective at treating mild to moderate Covid cases, Reuters reports.

    Daniel Skovronsky, chief scientific officer at Eli Lilly, said:

    I expect this data to continue to drive more utilization” of the antibodies. We have few other diseases where we have drugs that can offer this magnitude of benefit.

    France is on track to reach its Covid vaccination targets, government spokesman Gabriel Attal has said after a cabinet meeting.

    Attal also told reporters that curbs were working, but the situation in hospitals – including in Paris and its region – remained a concern.

    Brazil registered 1,972 new Covid deaths in a single day on Tuesday, a record, according to the health ministry.

    The country had 70,764 new coronavirus cases, reaching a total of 11.12 million infections. Brazil had recorded 268,370 coronavirus deaths, Reuters reports.

    Rio de Janeiro-based research institute Fiocruz said in a report that more than 80% of intensive care unit beds are occupied in the capitals of 25 of Brazil’s 27 states.

    The institute warned that a growing number of cities risk a collapse of their health systems.

    US president Joe Biden will announce on Wednesday that he has directed his health team to procure an extra 100 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine, a White House official said.

    Biden is to meet with the chief executives of J&J and Merck on Wednesday, according to Reuters.

  310. says

    From today’s DN! headlines:

    House Votes on $1.9 Trillion Stimulus Bill Before Sending It to Biden’s Desk

    The Democratic-controlled House is voting today to approve the final version of President Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID relief package and will send it to the White House for the president to sign. Key provisions of the sweeping bill include $1,400 payments to tens of millions of adults, child tax credits worth as much as $3,600 per eligible child and extended federal supplemental unemployment benefits of $300 a week….

    WTO Considers IP Waivers for COVID Vaccines…West Bank ICUs Are Full

    Members of the World Trade Organization are meeting today to discuss a waiver on intellectual property rights related to COVID vaccines. The People’s Vaccine Alliance said Tuesday that while rich countries are vaccinating one person every second, the majority of poorer nations have yet to administer a single shot….

    …

    As Israel moves to further open up — having vaccinated some 80% of its adult population — hospitals and intensive care units in parts of the occupied West Bank are at capacity with COVID-19 patients….

    Israel started vaccinating Palestinians working in Israel and in illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank this week — more than two months after launching its vaccination campaign for Israelis.

    At Least 39 African Refugees Drown Off Coast of Tunisia

    At least 39 people are dead after two boats capsized off the coast of Tunisia. All the victims were refugees from sub-Saharan African nations, according to Tunisian officials. Search and rescue efforts continue in the latest tragedy in the Mediterranean, which the U.N. estimates has claimed over 20,000 migrant lives since 2014.

    Second Official from Suu Kyi’s Party Dies in Burma as Security Forces Continue Deadly Crackdown

    In Burma, a second official from deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party has died while being detained, as mass protests continue against the February 1 military coup….

    Arkansas Passes Near-Total Abortion Ban

    Arkansas has passed a near-total ban on abortions. The ban makes an exception only for life-or-death medical emergencies and criminalizes providers who violate the law with a fine of up to $100,000 and up to 10 years in prison. The ban is not set to go into effect until the summer. Both the ACLU and Planned Parenthood are planning challenges. Anti-abortion factions are hoping legal battles will renew a challenge to the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

  311. says

    Manu Raju:

    Marjorie Taylor Greene forces at least her fourth vote on a motion to adjourn in recent days. Patience among some of her colleagues is wearing thin. “It’s just pissing everyone off,” one GOP member said. Crenshaw said he wouldn’t vote for another one

    40 Republicans voted against Greene’s motion to adjourn, the largest number so far. GOP usually sticks together on procedural votes

    At a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, McCarthy told his colleagues that any such tactics must have a clear strategy behind them, per source, an implicit rebuke at some of the procedural antics.
    Despite the pleas, conservative Republicans are showing no signs of letting up.

  312. says

    Lina Alhathloul:

    UPDATE: the judges confirmed the first sentencing of @LoujainHathloul, which means SA confirms considering the UK, the EU, and the Netherlands “terrorist entities” and contacting them a “terrorist act”. #FreeLoujain.

  314. says

    <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/republicans-take-risk-opposing-popular-covid-relief-package-n1260457"Republicans take a risk by opposing popular COVID relief package

    Republicans know the relief plan is popular. They just don’t seem to care. The next question is whether the party will pay a price for trying to kill it.

    […] nearly all GOP lawmakers rallied behind the relief packages signed by Trump, but now that Joe Biden is president, literally zero Republicans in Congress have voted for the American Rescue Plan.

    They know it’s popular. They know it’s going to deliver important benefits. They know their obstinance makes plain the parties’ asymmetric partisanship. They just don’t seem to care.

    The next question is whether Republicans will pay a price for trying to kill this bill.

    Some in the GOP would have people believe that Democrats will suffer for having passed such a popular and worthwhile piece of legislation. “It’s bad politics for them,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) recently said. “Because the narrative is that they’re liberal, they just spend money like there’s no tomorrow […]

    But there is no such “narrative.” No one cares about stale rhetoric and posturing, and congressional Republicans have barely tried to make the case against the bill anyway. The public has heard weeks of discussion about this plan, and as a Pew Research Center survey released yesterday helped show, the American Rescue Plan continues to enjoy broad support.

    [A] sizable majority of U.S. adults (70%) say they favor the legislation. Only about three-in-ten (28%) oppose the bill, which provides economic aid to businesses, individuals and state and local governments. While congressional votes on the legislation have been deeply divided along partisan lines, 41% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents support the measure. The bill draws overwhelming support from Democrats and Democratic leaners (94% favor).

    […] There’s no modern precedent for a political party passing a popular bill and then facing a political backlash.

    The more realistic scenario is the opposite. The more the relief package delivers, and the more the economy improves, the more likely it becomes that Republicans will have a tough time defending their relentless opposition to it.

    […] As an NBC News piece explained yesterday, “The financial benefits in the Covid-19 relief bill are more immediate and tangible than the 2009 stimulus package. And now, unlike 2009, there is little grassroots enthusiasm against the Democratic push, with many conservatives more fired up over cultural issues. Some Republican lawmakers and activists are highlighting controversies over racist imagery in Dr. Seuss books to rally a disaffected base.”

    Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) added, “We help people, they complain about irrelevant s**t.”

    Obviously, there are some unpredictable variables at play. Maybe there will be a COVID variant that leads to a fourth wave that strains the economy. Maybe inflation will become a problem and the Federal Reserve will intervene in ways that cause economic pain. Maybe some entirely new problem will emerge that’s not currently on the landscape.

    […] Jon Chait added this morning, “The Republican decision to vote against Biden in unison, without building much of a case against his bill, seems like the worst of all possible worlds. They are setting themselves against a bill that enjoys sky-high levels of support from both economic experts and a large chunk of their own base. It’s possible this gambit somehow works out. But if anybody regrets their political choices in the early weeks of the administration, the odds are it won’t be Biden.”

  315. tomh says

    Arkansas Governor Signs Bill Banning All Elective Abortions to ‘Set the Stage for the Supreme Court’ to Overturn Roe v. Wade

    Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (R) on Tuesday signed into law a bill that bans all elective abortions in the state, only allowing an exception in cases of a medical emergency where the procedure is required to save the life of the mother. Expecting a legal challenge of the legislation, Hutchinson hopes that the Supreme Court of the United States will eventually use its conservative majority to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision.
    […]

    …Hutchinson said, “SB6 is in contradiction of binding precedents of the U.S. Supreme Court, but it is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law.”
    […]

    The bill represents the most draconian abortion restriction in the U.S., and is part of a wider push by the Republican-led states to see how far a Supreme Court with Republican-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts will go towards tearing down past precedent. Similar bills were introduced in Montana and South Carolina after President Joe Biden in said in January that his administration would seek to cement reproductive rights through federal law.

  316. says

    John Morales @297:

    Well, since it’s quiet, I note that I think sometimes stuff gets posted here with no rigour as to its merit.

    Yes, the quoted text in comment 296 was badly worded to some extent.

    Yes, mistakes are made in this thread. Should I apologize because this entirely volunteer, (unpaid), effort at keeping our readers informed sometimes falls short of your idea of perfection? Okay, yeah, sorry about that. But the overall quality of news and discussion on this thread is unlikely to change. Remember, it’s all done on a volunteer, unpaid basis … for several hours every day.

    Perhaps you should start and maintain your own political news site.

    In my opinion, this thread played a small part in helping to defeat Donald Trump. Years of work resulted in a more informed readership. All of that work was imperfect.

    In my opinion, you could comment on mistakes or on posts you think are misleading without being an asshat about it.

    I have noted in the past that I value your comments. That still stands. But if you only want to start fights over petty shit, while simultaneously insulting the people who do most of the work, then I suggest that you will find your welcome growing thin.

  317. says

    Even now, Senate Republicans seek another tax break for the wealthy

    Senate Republicans have finally found a policy idea they’re eager to work on: scrapping the estate tax. The GOP’s timing could be better.

    Donald Trump had a weird habit of bragging about having eliminated the estate tax, to the point that he actually seemed to believe it. That was unfortunate: the Republicans’ regressive tax plan in 2017 narrowed the eligibility of who would be affected by the estate tax, but the GOP did not scrap it altogether.

    […] Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) issued this press release yesterday about a re-introduced Republican bill.

    Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and John Thune (R-S.D.) and fellow lawmakers today reintroduced the Death Tax Repeal Act of 2021 to permanently repeal the federal estate tax, commonly known as the “death tax.” […]

    […] It also includes the support of the entirety of the Senate GOP leadership: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is on board, as is Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.C.), who tweeted about the bill late yesteday.

    The good news is, Senate Republicans have finally found a policy idea they’re eager to work on. The bad news, their policy idea is to give more tax breaks to the wealthiest of the wealthy.

    Obviously, given the political circumstances — Democrats control both the White House and Congress — this legislation will not succeed. In fact, it won’t get a hearing or a vote, either. Republicans know this, but they’re eager to champion the proposal anyway.

    And that, in and of itself, is extraordinary. As regular readers may recall, the estate tax currently only applies to estates worth more than $22 million. By most estimates, we’re talking about a few thousand Americans — each of whom is among the wealthiest of the wealthy — who might actually be affected by the tax.

    […] Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) declared a couple of weeks ago, “The Republican Party is not just the party of country clubs. The Republican Party is the party of steel workers, construction workers, pipeline workers, police officers, firefighters, waiters, and waitresses.”

    […] Republican senators oppose minimum-wage increases for those waiters and waitresses, they also have no qualms about giving yet another tax break to the country-club crowd.

    […] A Washington Post report added that the American Rescue Plan “represents one of the most generous expansions of aid to the poor in recent history.”

    It’s against this backdrop that 25 Republican senators decided the time to introduce a bill to give a tax cut to millionaires and billionaires is … right now? If the GOP is lucky, voters won’t notice.

  319. says

    Dan Friedman:

    The recent arrests of Rob Minuta and Joshua James mean that five Oath Keepers who did security for Roger Stone now face charges for their part in the January 6 attack on Congress.

    In addition to Minuta and James, three Oath Keepers indicted last month on conspiracy and other charges – Kelly and Connie Meggs and Graydon Young – also did security for Stone. Kellys Meggs on 1/5; Connie Meggs and Young at 12/14 rally in Largo, Fla.

    This means five Oath Keepers who did security for Stone, not just the two cited in reports yesterday, face charges over the 1/6 riot. And the three arrested last month face conspiracy charges, compounding Stone’s likely legal concerns.

    Thanks to [Capitol Terrorists Exposers] for helping us find videos that show these additional three Oath Keepers charged last month also did security for Stone.

    MoJo link atl.

  322. says

    Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, falsely claimed that the COVID relief bill will hurt poor families.

    […] “Who hurts, gets hurt? Poor families,” Scott said on Fox News. “They’re not helping poor families with this, they’re hurting poor families.”

    The package is directly targeted at low-income people and families, and researchers have already found that it will profoundly lower the poverty rate. Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy found that it would halve child poverty and reduce adult poverty by a quarter. A new study from the Urban Institute found that the package would reduce the overall poverty rate in 2021 by more than a third, specifically lowering the rate by 42 percent for Black people, 39 percent for Hispanic people and 34 percent for white people.

    While Scott’s may be the most blatantly false attack, Republicans have been all over the map in their half-hearted attempts to characterize it as bad.

    House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) took the floor Wednesday during the debate on the bill to bemoan it as “socialist,” a “laundry list of left-wing priorities.”

    […] Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who forced a brief procedural delay in the bill’s final vote Wednesday morning, based her opposition broadly on the package being a “massive woke progressive Democrat wishlist.”

    […] Republicans’ knee-jerk but unfocused attacks on the bill belie its bipartisan popularity. A Morning Consult poll published Wednesday shows that 75 percent of registered voters — including 59 percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats — support the package.

    Democrats have been touting the “bipartisan” nature of the bill despite its lack of congressional Republican support, citing its popularity with Republican voters and some state-level GOP lawmakers across the country.

    The package is expected to pass in the House, primarily if not entirely on the back of the Democratic majority, Wednesday afternoon.

    Link

  323. says

    Rep. Clyburn advises Sen. Graham to ‘go to church’ over outrageous ‘reparations’ complaint

    […] this funding […] makes total sense in general and specifically when it comes to pandemic relief. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, however, decided to describe it as “reparations” […]

    […] First, Graham’s initial complaint to host Maria Bartiromo on Fox News:

    “Let me give you an example of something that really bothers me,” he began. “In this bill, if you’re a farmer, your loan will be forgiven up to 120 percent of your loan if you’re socially disadvantaged if you’re African American… some other minority. But if you’re [a] white person, if you’re a white woman, no forgiveness! That’s reparations! What does that have to do with COVID?”

    Note, among other things, his emphasis on “white woman.” We’ve known for a long time that the Republican Party likes to reach out to its contingency of white women when convenient while all the while fighting against reproductive justice and autonomy, but it feels especially obvious in recent days as so many in the GOP use the idea of protecting cisgender girls and women in sports as an excuse for exclusionary transphobia.

    And, of course, providing aid to Black farmers is not actually reparations.

    CNN’s Don Lemon gave a fantastic reply to Graham, as you can check out in the video below. Among other points, he advises Graham to pick up a “history book.” He said, as many would likely agree, that if Graham wants to talk about reparations, that’s great—but, as Lemon put it, “that ain’t it.”

    Clyburn also responded to Graham’s assertion, bringing up both history and religion. When asked what Clyburn would say to Graham (and those who agree with him) that funds in this relief bill are reparations, Clyburn said of Graham: “Well, I think you ought to go back and maybe, go to church … Get in touch with his Christianity.” [video clip is available at the link]

    “Lindsey Graham is from South Carolina,” Clyburn stated. “He knows South Carolina’s history. He knows what the state of South Carolina in this country has done to Black farmers,” stressing that, “They didn’t do it to white farmers.”

    In terms of COVID-19 relief, Clyburn emphasized: “We’re trying to rescue the lives and livelihoods of people.” In reference to Graham, Clyburn said, “He ought to be ashamed of himself. He knows the history of this country and he knows what has happened to Black farmers.”

    “Lindsey Graham ought to be ashamed,” he stated. That’s something we can all agree on.

  324. says

    President Biden saved a vaccine system that wasn’t just failing, but had already collapsed

    On Wednesday, The New York Times [tried] to both sides the growing success of the Biden administration’s vaccine delivery program. Sure, that program has added hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine. Yes, the rate of vaccination has more than tripled (and is still accelerating). And okay, the vaccines are actually arriving on time at levels the states are expecting. But, insists the Times, much of the credit for all this should go to … Donald Trump.

    The reason that the previous occupant of the White House deserves credit isn’t exactly clear. The article cites numerous examples of Trump officials complaining about a lack of head pats from Biden. And they point out that Trump invoked the Defense Production Act numerous times—just not to actually produce vaccine. Still, the Times insists, Biden’s ability to provide vaccine to every American by May is a triumph of “public relations” created by underplaying the terrific program handed over by Trump.

    That would be the same program described as falling apart, leaving states “scrambling” after a stockpile of vaccine that didn’t exist while “mired in the morass” of a “beleaguered vaccine distribution” system that constantly overpromised and underdelivered […] That system wasn’t just announcing new shipments that never showed up, it encouraged states to expand vaccination based on the promise of a “federal stockpile” that didn’t exist.

    What Donald Trump left Joe Biden wasn’t just a mess, it was a deliberate trap.

    Back in January, the Times appeared to understand that the achievements of “Operation Warp Speed” were little more than smoke and mirrors. The nation was getting announcements about increased production, but production was actually slipping.

    While the latest article credits Trump with repeatedly invoking the Defense Production Act to help Pfizer obtain supplies […] Pfizer had been forced to cut projected shipments of vaccine specifically because of a failure to secure the manufacturing supply chain. No one in the Trump White House was working with Pfizer to give them what was needed to meet production targets. Absolutely no one was willing to work to provide manufacturing equipment to expand their abilities. Instead of the projected 100 million doses, Pfizer was forced to cut expected deliveries in half.

    When it came to getting those vaccines out to the public, there was nothing that even resembled a coherent plan. States that had expected a federalized system based on months of Trump promising a “military operation” managed by Gen. Gustave Perna found that there was no such system. Or even a plan for such a system. Instead, states were left to develop their own plans for administering vaccine, with federal responsibility stopping with the delivery of vaccines to their borders […]

    states repeatedly received far fewer doses than they were promised “without explanation.” The unpredictability of the numbers left states unable to plan for the transportation, storage, or administration of vaccine that was showing up late, in reduced amounts, and on a schedule that changed without warning. And all of this was happening as the number of COVID-19 cases raced toward a staggering peak.

    All of this came to an astounding head in January when Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar promised states that they would begin receiving the doses that the federal government had held in reserve for use in administering the second dose of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Then, as The Washington Post reported just five days before Joe Biden took office, it turned out there was no federal stockpile. Instead, the Trump White House had been artificially inflating the apparent level of delivery by “taking second doses for the two-dose regimen directly off the manufacturing line.”

    That’s what Biden walked into: a system that wasn’t just consistently providing less vaccine than promised and unable to give states accurate numbers about what was coming, but a system that was in a hole millions of doses deep.

    […] While the Times now claims that Biden’s team “tamped down expectations” so that they could later appear to have worked miracles, the truth is … they worked miracles. In an astoundingly short time, they replaced a system that had been constantly underperforming, failing to give states reliable numbers, and robbing second doses to create the appearance of success with a program that is genuinely succeeding.

    Biden invoked the Defense Production Act not just to produce gloves or vials, but to provide Pfizer with expanded manufacturing facilities, to enlist Merck in manufacturing rival Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, and to provide the raw materials necessary to remove the roadblocks to production. All of which are steps Trump simply refused to take. The new White House team then leaned hard on pharmaceutical companies to meet their goals, and worked with them directly to ensure that targets stopped slipping.

    Crucially, Biden secured not only enough doses of vaccine to vaccinate every American—he secured more. In fact, on Wednesday, President Biden is set to announce that he has purchased another 100 million doses of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine. This vaccine is being purchased explicitly in case there are any unforeseen incidents that delay production of Pfizer or Moderna’s vaccine. Biden isn’t just making sure that Americans have all the vaccines necessary, he’s securing a backup plan.

    […] Trump treated the whole thing like one of his real estate deals, using hype and outright theft to paper over a crumbling core.

    As a result of the steps Biden has taken, The Washington Post reports that Alaska has now become the first state to open vaccination to everyone over 16. It won’t be the last. Other states are set to move to vaccinating a large swath of the general public within the next two weeks. By April, vaccinations can be expected to be open to every adult in every state.

    That’s happening in spite of what Trump did. Not because of it.

  326. says

    Stacey Abrams Has a Plan to Dismantle the Filibuster and Protect Voting Rights

    And she thinks it can get support from reluctant centrist Democrats.

    As Republicans in the Georgia state legislature passed a series of voting restrictions over the past 10 days, Stacey Abrams, the state’s leading voting rights activist, saw an ever more pressing need to reform the filibuster in the US Senate. And she has a plan for how to do it.

    The Georgia legislation and the Senate rules might seem unrelated, but to Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018 and founder of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, they’re directly connected. “Republicans are rolling back the clock on voting rights,” she says. “And the only way to head that off is to invoke the elections clause of the Constitution, which allows the Congress—and the Congress alone—to set the time, place and manner of elections at a federal level.”

    The problem is that Republicans will surely use the filibuster to set an impossible 60-vote threshold for any such effort—and that two centrist Democratic senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, have said they oppose abolishing the filibuster. That’s why Abrams proposes tweaking it to allow major voting rights legislation to pass, and she thinks her plan can get reluctant Democrats on board.

    In the same way that Democrats can pass budget bills and confirm judges and Cabinet members with a simple majority, legislation protecting voting rights should also be exempt from the 60-vote requirement, Abrams says.

    “The judicial appointment exception, the Cabinet appointment exception, the budget reconciliation exception, are all grounded in this idea that these are constitutionally prescribed responsibilities that should not be thwarted by minority imposition,” she says. “And we should add to it the right to protect democracy. It is a foundational principle in our country. And it is an explicit role and responsibility accorded only to Congress in the elections clause in the Constitution.” […]

  327. says

    The nation’s top cybersecurity official told lawmakers Wednesday that the federal government is seeing “widespread” hacking using recently uncovered vulnerabilities in a Microsoft email application, with researchers saying almost a dozen hacking groups have used the flaw to target a variety of organizations.

    Brandon Wales, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), testified to a House committee that the previously unknown vulnerabilities on Microsoft Exchange Server have been exploited globally and could have long-lasting consequences.

    “CISA is already aware of widespread exploitation of the vulnerabilities, and trusted partners have observed malicious actors using these vulnerabilities to gain access to targeted organizations in the United States and globally,” Wales testified to the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee.

    “Importantly, once an adversary gains access to a Microsoft Exchange Server, they can access and control an enterprise network even after the vulnerabilities are patched, and malicious exploitation could be executed by actors with various motivations, from stealing information to executing ransomware attacks to physically damaging infrastructure,” he warned. […]

    Link

  328. says

    Follow-up to comment 324.

    More details:

    […] Lawmakers also set aside tens of billions of dollars to fund coronavirus testing, contact tracing and vaccine deployment, as they aim to deliver on Biden’s recent promise to produce enough inoculations for “every adult in America” by the end of May. And the stimulus bill approves additional funds to help schools reopen, allow restaurants and businesses to stay afloat and assist state and local governments trying to meet their own financial needs.

    “The Biden American Rescue Plan is about the children, their health, their education, [and] the economic security of their families,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) just before lawmakers gave the bill a final green light, prompting cheers among Democrats gathered in the chamber. “This legislation is one of the most transformative and historic bills any of us will ever have an opportunity to support.” […]

    Washington Post link

  329. says

    The Dems’ COVID relief package is a break with the last 50 years

    “It’s a phase I generally take great pains to avoid, but let’s make an exception: the American Rescue Plan represents a paradigm shift in our politics.”

    […] After I spent some time gushing about the Democrats’ COVID relief package, Rachel directed some good-natured ribbing my way on Monday night’s show, telling Chris Hayes that I haven’t “stopped kvelling” since the Senate passed the American Rescue Plan. Rachel added that she can barely understand me this week because I’ve basically been “ululating instead of talking.”

    All of that, of course, was both funny and true. It’s also worth pausing to appreciate why.

    Obviously, the legislation is worthy of celebration on the merits. This is an ambitious package that will do an enormous amount of good for families and communities that desperately need a hand. It’s a bill that matches the seriousness of the crises that continue to take a toll on the nation, and should leave us better off.

    […] Or put another way, headed into today’s House vote on the American Rescue Plan, it’s been more than a decade since we’ve seen Congress and the White House take such a meaningful and consequential progressive step.

    […] Consider Chris Hayes’ response on Monday night’s show after Rachel asked for his perspective about the relief package:

    “[I]t feels like we drove a stake through a certain kind of anti-welfare austerity politics that was incredibly powerful for four to five decades…. The kind of marking of an era of transition to the politics of government support and investment to me is as significant as anything that I’ve seen in the time I’ve covered politics.”

    Quite right. For a half-century, Democrats have entered nearly every major policy dispute by asking themselves a series of constrictive questions: “Are we aiming too high? Are we going too fast? What about the deficit? What about Republicans’ ‘welfare’ talking points? What will the centrist pundits think? What kind of attack ads should we expect? Should we start compromising now or later? Before extending aid, should we consider strings such as work requirements?”

    The questions were rooted in internalized Reagan-era assumptions about the public sector being inherently unreliable, the inefficacy of public investments, and the government being untrustworthy.

    In 2021, Democrats had the sense to put all of that aside. What mattered was writing — and passing — a good bill that would make a material difference in Americans’ lives.

    […] When crafting their COVID relief package, Democrats didn’t just come up with a different kind of solution, they also approached the issue in a different kind of way.

    To be sure, it wasn’t easy. A great many pieces had to fall into place to make such a victory possible. But they did, and we’re all about to be better for it.

  330. says

    Orlando Sentinel:

    n Florida, where there were no meaningful problems at all with the 2020 elections, voting drop boxes were very popular with the state’s electorate. Republican legislators are considering a plan to eliminate them altogether.

    Other news:

    And to get a flavor of the kind of fundraising messages the Republican campaign committees send to their donors, an actual NRSC pitch this week read in part, “Trump eliminated global terrorist threats…. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has only gone after Dr. Seuss and a plastic potato head.”

  331. says

    SC @319, that is such a perfect headline!

    Follow-up to SC’s comment 305:

    If the rich, powerful, and corrupt thought the added separation of video conferencing during COVID-19 would protect them from Democratic Rep. Katie Porter of California, and her relentless pursuit of answers, they were wrong. Rep. Porter’s great strength is her reliance on facts and very easy-to-understand presentations of those facts and the incongruities between those facts and the explanations that people in power frequently give to explain away their exploitation of Americans.

    On Tuesday, a New Mexico-based oil and gas exploration company, Strata Production, sent their president Mark Murphy to answer questions in front of the House Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Porter is new on the committee and has been championing a bill she recently introduced that promises to “raise fees on polluters extracting from public lands.” Companies like the one Murphy runs have not simply acted as polluters for decades, they have been incentivized to so do by the government through special tax breaks and the like.

    Porter asked Murphy whether or not the technology and costs of drilling had become more streamlined since his grandfather first received big tax breaks to offset those costs 100 years ago. Murphy gave a mealymouthed answer saying some costs went up and others went down—of course he didn’t mention how his profits have been fantastic for 100 years. This led to Murphy’s condescending attempt at questioning Porter’s understanding of royalties versus profits, and dug Murphy’s grave just that much deeper.

    As her time came to a close, Rep. Porter asked about one of the special incentives that make Murphy and Strata’s business model completely rigged in comparison to other business models—Intangible Drilling Costs. Intangible Drilling Costs (IDCs) are “one of the largest tax breaks available specifically to oil companies, allowing companies to deduct most of the costs of drilling new wells in the United States.” They are above the line tax deductions that allow fossil fuel companies to deduct up to 70% of their costs right up front. It’s important to also understand that depending on the estimate, drilling costs make up 60-90% of IDCs, to which Murphy gave an incomprehensibly fraudulent answer, saying that the oil industry did not receive any different tax breaks or structures than any other business or industry.

    […] A clearly frustrated Porter cut Murphy off for a reality check:

    REP. KATIE PORTER: You do benefit from special rules. There’s a special tax rule for intangible drilling costs that does not apply to other kinds of expenses that businesses have. You get to deduct 70% of your costs immediately, and other businesses have to amortize their expenses over their entire profit stream. So please don’t patronize me by telling me that the oil and gas industry doesn’t have any special tax provisions. Because if you would like that to be the rule, I would be happy to have Congress deliver.

    The argument for IDCs has always been that oil and gas exploration is an expensive proposition and we need to incentivize “investment” in it. Of course, these incentives were thought of 100 years ago, and made a lot more sense than back when no one really had any idea where they might find gas or oil. Better technology means easier and deeper drilling and extracting, and better success rates on where to drill. The oil industry has been established and now it is time to spend some of the government incentivizing power on renewable energy, because climate change is very real.

    Surprise, surprise, after decades where the fossil fuel industry has received ten times as much taxpayer money as the U.S. education system, gas and oil men have been spending lots of time and lobbyist money whining about the renewable industry’s tax breaks and incentives being unfair. […]

    after that initial incentivized investment, the industries squash competition, do not share in the egregious profits they make off of people, and then fight tooth and nail to do as little as possible to […] make it independent of government welfare.

    […] if they cannot make money being oil barons then maybe they need to do something else.

  332. says

    Yay! Good news: Senate votes to confirm Garland as attorney general

    The Senate on Wednesday confirmed Merrick Garland to be President Biden’s attorney general, a u-turn from a 2016 stalemate that kept him stuck in Senate limbo.

    Senators voted 70-30 on Garland’s nomination to lead the Justice Department, easily topping the 50 votes needed.

    The vote comes just days before the five-year anniversary from when then-President Obama nominated Garland to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. Republicans, who then controlled the Senate, refused to give Garland a hearing or a vote.

    This time around Garland, who has served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals since 1997, won support from most of the caucus, including the men at the center of the 2016 standoff: GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).

    “I’m voting to confirm Judge Garland because of his long reputation as a straight shooter and a legal expert. His left-of-center perspective has been within the legal mainstream. Let’s hope our incoming attorney general applies that no-nonsense approach to the serious challenges facing the Department of Justice and our nation,” McConnell said ahead of Wednesday’s vote.

    Garland’s path to confirmation wasn’t without headaches after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) announced that he had placed a hold on the nomination, forcing Democrats to eat up days of floor time. […]

  334. John Morales says

    SC @301, I appreciate the explanation.

    Lynna @315, I heed your displeasure, and henceforth I shall endeavour to merely post links to socio-political news stories, since it’s hard for me to be other than myself. FWIW, it was not personal.

    —

    Anyway, in local (to me) news:
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-11/sexual-consent-brisbane-schools-review-welcomed/13233818

    The State Government’s decision to review sexual education in Queensland schools, particularly teaching sexual consent, has received high marks from teachers as advocates call for the topic to be discussed from a younger age.

  335. lotharloo says

    There’s a big scandal in the gaming community. Last night, very serious sexual and emotional abuse allegations were made against one of the biggest names in the FPS games, Sinatraa. He was the MVP (most valuable player) of the Overwatch League in Season 2. He made big news because he switched games to Valorant and became one of the best (some considered him the best in Valorant); switching games as an MVP and becoming an MVP candidate in the new game is very very rare so the guy had really a lot of traction, fame, and influence. I’m not going to go through the accusations, but they are very serious, backed up with audio and screenshots of text messages and so on and they involve rape, emotional abuse, stalking (tracking locations, accusing the partner of cheating), and other shitty behavior. So far, the takes have been quite supportive, although there have been pros with typical shitty takes.
    Links (with links to the google doc written by the ex-girlfriend):
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Competitiveoverwatch/comments/m1pati/sexual_abuse_allegations_towards_sinatraa_by_his/
    https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/m1p649/sinatraas_ex_speaks_out/
    https://www.reddit.com/r/ValorantCompetitive/comments/m245ku/riot_statement_on_sinatraa/

  336. says

    First some background on what one Republican dunderhead said during the passage of the American Rescue Plan in the House of Representatives:

    Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin. Grothman got up to give his random set of talking points, which he delivered with his signature stilted common man patois and amounted to, “We’re giving too much money to people and it will cause inflation.” Also, Grothman had a super racist thing to say about the Black Lives Matter movement. Speaking to the “increase in the earned income tax credit for single people,” Grothman claimed the American Rescue Plan “has a marriage penalty in it.” We will get back to this misrepresentation of reality in a moment, but what brought on the ire of anyone listening to Grothman’s grandstanding was how he attempted to connect the concern for Black lives and the Black Lives Movement with some attack on family values. “I bring it up because I know the strength that Black Lives Matter had in this last election. I know it’s a group that doesn’t like the old-fashioned family.”

    Link

    Commentary:

    Wow. What a strange, racist thing to say that’s not even remotely based in a fake kernel of a fake fact. Congresswoman Stacey Plaskett of the Virgin Islands could be heard responding to this true debasement of rhetoric as Grothman yielded his time, and she came up to address it. Clearly throwing away her prepared notes, Plaskett made sure Grothman knew exactly what she thought of him and his racism.

    Plaskett’s response:

    STACEY PLASKETT: Mr. Speaker: I hope my colleague from Wisconsin will not leave at this time as he’s talked about Black Lives Matter. How dare you! How dare you say that the Black Lives Matter—Black people do not understand “old-fashioned families”? Despite some of the issues, some of the things that you have put forward—that I’ve heard out of your mouth, in the oversight committee, in your own district—we have been able to keep our families alive for over 400 years. And the assault on our families to not have Black lives or not even have Black families. How dare you say that we are not interested in families in the Black community. That is outrageous. That should be stricken down. I was going to talk about the American Rescue Plan. We know that this is going to provide relief to not only Black lives, Black Americans, but all Americans, that we are interested in children and in their welfare. And at this time I yield back.

    Well done, Stacey Plaskett.

    Here is a bit more background on Grothman:

    […] He’s the Wisconsin representative who thought requiring businesses to give their employees at least one day off a week was the opposite of “freedom.” This is a man that once said, not as a joke, “Quite frankly, it’s scandalous that lawyers are leading people to believe that the lead paint in these houses is responsible for the increases in the (lead) levels in their blood.” […]

  337. tomh says

    Iowa Reporter Found Not Guilty By Jury After Arrest At Black Lives Matter Protest
    SCOTT NEUMAN March 10, 2021

    (NPR) A Des Moines Register reporter has been found not guilty by an Iowa jury of failing to disperse and interfering with official acts. She was arrested by police last summer as she was covering a Black Lives Matter protest last summer.

    Andrea Sahouri’s case has drawn international concerns over its implications for press freedom amid what First Amendment advocates have said is a sharp increase in recent arrests of journalists in the U.S.

    Sahouri, 25, was arrested on May 31 during a protest that took place days after George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis. She said that a police officer, identified as Luke Wilson, deliberately pepper-sprayed her and zip-tied her wrists even after she identified herself as a journalist…

    “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Sahouri said, as Iowa Public Radio reported. “I said, ‘I’m press, I’m press, I’m press.’ He grabbed me, pepper-sprayed me and as he was doing so said, ‘That’s not what I asked.'”
    […]

    The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker said 128 journalists were arrested or detained in the U.S. last year – the vast majority at protests — compared with just nine in 2019. Besides Sahouri, 13 other journalists currently face criminal charges, it added.

  338. johnson catman says

    re tomh @336:

    “I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Sahouri said, as Iowa Public Radio reported. “I said, ‘I’m press, I’m press, I’m press.’ He grabbed me, pepper-sprayed me and as he was doing so said, ‘That’s not what I asked.’”

    This just goes to show that it would take nothing for the police in this country to become the brownshirts and SS of the republicans’ authoritarian dream country. They are practically there now.

  339. says

    WSJ – “Recording of Trump Phone Call to Georgia Lead Investigator Reveals New Details”:

    Then-President Donald Trump urged the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office to look for fraud during an audit of mail-in ballots in a suburban Atlanta county, on a phone call he made to her in late December.

    During the six-minute call, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump repeatedly said that he won Georgia. “Something bad happened,” he said.

    “When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Mr. Trump told the chief investigator, Frances Watson.

    She responded: “I can assure you that our team and the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation], that we are only interested in the truth and finding the information that is based on the facts.”

    The Washington Post reported on the call in January, but this is the first time the recording has been released.

    Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has launched a criminal investigation into alleged efforts to have officials in Georgia overturn the state’s results of November’s presidential election. In a February letter to officials, Ms. Willis said a grand jury would convene this month.

    …

    After the recounts, the Georgia Secretary of State conducted a forensic audit of about 15,000 mail-in ballots in Cobb County, checking signatures on ballot envelopes to make sure they matched signatures on file with the county. It was during that audit, just before Christmas, that Mr. Trump called Ms. Watson. …The audit found no evidence of fraud.

    …

    In the call, Mr. Trump offered no evidence of any wrongdoing. At one point, he said his loss in Georgia “never made sense and, you know, they dropped ballots. They dropped all these ballots. Stacey Abrams, really, really terrible,” he said….

    Mr. Trump offered no explanation for his claim, and Ms. Watson didn’t ask him what he meant.

    On the recording, Ms. Watson, who isn’t a political appointee, said she was surprised that he was calling her.

    “I do know that you are a very busy, very important man and I am very honored that you called,” she said. “And quite frankly I’m shocked that you would take time to do that, but I am very appreciative.”

    …

    For months after the election, Mr. Trump and his supporters pressed for the Georgia results to be overturned. Mr. Trump directed much of his ire at Republican leaders in Georgia, including Gov. Brian Kemp and Mr. Raffensperger.

    The White House forced the U.S. attorney in Atlanta to resign after he declined to launch a federal investigation into the Georgia election, according to people familiar with the matter.

    In February, Ms. Willis sent letters to top Georgia officials, including Mr. Raffensperger, ordering them to preserve records relating to the 2020 election. The letters stated that Ms. Willis’s office had launched a criminal investigation into “potential violations of Georgia law prohibiting solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election’s administration.”

    Recording atl.

    Chris Hayes: “Have said before and will say it again: if a Chicago alderman made these calls to the Cook County Clerk about his own election and they were recorded and released, that alderman would have been indicted by the US Attorney in a matter of days .”

  342. says

    Guardian – “Lula excoriates Bolsonaro’s ‘moronic’ Covid response in comeback speech”:

    Brazil’s former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has excoriated Jair Bolsonaro’s “moronic” and bungling response to the coronavirus pandemic, in a stirring and potentially historic address widely seen as the start of a bid to wrestle the presidency back from his far-right nemesis.

    The veteran leftist, who led Latin America’s top economy through some of the brightest years in its modern history, was catapulted back on to the frontline of Brazilian politics on Monday by the surprise decision to quash the corruption convictions that scuppered his bid to reclaim the presidency in 2018. On Tuesday a supreme court judge branded the anti-corruption operation that forced Lula from that year’s election “the greatest judicial scandal” in Brazilian history.

    Addressing the nation on Wednesday, the 75-year-old stopped short of formally announcing he would challenge Bolsonaro – a rightwing populist who critics accuse of catastrophically mishandling the Covid outbreak – in the 2022 election. But Lula, who was president from 2003 to 2011, left no doubt his political fightback had begun.

    “Just think about the madness that is taking hold of this country,” said the Workers’ party (PT) leader, who was barred from running in the 2018 election after being jailed.

    “This country is in a state of utter tumult and confusion because there’s no government. I’ll repeat that: this-country-has-no-government,” Lula insisted, blaming Bolsonaro’s ineptitude and denialism for the scale of a Covid crisis which has killed nearly 270,000 Brazilians.

    “For the love of God. This virus​ killed nearly 2,000 people yesterday,” Lula told journalists and supporters at the metalworkers union headquarters in São Bernardo do Campo, the industrial hub where he cut his political teeth in the 1970s.

    “Vaccines aren’t about whether you have the money or not,” he said of the Bolsonaro administration’s failure to acquire sufficient doses. “They’re about whether you love life or love death.”

    Political observers are divided on the impact Lula’s rehabilitation will have on the 2022 election, and his chances of success.

    …

    The former president savaged Bolsonaro as a useless “blowhard” who had endangered lives by promoting unproven Covid remedies, questioning the importance of vaccination and vowing not be vaccinated himself. “Do not follow a single one of the president or health minister’s moronic decisions.​ Get vaccinated,” Lula said.

    But he also described a more optimistic path forwards for the country where racism could be “abolished”, the economy boom, the LGBT community and different faiths be respected, women not be “trampled on” and where “young people can wander around freely without worrying about getting shot”.

    “This world is possible, absolutely possible, and that’s why I’m inviting you to struggle,” said Lula, who championed science and wore a face mask to the event, something Bolsonaro has repeatedly failed to do….

  343. says

    Guardian – “‘Not suitable’: Catalan translator for Amanda Gorman poem removed”:

    …“It is a very complicated subject that cannot be treated with frivolity,” said Obiols, a resident of Barcelona.

    “But if I cannot translate a poet because she is a woman, young, black, an American of the 21st century, neither can I translate Homer because I am not a Greek of the eighth century BC. Or could not have translated Shakespeare because I am not a 16th-century Englishman.”…

    “It is a very complicated subject that cannot be treated with frivolity. Now watch me treat it with frivolity. See how suitable I am?”

  344. says

    Guardian – “Gab: hack gives unprecedented look into platform used by far right”:

    …Megan Squire, a professor of computer science at Elon University and longtime researcher on the far right’s use of internet technologies said the vulnerabilities Gab introduced in its codebase were “basic, basic stuff”.

    “Gab was negligent at best and malicious at worst” in its approach to security, she added. “It is hard to envision a scenario where a company cared less about user data than this one.”…

  345. says

    Here’s a link to the March 11 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog (support the Guardian if you can!).

    From their summary:

    Brazil’s daily death toll passes 2,000 for first time. Brazil’s 24-hour death toll has for the first time passed 2,0000, as the world’s second worst-affected country in terms of the total lives lost sees records tumble.

    Biden pledges to share surplus vaccines with rest of world. US president Joe Biden has pledged surplus vaccines will be shared with the rest of the world, after he announced the purchase of an additional 100m Johnson & Johnson doses.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared Covid-19 a pandemic one year ago today. Since then there’s been over 116 million cases and 2.5 million deaths across nearly 200 countries. The US has the highest number of deaths, with 522,818 now recorded and over 319 milion vaccines have been administered worldwide.

    The Australian government has walked away from its promise to ‘fully vaccinate’ all Australians by October. Officials told the Senate’s Covid-19 inquiry that supply constraints and the longer 12-week window between AstraZeneca doses meant some may have to wait until December to get their second shot.

    Russia reports 9,270 new COVID-19 cases, 459 deaths. Russia reported 9,270 new COVID-19 cases on Thursday, including 1,281 in Moscow, taking its total case tally to 4,360,823 since the pandemic began.

    …

    Hungary reports record high 8,312 daily tally of new Covid cases. Hungary has reported a record 8,312 new coronavirus infections and 172 deaths. There were 8,329 coronavirus patients in hospital, 911 of them needing a ventilator, putting a strain on the healthcare system, the government said on its website.

    Germany sees jump in infections amid third wave warning. Covid cases in Germany rose sharply over the last 24 hours up to 14,356, a level not seen since February 4, the latest data from disease control agency Robert Koch Institute shows.

    Rich, developing nations wrangle over Covid vaccine patents. Richer members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) blocked a push by over 80 developing countries on Wednesday to waive patent rights in an effort to boost production of Covid vaccines for poor nations.

  346. says

    “Nigel Farage: ‘Nobody in the world, in history, has done more for people of color than the British royal family’.”

    “This is standard — Fred Barnes, the executive editor of the Weekly Standard, said in 2004 that the Iraq War was ‘the greatest act of benevolence one country has ever done for another’.

    In 1966, David Lawrence, the editor of US News & World Report, said the Vietnam War was ‘the most significant example of philanthropy extended by one people to another that we have witnessed in our times’.

    We’ll never know how many people the British Empire killed, but it’s definitely in the tens of millions. The funny (?) thing about history is that sprees of mass murder are always followed by this kind of voluminous self-praise.”

    Video atl.

  347. snarkrates says

    The old joke seems appropriate:
    Why did the sun never set on the British Empire?

    Because God would never trust a Brit in the dark.

    The British are universally hated in their former colonies–much moreso than the French, and right up there with the Belgians in the Congo. I think it is because they exposed them to British cuisine.

  348. KG says

    <

    blockquote>Bolsonaro – a rightwing populist who critics accuse of catastrophically mishandling the Covid outbreak – The Guardian quoted by SC@341

    “Adolf Hitler – a rightwing populist who critics accuse of genocide”
    or for that matter:
    “Trump – a rightwing populist who critics accuse of catastrophically mishandling the Covid outbreak”

    Why is The Guardian so pusillanimous about Bolsonaro?

  349. KG says

    The British are universally hated in their former colonies – snarkrates@346

    Ah, that must be why so many of the former colonies joined the Commonwealth, quite a few retained the British monarch as their own head of state, and a fair number of their inhabitants have migrated to the UK. I wondered what the explanation was.

    I’m not in any way denying or minimising the bloody history of the British Empire, but I think your claim is simply false. Can you support it?

  350. KG says

    Further to #348, I’ve spent time in five former British colonies (USA, Canada, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana) – six if you count Ireland* – I’m obviously British as soon as I speak, and if those I met and talked with hated me, they concealed it pretty well.

    *Ireland was legally part of the UK before independence, so not legally a colony, although treated worse than many of the latter.

  355. says

    SC @352: I’m so glad to see Merrick Garland in that job! What a contrast to Bill Barr.

    More from Garland’s speech:

    The only way we can succeed and retain the trust of the American people is to adhere to the norms that have become part of the DNA of every Justice Department employee.

    Those norms require that like cases be treated alike. That there not be one rule for Democrats, and another for Republicans; one rule for friends and another for foes; one rule for the powerful and another for the powerless; one rule for the rich and another for the poor; or different rules, depending upon one’s race or ethnicity.

  356. says

    McConnell’s new fear: Dems will get credit for stronger economy

    According to the Kentucky Republican, under no circumstances can good news be attributed to Democratic governance — ever.

    [Mitch McConnell said]

    The American people are going to see an American comeback this year, but it won’t be because of this liberal bill.

    In case this wasn’t quite enough, McConnell went on to tell reporters yesterday, “We’re about to have a boom. And if we do have a boom, it will have absolutely nothing to do with this $1.9 trillion.”

    No, of course not. Heaven forbid.

    The messaging is about as subtle as a sledgehammer: the Senate minority leader is increasingly optimistic about 2021, but increasingly pessimistic about the political implications. McConnell needs voters to see developments through a specific partisan lens: Sure, things appear to be improving, and sure, Democrats are advancing their agenda, but no one should connect those two developments.

    […] If McConnell expects this to be persuasive, however, he should lower his expectations. For one thing, there’s reality to consider: every major investment firm has revised their economic projections for 2021 in a more encouraging direction, precisely because they believe the American Rescue Plan will improve growth and job creation. It’s also why so many private-sector executives endorsed the relief package before it passed.

    […] voters are unlikely to simply accept the GOP leader’s line at face value. Republicans will try to change the subject, downplay the recovery, and emphasize cultural grievances, but if McConnell expects the electorate to deny Democrats credit for success, he’s likely to be disappointed.

    Postscript: In case this isn’t obvious, McConnell’s rhetoric reinforces the fact that he will not work constructively with Democrats on important legislation. Indeed, he’s effectively admitting his political motivations […] that his principal concern is which party has the upper hand in the next election cycle, not whether the parties can partner on good governance.

  357. says

    “Ex-DOJer Willing To Assist In Trump’s Coup Now Subject Of Whistleblower Complaint.”

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jeffrey-clark

    The former Justice Department official who allegedly plotted with […] Trump on a DOJ election intervention has now also been accused of politicizing the department’s hiring process on his way out the door.

    Jeffrey Clark, who served as the acting head of the DOJ civil division at the end of Trump’s term, is alleged by whistleblowers to have improperly intervened in the hiring of an attorney for a top career post in the division. The whistleblower letter, which was reported by NPR, said that he selected for the position an attorney with significantly less experience than the other candidates. The whistleblowers suggest Clark promoted that attorney over the others because the attorney had previously volunteered to assist in a politically charged anti-abortion case.

    In the case, the Trump administration was seeking to block abortions for unaccompanied immigrant minors who were pregnant. The administration’s anti-abortion policy was blocked by court.

    The promotion in question was announced two days before Clark left the department, according to the whistleblower report. […]

    The whistleblowers allege that Clark took the lead of the final stages of the hiring process, even though DOJ policy at the time tasked his deputy with the hiring of the particular position in question. Clark participated in the final round of interviews, according to the letter, and his interviews with the two final candidates that were ultimately passed over were “perfunctory” in nature. Clark used a timer to time the 15-minute interviews and “was not particularly engaged,” the whistleblowers alleged.

    […] Clark’s conduct at the department in the administration’s final months was already under scrutiny because of his reported willingness to go along with […] Trump’s schemes for overturning the election. When other DOJ leaders balked at having the department promote baseless claims of fraud in battleground states, Clark reportedly discussed with Trump a plan to oust the acting attorney general and put Clark in charge of the department. The plan was ultimately abandoned and the DOJ inspector general is investigating the matter. […]

  358. says

    House set to vote on gun bills. How many Republicans will vote yes on bill with 84% support?

    The House passed the historic American Rescue Plan on Wednesday, and on Thursday it’s moving ahead with another piece of important work: gun law reform. Two bills are coming up for a vote that would strengthen background checks in different ways.

    The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021, which has a whopping three Republican sponsors—Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan, Chris Smith of New Jersey, and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania—would require background checks for all gun sales. That measure has 84% support, including from 77% of Republicans. That’s voters, of course. In the House, Republican leaders are whipping opposition to it.

    How many Republicans will vote yes on a bill with 84% popular support? Eight of them. Universal background checks pass, 227 to 203, with one Democrat voting against.

    The Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, introduced by Rep. Jim Clyburn, would close the Charleston Loophole, which allowed white supremacist Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof to buy a gun he shouldn’t have been able to get. Currently, if an FBI background check isn’t completed in three days, a gun sale can go ahead.

    ”The fact that, that 72-hour time window is so short has caused many people who are, in fact, prohibited buyers to be able to purchase firearms,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger said.

    Clyburn’s bill closes that loophole and extends the period before a sale can happen without a completed background check to 10 days. […]

    Republican politicians are sure how they feel—and they’re willing to wildly misrepresent […] “Each of these bills is an affront to law-abiding Americans who lawfully possess firearms for sports or for self-defense,” Rep. Jim Jordan said Monday. “When taken together, these bills are an assault on the Second Amendment to the Constitution.” Except that these bills are literally about whether people who should not lawfully possess firearms can purchase them without background checks.

    Republican opposition is unlikely to block the bills from passage in the House, where simple majority votes rule and Democrats have a majority, albeit a slim one. The Senate will be more difficult since this is one more area where Republicans can filibuster, unless Democrats get on board with reforming or abolishing the filibuster.

    […] A bill supported by three out of four Republican voters may not even get a final vote in the Senate thanks to Republican senators. […]

    Link

  359. lumipuna says

    Meanwhile, Tanzania is reaping the results of extreme Covid-19 denialism:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/10/tanzania-missing-president-kenya-covid-says-opposition-leader

    Tanzania has not published any statistics on cases since May, when it registered 509 infections. It has no known testing programme in place and health officials have been forbidden from mentioning the virus.

    Regarding the lack of known testing programme, I just saw this interesting news report on Tanzania’s situation (in Finnish):

    https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-11829029

    The national broadcaster interviewed a Finnish architect who recently visited Iringa, Tanzania for business. She and her German colleague fell ill soon after arrival and tried to get tested for Covid-19. After some haggling, the public hospital in Iringa did perform a test for the Finnish woman, but the responsible doctor refused to put the result in writing, for fear of getting fired. The result, which took five days and was positive, was only announced in person.

    The woman alleges, apparently based on hearsay, that private hospitals in Dar Es Salaam and tourist-heavy Zanzibar do perform a substantial amount of Covid-19 testing. In other words, testing would be easily accessible to wealthy people in these areas, but not to common folk. Public hospitals presumably only perform tests in special cases, like when the patient is well connected.

    After a couple weeks, the woman and her colleague managed to fly back to Finland, just two days before their airline begun demanding a negative test result. Once back in Finland, both still tested positive. It seems unclear whether anyone can currently fly out of Tanzania, especially unless they manage to get a written (very possibly fake) negative test result from a private provider.

  360. says

    Judge OKs 3rd-degree murder charge for ex-cop in George Floyd’s death

    Chauvin already faced second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.

    A judge on Thursday granted prosecutors’ request to add a third-degree murder charge against a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd’s death, a move that offers jurors an additional option for conviction and finally resolves an issue that might have delayed his trial for months.

    Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill reinstated the charge after the former officer, Derek Chauvin, failed to get appellate courts to block it. Cahill had earlier rejected the charge as not warranted by the circumstances of Floyd’s death, but an appellate court ruling in an unrelated case established new grounds for it. […]

  361. says

    All living former presidents, first ladies appear in new vaccine PSAs — except the Trumps

    The videos Thursday are just the latest public initiative by former presidents not to include Donald Trump.

    […] The video shows Barack and Michelle Obama, George W. and Laura Bush, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter receiving their shots. Another video, filmed at Arlington National Cemetery, features former Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton encouraging vaccination.

    “We urge you to get vaccinated when it’s available to you,” Barack Obama says in the first video, while George W. Bush tells Americans to “roll up your sleeve and do your part.”

    “This is our shot,” adds Bill Clinton, with Jimmy Carter delivering the closing message: “Now, it’s up to you.”

    The PSAs were produced by the Ad Council and COVID Collaborative as part of their Covid-19 Vaccine Education Initiative’s “It’s Up To You” campaign […]

  363. says

    The Supreme Court on Thursday called off upcoming arguments over a Trump-era plan to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients after the Biden administration said it was considering scrapping the policy. […]

    In a court brief, the administration said it had made a preliminary determination that placing work requirements on Medicaid benefits was at odds with the goal of providing healthcare to low income people.

    Link

  364. says

    Wonkette:

    As we’ve enjoyed reminding you all week, the big COVID relief package passed by Congress yesterday has a heck of a lot of good stuff in it, what with all the poverty-reducing and the help with healthcare. Today, let’s look at yet another Big Fucking Deal in the bill, the provisions aimed at rescuing the nation’s child care providers and the parents who need them. The recession has forced a lot of daycares out of business, while those still in business have, unlike schools, stayed open during the pandemic, because you really can’t look after toddlers on Zoom.

    And before some idiot like Kevin McCarthy starts nattering on about how helping child care providers is just one more item on the Left’s wish list, let’s point out that the first two COVID relief bills included child care funding too, because you can’t keep essential workers doing their essential work, or get everyone else back to work as it becomes safe, if they don’t have someone looking after the kids. That’s why the American Rescue Plan includes roughly $39 billion in help with child care, plus other stuff aimed at making sure parents can get back to work without worrying about their hellspawn.

    The package provides $15 billion in emergency funding for the “Child Care and Development Block Grant” program, to ensure that essential workers have child care, plus a $24 billion “child care stabilization fund” to cover grants to child care providers. The grants can be used for a variety of purposes, like covering payroll, paying facility rent/mortgage, or buying cleaning supplies and protective equipment like masks.

    […] In addition to the direct help to child care, the bill also includes another billion dollars for Head Start, as well as funding for programs that help very young children with disabilities.

    The need is pretty dramatic, as the First Five Years Fund, a bipartisan advocacy group for child care and early childhood education, explains:

    [The] child care industry has lost approximately 171,000 jobs between February 2020 and December 2020 that have not been recovered, and surveys show that one in four child care centers and one in three family child care homes believe they will have to close permanently if no additional support comes forward. 46% of parents say their current child care situation isn’t sustainable in the long-term.

    […] The survey also noted that nearly half of child care workers make so little that their families must access public assistance to get by.

    [Joe Biden’s] “21st Century Caregiving and Education Workforce” plan would make sure care providers get paid at a level equal to that of public school teachers, with the right to join unions, too.

    […] As with many of the other benefits in the relief bill, many of these changes will end within the next two years, but the expanded child and dependent care credit sure sounds like one of those things people will want Congress to make permanent, even after the pandemic is under control.

    And won’t keeping that expanded access to child care (and healthcare) make a fine campaign issue in advance of the 2022 midterms? […]

    Link

  365. says

    WTF!

    Rick Scott to states and cities: Turn down COVID relief funds

    During the Great Recession, several Republicans said states should reject federal economic aid. Now, Rick Scott is making the same pitch.

    […] In 2009, a prominent GOP senator argued against the Democratic plan by focusing on the literal, physical size of imagined piles of money. In 2021, the same thing happened. In 2009, Republicans pretended to care about the deficit, after having spent several years adding trillions of dollars to the national debt. In 2021, the same thing happened.

    In 2009, nearly every GOP lawmaker in Congress ignored the polls and economic analyses, and stood firm against the Democratic rescue plan. In 2021, the same thing happened. In 2009, Republican opponents sought credit for elements of the plan they opposed. In 2021, we’re already starting to see the same thing happening.

    But I’ll confess that, despite the many similarities, this Palm Beach Post report surprised me a bit.

    Florida U.S. Sen. Rick Scott has a message for states and cities poised to receive a collective $360 billion from the American Rescue Act stimulus package: Send it back…. In an open letter to governors and mayors, sent moments after the U.S. House on Wednesday approved the $1.9 trillion bill, Scott called it “massive, wasteful and non-targeted,” urging states to follow his lead and send a message to Congress to “quit recklessly spending other people’s money.”

    The Republican senator added that states and cities would be doing the right thing by “rejecting and returning any unneeded funds.”

    Given the circumstances, it’s likely that Rick Scott’s appeal will be ignored. Indeed, his own state’s Republican governor, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, not only seemed eager to put federal funds to good use, he also seemed annoyed that GOP Sens. Scott and Marco Rubio didn’t secure even more money for the Sunshine State.

    […] the fact that [Rick Scott] would even make such a pitch says a great deal about the senator’s approach to governance.

  366. says

    LOL.

    Yesterday Donald Trump urged retired football player Herschel Walker to run for the U.S. Senate in Georgia. A minor detail Trump neglected to mention: Walker lives in Texas.

  367. says

    Seeing shenanigans coming from Republicans, Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan moved to cut them off at the pass.

    Eleventh-hour changes to the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan take square aim at one idea that’s been percolating in GOP legislatures around the country: using funds for states to finance deep tax cuts.

    Over the past month, lawmakers in Kansas, Michigan, Florida, Georgia, and other states have all suggested that $350 billion in aid to state and local governments could be used to finance state tax cuts.

    Mississippi and West Virginia are pushing outright elimination of the state income tax […]

    The American Rescue Plan now stipulates that states receiving the money cannot use it to “offset a reduction” in tax revenue due to any law passed during the time that the funds are available — from now until 2024.

    That provision aims to ban the stimulus money from financing new tax cuts. […]

    Link

  371. says

    TPM – “Reports: Alleged Capitol Attacker Previously Served As Marine One Crew Chief”:

    One of the military veterans charged in the deadly Capitol insurrection earlier this year previously served as a crew chief on Marine Helicopter Squadron One, the presidential helicopter unit that requires top-secret security clearance.

    The Washington Post and CNN reported that John Daniel Andries was arrested last month and charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on the Capitol grounds. Andries pleaded not guilty.

    Andries served in the Marine Corps from 2004 to 2009 and joined the highly restrictive unit Marine Helicopter Squadron One, which requires top-secret security clearance, in 2006. Andries was not a pilot, but served a presidential helicopter crew chief and worked on aircraft maintenance. Marine Corps records obtained by TPM confirmed Andries’ service history.

    …

    Andries is charged with entering a restricted building, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building, violent entry and disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol building, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

    …

    Prosecutors have not alleged that Andries was connected to any extremist group; he appears to have allegedly participated in the riot as what the George Washington University study termed an “inspired believer” — someone who arranged on their own to participate on Jan. 6, rather than attending as part of an organized group or interpersonal network. These individuals have made up the bulk of those charged so far.

    Extremism researchers have said the attack on the Capitol marks a new chapter in their work, one marked by Capitol attack participants who, rather than being drawn to violence by their membership in an openly anti-government or white supremacist organization, were pulled by their devotion to Donald Trump and his so-called “big lie” that the election had been stolen.

  372. says

    SC @367, yep. Quite unexpectedly, I started crying when the website sent me an “appointment confirmed” email. I called my daughter and gave her the good news. We were okay on the phone, but after hanging up we both started crying. I think it’s just the sense of relief. I still intend to be careful going forward, (like Nerd). It would be stupid to catch COVID now after all I’ve done to avoid the disease.

    SC @368, I saw a short video clip of DOJ employees applauding for Garland. I fee their relief and happiness.

  373. says

    Josh Marshall:

    […] In Georgia Trump left a trail of evidence and he was particularly aggressive. Why? That has to do with the combination of an exceedingly close result and the fact that the state is governed entirely by Republicans: Republican governor, Republican Secretary of State, etc. In all of the other close run states (Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) Democrats had at least some hold on power. All but one of those states had Democratic governors. In Arizona, where the state is dominated by Republicans, the chief elections administrator, Katie Hobbs, is a Democrat – a critical exception. In Georgia, all the key players were Republicans and like every other Republican depended on Trump’s good will. That gave Trump a straight shot and a captive audience of people who had to take his calls and would be hard pressed to disappoint him.

    He played it for everything it was worth.

    Trump bears a vast moral and political responsibility for the events of January 6th. But incitement is a very difficult charge to sustain, as it should be. It involves using speech (with all its robust protections) to motivate others to commit criminal acts without compulsion. As many others have noted, to really understand the gravity of what happened on January 6th, you have to look at the totality of events after November 3rd and indeed actions going back long before the election. The speech is just one part of that. In any case, legal culpability rests on a very challenging legal case, whatever the moral and political responsibility.

    The situation in Georgia is quite different, though it was obviously a constituent part of Trump’s broader campaign of criminal conduct from November into January. It is certainly a criminal offense under Georgia law and federal law for an elected official to bully and use threats to pressure election administration officials to falsify the results of an election. You don’t need to get creative with the statutes. That’s what they’re there for. And the (metro Atlanta) Fulton County DA, Fani Willis, seems to be quite serious and engaged with the investigation. Yesterday it was reported that she has hired an expert on racketeering prosecutions to assist with the case.

    Trump’s defense, of course, is that he wasn’t trying to falsify anything. He was just asking them to find the fraud, which he was certain existed. But courts and juries make short work of those arguments every day. Mob trials notoriously turn on euphemisms and subtextual but obvious messages […] Another thing to consider is that Trump wasn’t alone in this effort. In the Georgia pressure campaign specifically he pulled along a number of legal advisors and political allies like Lindsey Graham.

    To be clear, the Manhattan DA also seems to have a robust investigation, albeit focused on Trump’s business dealings and (I think at least) ones that are quite separate from his presidency or even precede it. But the Georgia case seems somehow more in earnest and expeditious […].

    Link

  374. says

    Nancy Pelosi:

    Unfortunately, Republicans, as I say, vote no and take the dough. You see already some of them claiming, “oh, this is a good thing,” or “that’s a good thing.” But they couldn’t give it a vote.

  375. says

    Tucker Carlson is condemned for his misogyny:

    Fox News personality Tucker Carlson is having quite the misogyny-filled week. So far, he’s been called out by the U.S. military for his sneering attacks on women in the military and been widely denounced for inciting harassment of a New York Times reporter exactly because she talked about the harassment she has already faced in the past year.

    After reporter Taylor Lorenz tweeted “For international women’s day please consider supporting women enduring online harassment. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the harassment and smear campaign I’ve had to endure over the past year has destroyed my life. No one should have to go through this,” she was attacked first by Glenn Greenwald, in his ongoing transition to full-Fox-Newser, and then by Carlson, with both men very intentionally encouraging further attacks on her.

    Last summer, Lorenz had been the victim of a pile-on by a group of venture capitalists, leading to attempts to hack her accounts. This week, Greenwald tweeted, “she should try to find out what real persecution of journalists entails,” which, as Lorenz correctly observed, was a clear call to his followers to show her. Carlson then joined in, saying Lorenz is “at the very top of journalism’s repulsive little food chain.”

    [snipped more of Carlson’s derogatory comments] attacking women journalists is one of Carlson’s favorite activities.

    […] The New York Times and a series of journalists defended Lorenz and condemned Carlson, but what matters to her quality of life is that Carlson and Greenwald set their followers after her.

    As for the military, after Carlson ranted about “new hairstyles and maternity flight suits,” saying “Pregnant women are going to fight our wars. It’s a mockery of the U.S. Military,” a series of top military leaders responded sharply.

    Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “certainly shares the revulsion of so many others to what Mr. Carlson said,” a Pentagon spokesperson said. That revulsion was widely shared on Twitter by a series of top officers.

    [SMA Michael Grinston] “Women lead our most lethal units with character. They will dominate ANY future battlefield we’re called to fight on. @TuckerCarlson’s words are divisive, don’t reflect our values. We have THE MOST professional, educated, agile, and strongest NCO Corps in the world.”

    [John B. Richardson] “Mothers in uniform fight & win our nation’s wars. Fathers in uniform fight & win our nation’s wars. Soldier is not a gendered noun.

    America’s army is made up of countless mothers and fathers. Being a parent (& being pregnant) does NOT negatively impact on our nation’s defense.” [More examples at the link]

    Carlson’s one-two punch this week, taking aim at women in the military and a women in journalism, shows how much his whole schtick is dependent on misogyny. Any way that women might have power, be it physical or through words, threatens him and he knows that his followers will respond to it as a threat. It’s disgusting, but it’s also made him one of Fox News’ top stars right now.

    Link

  376. says

    Vice – “Even Trump’s Defense Secretary During the Capitol Riot Blames Him for Inciting It”:

    One of the most senior Cabinet officials in the Trump administration, Acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, has told VICE on Showtime that he believes the speech made by former President Donald Trump on the morning of January 6 was responsible for causing the mob to violently attack the Capitol later that day.

    Trump installed Miller after firing his predecessor Mark Esper in the days after the election. Speaking exclusively to VICE on Showtime, Miller said, “Would anybody have marched on the Capitol, and tried to overrun the Capitol, without the president’s speech? I think it’s pretty much definitive that wouldn’t have happened.”

    …

    “It seems cause-and-effect,” Miller said, referring to Trump’s speech and the violent riot that left five people dead. “The question is, did he know he was enraging people to do that? I don’t know.”

    As the acting defense secretary that day, Miller was ultimately in charge of the military’s response. His comments are significant in that they tie directly to the incitement of insurrection charge that former President Trump was acquitted of at his second impeachment trial in February.

    Miller was criticized for his part in the response to the Capitol attack, with some faulting the Department of Defense for the time it took to deploy the National Guard. Miller released a statement on January 15 announcing a DOD investigation, and Pentagon officials at the time rejected any blame for having not deployed reinforcement from the National Guard while rioters overran the Capitol Police and ransacked the Capitol building.

    Miller rejected the criticism and said the speed of the response was normal by military standards. “It comes back to understanding how the military works—this isn’t a video game, it’s not Black Ops Call of Duty,” Miller said. But the response is currently under intense scrutiny, with Senate committees examining the timeline of decisions taken by Trump administration officials.

    Miller’s appointment on Nov. 9 raised eyebrows in the national security establishment, with many seeing the move as a Trump administration attempt to politicize the Pentagon after losing the election. On Jan. 3, all ten living former Secretaries of Defense published an open letter warning Miller and his team that there must be a peaceful transition of power.

    But Miller rejected the notion of any intent to use the military for unconstitutional means….

    Still, Miller described the political climate at the time as a “constant drumbeat” of “potential illegal, immoral, and unethical activities” that made him closely examine his “ethical, moral, and legal red lines.” Miller said he made a plan that he would step down rather than carry out an order he was uncomfortable with.

    “I knew that I was not going to cross any of those lines, and if asked, I would resign,” Miller said. “If it’s antithetical to the Constitution or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it’s an illegal order and you don’t follow it.”

    Miller’s comments are part of an exclusive glimpse into political maneuverings at the Pentagon during the final weeks of the Trump administration, based on interviews with Trump officials and additional reporting from Vanity Fair‘s Adam Ciralsky, who gained exclusive access to Miller and his team in the waning days of the administration.

    The story will air exclusively on VICE on Showtime at 8 p.m. on Sunday, March 14.

    Video clip atl. I wonder if Carlson’s misogyny routine is meant to be counterprogramming…

  378. says

    John Scott-Railton:

    NEW: Another of the #Oathkeepers from the #Capitol siege has been arrested!

    Meet Kenneth Harrelson of Titusville, FL. He’s been in news before…

    Former Army sergeant Kenneth Harrelson was one of the armed vigilantes in Louisville, Kentucky around the Breonna Taylor verdict.

    Back then he told @RobertKlemko of the @washingtonpost that the #OathKeepers gave him a sense of purpose.

    Story:…

    WaPo link and link to charges atl.

  380. says

    Ryan Struyk:

    Americans who will choose *not* to be vaccinated when one is available via new NPR/PBS/Marist poll:

    47% Trump voters
    41% Republicans
    38% White evangelicals
    37% Latino
    34% independents
    34% White non-college
    28% White
    25% Black
    18% White college
    11% Democrats
    10% Biden voters

  381. says

    The Link Between the Capitol Riot and Anti-Abortion Extremism

    The article in the New Yorker was written by Jessica Winter. Here are some excerpts:

    [snipped details of 1990’s era killings of abortion providers, of the adoption of terms like “death camp” for the doctors’ offices, and the adoption of “holocaust” to describe legalized abortion.]

    For a half century, a conspiracy-minded brand of anti-abortion extremism has been part and parcel of white-supremacist movements. The Ku Klux Klan referred to legalized abortion as a genocide against the white race. Anti-abortion leaders such as Randall Terry, of Operation Rescue, and Robert Cooley, of the Pro-Life Action Network, frequently alleged that most abortion providers were Jewish. Today, the QAnon conspiracy, which helped inspire the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6th and continues to threaten similar plots, can be seen as a twisted metonym for generations of anti-Semitic pro-life propaganda: child molestation and cannibalism take the place of abortion, while “George Soros” and “global cabal” stand in for Jews. […]

    It is no coincidence that, for example, the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon promoter who has blamed deadly wildfires in California on a “space laser” financed by the Rothschild banking firm, has also called abortion “genocide” and supports a pro-life amendment to the Constitution. Donald Trump, too, understood the salience of anti-abortion messaging to the nativist and white-supremacist segments of his base. In April, 2019, Trump told a rally of supporters in Green Bay that Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers, endorsed infanticide; months earlier, Trump made similar statements about Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia.

    The centrality of anti-abortion extremism in the larger landscape of the anti-government far right has received new attention since January 6th. John Brockhoeft, who was convicted of firebombing a Planned Parenthood clinic in Cincinnati, in 1985, […] live-streamed from outside the Capitol. Derrick Evans, a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, who was a fixture at the state’s sole abortion clinic during 2019—[…] he harassed staff and even broadcasted a patient’s arrival via Facebook Live—entered the Capitol. […] And at least one person at the Capitol was carrying on a family tradition of sorts: Leo Brent Bozell IV, who has been charged with three federal offenses, is the grandson of L. Brent Bozell, Jr., who led a “Mass of the Holy Innocents” and a subsequent march on George Washington University Hospital, in D.C., in 1970, three years before Roe v. Wade.

    A widely circulated photograph from the events on January 6th showed Christine Priola, a Cleveland high-school occupational therapist, as she stood on the dais in the Senate chamber holding a sign that read “The Children Cry Out for Justice.” The next day, she submitted a letter of resignation to the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, in which she stated her intention “to expose the global evil of human trafficking and pedophilia,” and that she did not agree with her “union dues, which help fund people and groups that support the killing of unborn children.” A week later, federal prosecutors charged her in connection with entering the Capitol.

    […] restrictions on abortion rights in other countries often have nativist origins. A total ban on contraception and abortion that took effect in Romania in the nineteen-sixties […] In Ireland, where abortion was prohibited until 2019, national identity and politics were so “entrenched in Catholicism that women have consistently perceived terminating pregnancies as tantamount to terminating their national belonging,” Carol Mason wrote, that same year, drawing on scholarship by the historian Cara Delay.

    […] On Tuesday, Asa Hutchinson, the Republican governor of Arkansas, signed into law a near-total ban on abortion procedures in the state. “It is the intent of the legislation to set the stage for the Supreme Court overturning current case law,” Hutchinson said, in a statement. One of Amy Coney Barrett’s first decisions as a Supreme Court Justice, in January, was to join the conservative majority in agreeing that women seeking medication abortion have to procure the necessary pills from a doctor or an in-person clinic rather than by mail, despite the coronavirus crisis. Last spring, multiple states, including a thirteen-hundred-mile swath of the south-central U.S., used the onset of the covid-19 pandemic to declare abortion services nonessential. These bans were eventually overturned by court order, but in the meantime they created a surge of patients at clinics in other states, and also a spike in demand for second-term abortions from women whose treatments had been delayed, […] “many Texans who, in their first trimesters of pregnancy, had to drive 16 hours to Albuquerque (while being told that they must stay at home) to swallow an abortion pill, turn around, and drive 16 hours to get home.”

    […] patients were forced to violate stay-at-home orders to obtain an abortion, only to arrive at a clinic to see lines of pro-life protesters defying the same orders.

    The nativist, anti-Semitic tropes that dominated anti-abortion extremism for decades had an awful clarity. Those sentiments are still present among extremists today, if slightly harder to isolate amid the churn of floating signifiers (“Rothschilds”) and conspiracy theories that dominate the rhetoric. Last December, at an anti-lockdown protest in Los Angeles, Gina Bisignano, who owns a beauty salon in Beverly Hills, was captured on video telling a counter-demonstrator, “I bet you had an abortion this morning.” A month later, she was arrested on charges including “aiding in the destruction of government property” at the Capitol. According to a court filing, Bisignano told the crowd, “We will never let our country go to the globalists. George Soros, you can go to hell.”

  382. says

    Follow-up to comment 364.

    Sen. Rick Scott has what he calls a “simple and common sense” demand for the 50 states: reject the federal stimulus money signed into law by President Biden on Thursday.

    But in sending a letter to the country’s governors and mayors, Scott created an enemy that he didn’t expect: Gov. Ron Desantis (R) of his own state, who on Monday lashed out at Congress for failing to give Florida enough. [Disagreement among Republicans! :-)]

    “The Senate didn’t correct the fact that Florida is getting a lot less than what we would be entitled to on a per capita basis,” DeSantis said.

    […] Scott appears to be trying to convince states and cities to undermine the plan itself by rejecting $350 billion marked for them. He demanded that the money only be used to reimburse specific pandemic-fighting measures, and not for any deeper investments in infrastructure or economic development.

    Scott pivoted to an austerity-based argument that has been widely debunked but which Republicans have wielded in the past as a cudgel against Democratic priorities.

    […] It’s an attempt to force austerity on the country […] It also seems dramatically unlikely to succeed, most of all in Scott’s own state. Florida is set to receive $10 billion under the plan, while eyeing a $2 billion COVID-induced budget deficit – one of the largest in the country.

    […] Some GOP-controlled state houses were seeking to use the stimulus money to finance deep tax cuts. But last-minute changes to the legislation by Senate Democrats prevented that from happening.

    Scott is set to travel to Florida this weekend for a meeting with one of his main constituents: former President Donald Trump.

    Scott told the Miami Herald that he’s traveling to Mar-a-Lago to ensure that Trump and the Republican Party “all row their boats in the same direction.”

    Link

    Comments posted by readers of the TPM article:

    Great initiative from Scott. As a corrupt, former healthcare executive, maybe he can also fix healthcare by urging fellow executives and shareholders to reject healthcare profits?
    ——————-
    “Scott told the Miami Herald that he’s traveling to Mar-a-Lago to ensure that Trump and the Republican Party “all row their boats in the same direction.”

    The article should have added, “over a waterfall the size of Niagara.”
    ———————–
    In the end, the real tell in terms of where they are politically and strategically is whether they choose “fuck, we’re stuck, just let it help people” or “further suffering followed by blaming Dems/Biden is our only chance.”
    ———————–
    I’m very glad they made that change at the last minute to forbid state governments from using the money for tax cuts. Georgia had already got that ball rolling and passed tax cuts in one branch already. Now they cant do it. Georgia is famous for redirecting relief funds to benefit their donors, and glad to see that wont fly this time

  383. says

    DeJoy must be sweating. He had a rough time when he testified before Congress today:

    Before entering politics, Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-MI) spent decades at the United States Postal Service. And during a congressional hearing Thursday, she sought to get some answers about a big restructuring for the USPS, one that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has hyped for weeks without offering any details.

    Lawrence pressed DeJoy, noting that the service issues currently plaguing the postal agency are unlike anything she’d seen in her 30 years at USPS. Why, she asked, hasn’t DeJoy explained his plan to Congress?

    DeJoy recognized the congresswoman’s USPS service but offered a retort.

    “Honestly,” he said, “the Postal Service of today and the condition we are in is not the Postal Service of 2008 when you retired.”

    Lawrence wasn’t having it.

    “I’m not naive, sir,” she responded. “When I left the Postal Service, I came to Congress and have had responsibility for eight years of the operations of the Postal Service, and had my thumbprint on what’s going on. So please don’t imply that I’m ignorant.”

    […] Though he’s spent less than a year on the job, DeJoy has attempted massive changes in the USPS’ operations, often with disastrous results, including dramatic mail delays. […]

    members of Congress are eager to hear some details about what he’s going to do to improve delivery times.

    According to reports, and DeJoy’s testimony on Thursday and in previous hearings, his big new plan will essentially involve slower mail and higher prices. He’s said he will unveil the effort by the end of the month.

    In an opening statement for Thursday’s hearing, the postmaster general provided only a few sloganeering sentences about what the plan would entail. “Boldly transform our network, delivery, and retail operations while building new capabilities that will position the Postal Service to meet the rapidly changing needs of our household and business customers for e-commerce and digital solutions,” one slide read.

    During the hearing, DeJoy offered a bit more detail.

    “The service standards that we have now have not been met in the last seven or eight years,” he said at one point. “They are not achievable in the current environment. We cannot go to California from New York in three days without going on planes, and we don’t own planes.”

    The postmaster general and Democrats on the subcommittee did agree on some major steps that Congress can take, including repealing a congressional mandate that requires the USPS to pre-fund its employees’ retirement health benefits, which over the years has created billions of dollars of debt for the service, and integrating retirees into Medicare when they become eligible.

    […] By the end of the hearing, the postmaster general had even offered an apology to Lawrence … sort of. […] DeJoy said he appreciated the congresswoman’s comments and committed to working with Congress as the USPS implemented his plan.

    “There are times when I leave these sessions and I’m a little embarrassed of my behavior,” DeJoy responded. “But I would also offer, I’ve been accused of many, many things every time I come in front of the Congress. And I am a human being, and I am trying to do the right thing, and I apologize to you if I have offended you in some way. I didn’t really mean to.”

    Link

    CNN:

    Postmaster General Louis DeJoy continues to hold a multimillion-dollar stake in his former company XPO Logistics, a United States Postal Service contractor, likely creating a major conflict of interest […]

    Comments posted by readers of the TPM article:

    DeJoy is so incompetent that he ruined the Postal Service without ruining it completely enough and fast enough to get his orange buddy reelected.
    ——————
    How much would it cost to Return DeJoy to Sender.
    ———————
    obnoxious fuckbuzzard
    ———————-
    “Boldly transform our network, delivery, and retail operations while building new capabilities that will position the Postal Service to meet the rapidly changing needs of our household and business customers for e-commerce and digital solutions,”

    IOW gobbledygook, not even good enough to be the usual corporate meaningless shit.

    Translation: “I have no fucking idea, but what we really want is to take all this private and steal the pension money.”
    ——————
    Comfortable in his privilege. Nothing ever happens to rich old white guys. Look at how badly he’s fucked up so far, deliberately sabotaging the Post Office so his candidate trump could win and his private delivery service investments would soar. He assholishly snarled at Congresscritters and yet they still treat him politely. He must be feeling pretty smug right about now.

  384. tomh says

    Arizona GOP Bill Would Allow GOP-Controlled State Legislature to Overturn Presidential Popular Vote
    COLIN KALMBACHER Mar 11th, 2021

    A bill introduced by the Arizona GOP would effectively allow Republican elected officials to overturn the will of the voters in presidential elections by giving the GOP-controlled state legislature veto power over the certification of presidential electors.
    […]

    The bill would allow state legislators, by a majority vote, to select the Electoral College electors of their choice regardless of the state’s popular vote.

    “The Legislature retains its legislative authority regarding the office of presidential elector and by majority vote at any time before the presidential inauguration may revoke the Secretary of State’s issuance or certification of a presidential elector’s certificate of election,” the amendment to the state’s election law reads. “The Legislature may take action pursuant to this subsection without regard to whether the Legislature is in regular or special session or has held committee or other hearings on the matter.”
    […]

    State Rep. Shawnna Bolick, who represents Phoenix and is the GOP chair of the House Ways and Means Committee; “This bill would give the Arizona Legislature back the power it delegated to certify the electors,” she said in a press release. “It is a good, democratic check and balance.”
    […]

    “It is a punch in the face to voters,” Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) said after the bill was introduced.”These folks that are trying to legislate based on disinformation, they are insulting the same voters who sent them into office.”

  385. says

    Update to Lynna’s #357 – Sen. Murphy, earlier:

    The House just passed universal background checks.

    For the last 5 years Mitch McConnell refused to bring the bill up for a vote because he knew it might pass.

    That’s a big part of why voters fired him. And now, the Senate WILL vote on comprehensive background checks.

  387. tomh says

    Idaho man thought ‘the virus would disappear the day after the election.’ He was wrong
    Audrey Dutton

    Paul Russell was driving back to Boise from Florida, by way of Houston. It was early November, and somewhere along his route, the long-haul trucker caught the coronavirus.

    “Before I came down with the virus, I was one of those jackasses who thought the virus would disappear the day after the election. I was one of those conspiracy theorists,” he said.

    Instead, he was in the hospital with COVID-19 a week after the election…He spent more than two weeks in a St. Luke’s Health System hospital, becoming one of 19 patients enrolled in a clinical trial to test a new drug for use in COVID-19…St. Luke’s was one of about 60 sites around the world to offer patients like Russell a chance to get the experimental drug between June and January.

    Idaho’s fall surge provided more clinical trial volunteers from St. Luke’s than were enrolled in the entire country of Spain…

    Now, Russell said, he can’t work anymore. The long-haul trucker has become a COVID-19 “long hauler.” He survived the virus, but it did long-term damage to his body.

    “I’m gonna be on oxygen the rest of my life, according to my doctor,” he said.

  388. says

    USA Today – “Biden to direct states to make all adults eligible for COVID vaccine by May 1, official says”:

    Joe Biden will direct states to make all American adults eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines no later than May 1 in his first prime-time address as president Thursday night, according to a senior administration official.

    And if Americans “all do our part” in the coming weeks, the president plans to say, friends and families will be able to join together in small groups in time for Fourth of July celebrations.

    “The next phase of our wartime effort will help get us closer to normal by July 4, Independence Day,” the official said.

    Biden will give his address from the Oval Office one year after lockdowns started at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic last March and hours after the president signed his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 stimulus package into law.

    …

    The president will announce new steps to increase the number of vaccinators and places where people can get vaccinated. That includes deploying 4,000 additional military troops to support vaccination efforts, bringing the total number deployed to 6,000, and expanding the pool of vaccinators to include dentists, paramedics and veterinarians.

    The federal government will begin distributing the vaccine directly to 700 additional community health centers, Biden will announce, bringing the total to 950, and double the number of pharmacies where the vaccine is available to 20,000. Biden will also announce the doubling of federally run mass vaccination centers.

    To accelerate vaccinations, the federal government will launch a new federal website to help individuals set up appointments to be vaccinated, Biden will say, according to the official.

    Biden will also talk about the reopening of schools, with steps to help schools implement regular COVID-19 screening tests following passage of the American Rescue Plan.

    Around one-quarter of all Americans have received a COVID-19 vaccination, including 65% of Americans 65 or older, the most vulnerable population to the virus.

    The May 1 directive comes after Biden last week said the U.S. will have enough vaccine supply for every American adult by the end of May, two months sooner than expected….

  390. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Got to give Biden a standing round of applause for his speech. Very impressive. He came across as a very straight shooter, unlike the Hair Furor….

  391. says

    Nerd @389, I agree! He presented the overall picture well, and then he added the details in way that anybody could understand. I hope Fox News carried the entire speech.

  392. says

    More details from Biden’s speech:

    President Joe Biden, in a primetime address laying out the path to recovery from the pandemic, condemned anti-Asian racism outright, drawing yet another sharp contrast with his predecessor, who openly stoked xenophobic sentiments.

    “Too often, we’ve turned against one another. … Vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans who have been attacked, harassed, blamed, and scapegoated. At this very moment, so many of them, our fellow Americans, they’re on the front lines of this pandemic trying to save lives, and still, still they’re forced to live in fear for their lives just walking down streets in America,” Biden noted. “It’s wrong. It’s un-American. And it must stop.” […]

    https://www.vox.com/2021/3/11/22326462/joe-biden-anti-asian-racism

    […] A relatable sentiment from President Biden: “Photos and videos from 2019 feel like they were taken in another era: The last vacation, the last birthday with friends, the last holiday with extended family. While it was different for everyone, we all lost something.” […]

    Upon urging Americans to get vaccinated as soon as they can, Biden said there’s a “good chance” that by July 4 the public can have small gatherings with their families, and will be when the country can “begin to mark our independence from this virus.”

    The President went on to stress that now is not the time to let our guard down on continuing to adhere to mitigation strategies to reduce the spread of COVID-19, and that it’s important to maintain these public health measures in order to achieve the goal of a sense of normalcy by July 4.

    The President has not yet offered a critique of the previous administration outright, but it’s woven in there. He notes “denials for days, weeks, then months” in 2020, and that states were “pitted against one another instead of working with each other” — the result of a federal government without a plan.

    And he alludes to the role the Korean War-era Defense Production Act has played in scaling up vaccine distribution over the last two months, including in clearing a pathway for Merck to make the same vaccine as its rival, Johnson & Johnson. Trump had balked at using the Act aggressively.

    “I’m using every power I have as President of the United States to put us on a war footing to get the job done,” he said. “It sounds like hyperbole, but I mean it: A war footing. And thank god we’re making some real progress now.” […]

    On an optimistic note, Biden says there is “hope and light of better days ahead” as long as the public does its part to fight the pandemic.

    The President points to more Americans receiving vaccinations, an economy on the mend and the return of children in schools. […]

    Link

  393. says

    More details from Biden’s speech:

    “So for all of you asking when things will get back to normal, here is the truth: The only way to get our lives back, to get our economy back on track, is to beat the virus,” Biden said. “You’ve been hearing me say that for — while I was running and the last 50 days I’ve been president. But this is one of the most complex operations we’ve ever undertaken as a nation, in a long time.”

    […] With some states moving away from mask mandates and many Americans — and especially Republicans — still resisting even voluntary masking, Biden labeled it the “easiest thing to do to save lives,” sounding a bit exasperated while adding “sometimes it divides us.”

  394. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Rachel Maddow followed up with Dr. Fauci. He even had mild, but factual, criticism of her intro about antibody therapy for Covid. Talk about integrity overload. I’ll link what is available in the morning.

  395. says

    “Even if we devote every resource we have, beating this virus and getting back to normal depends on national unity,” President Biden said. “And national unity isn’t just how politics and politicians vote in Washington, what the loudest voices say on cable or online. Unity is what we do as fellow Americans. Because if we don’t stay vigilant and the conditions change, then we may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track.”

  396. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Follow up to my #393.
    Rachel was riffing about the antibody treatment for Covid being a cure. Dr. Fauci corrected her about the limitations and inconvenience of infusion versus a pill or shot. Also, the antibody treatment is only works early in the disease process. The antibodies are also specific for one variant of the virus. The present antibody treatment is ineffective against other strains like South African one. No video of this.
    Bidens vaccination plans
    Variants and booster/year covid vaccines
    CDC guidance for post vaccine behavior
    Advisability of a very large motorcycle rally in Daytona, FL

  397. says

    Here’s a link to the March 12 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    From there:

    The company announcement came on Thursday but Novavax’s news that its Covid-19 vaccine was 96% effective in preventing cases caused by the original version of the coronavirus is still causing cheer today.

    The results are based on a late-stage trial conducted in Britain and moves the vaccine a step closer to regulatory approval.

    The vaccine was 86% effective in protecting against the more contagious virus variant first discovered and now prevalent in UK.

    100% effective against severe disease.

    Italy to announce extensive closures

    Italy’s government is expected to announce the closure of schools, restaurants and shops across most of the country later today as a new wave of coronavirus infections puts hospitals under strain.

    Prime minister Mario Draghi is expected to hold a cabinet meeting shortly to decide new restrictions for the eurozone’s third-largest economy, which on Thursday recorded almost 26,000 new Covid-19 cases and 373 deaths.

    With new, more contagious variants now widespread, Italy’s more populated northern regions such as Lombardy, which includes Milan, will reportedly join several others in being classified as the highest risk “red zones” from Monday, as will Calabria in the south.

    Lazio, the region that includes Rome, could also join them, although the situation is uncertain.

    Draghi’s new national unity government tightened restrictions for red zones earlier this month, to include not just the closure of bars, restaurants, shops and high schools but also primary schools. Residents are told to stay home where possible.

    Other regions including Tuscany and Liguria are expected to pass into the medium-risk orange zone, with all shops, museums, bars and restaurants closed.

    That leaves only Sicily in the lower category of yellow, and Sardinia in the new category of white, with hardly any restrictions at all.

    Surely, the rich people won’t flock to Sardinia and bring the new strains with them…

  399. says

    ABC – “Pfizer vaccine shows 94% effectiveness against asymptomatic transmission of COVID”:

    Pfizer’s vaccine is successful in preventing not only symptomatic COVID-19, but also asymptomatic disease according to new real-world data, Israel’s Ministry of Health and Pfizer/BioNTech announced Thursday.

    As concerning COVID variants spread and the companies behind the three authorized vaccines hurry to test their shots against them, there’s other promising news from Thursday’s announcement: this latest analysis was performed when more than 80% of Israel’s COVID-19 cases were from the UK variant B.1.1.7 — demonstrating that the Pfizer vaccine is equally effective against this variant, which is known to be more contagious, and possibly even more deadly, Israel’s Ministry of Health reported.

    The announcement included a key statistic related to an alarming way the virus can spread — via people who are asymptomatic, who may not even know they’re contagious. The Pfizer vaccine is so far 94% effective at preventing this type of infection, Israel’s Ministry of Health reports — encouraging news that the vaccine could help slow silent transmission.

    …

    Israel’s latest data, yet to be peer reviewed, was collected two weeks after administration of the second vaccine dose, reinforcing the idea that both doses are needed to achieve the full efficacy they report. And those who did not receive the vaccine were up to 44 times more likely to develop symptomatic disease, and 29 times more likely to die from COVID-19.

    “For the people that have already been vaccinated, it’s another reason why it’s so important that we’ve already rolled up our sleeves and received the vaccine,” said Dr. Todd Ellerin, director of Infectious Diseases at South Shore Health. “And for those who are vaccine hesitant, hopefully data like that shows that these vaccines are unbelievably effective at not just preventing severe disease, but also markedly reducing infection. And if you can reduce infection, you will reduce transmission.”

  400. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Americans support restricting unvaccinated people from offices, travel: Reuters poll

    A growing number of Americans want to get the coronavirus vaccine, and a majority also support workplace, lifestyle and travel restrictions for those not inoculated against COVID-19, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Friday.

    The national opinion poll of 1,005 people, conducted on Monday and Tuesday, suggested the pace of vaccinations may pick up as more vaccines become available and more people want them.

    For a graphic of the Reuters/Ipsos vaccine polling, click: https://tmsnrt.rs/3bCVZxu

    Altogether, 54% of respondents said they were “very interested” in getting vaccinated. That was up from a January survey, when 41% expressed the same level of interest, and 38% in a May 2020 poll before a coronavirus vaccine was developed.

    Interest in the vaccine increased over the past year among whites and racial minorities, with about six in 10 whites and five in 10 members of minority groups now expressing a high level of interest.

    Twenty-seven percent of Americans said they were not interested in getting vaccinated, which was relatively unchanged from a similar poll that ran in May.

    But foreshadowing the social challenges that may emerge as the United States begins to pull out of the yearlong pandemic, the latest poll showed a majority of Americans want to limit the ways in which unvaccinated people can mix in public.

    Seventy-two percent of Americans said it was important to know “if the people around me have been vaccinated,” according to the poll.

    A majority – 62% – said unvaccinated people should not be allowed to travel on airplanes. Fifty-five percent agreed that unvaccinated people should not work out at public gyms, enter movie theaters or attend public concerts.

    When asked about the workplace, 60% of Americans said they wanted to work for an employer “who requires everyone to get a coronavirus vaccine before returning to the office” and 56% thought unvaccinated workers should stay home.

  401. says

    AP – “Alabama House votes to end yoga ban, but don’t say ‘namaste’”:

    A decades-old ban on yoga in Alabama public schools could be coming to an end.

    The Alabama House of Representatives voted 73-25 to approve a bill that will authorize school systems to decide if they want yoga to be allowed in K-12 schools. The bill now moves to the Alabama Senate.

    Yoga done in school would be limited to poses and stretches. The bill says the use of chanting, mantras and teaching the greeting “namaste” would be forbidden.

    The Alabama Board of Education voted in 1993 to prohibit yoga, hypnosis and meditation in public school classrooms. The ban was pushed by conservative groups.

    Democratic Rep. Jeremy Gray of Opelika sponsored the bill. He said he understood some gym teachers had been teaching yoga in class before they realized it was banned, and others wanted to offer it, particularly during virtual learning.

    Gray, a former cornerback at North Carolina State University, said he was introduced to yoga through football, and that the exercises can provide mental and physical benefits to students.

    “I’ve been in yoga for seven years. I know the benefits of yoga, so it was very dear to my heart, and I think Alabama will be better for it,” Gray said.

    Under the bill, the moves and exercises taught to students must have exclusively English names. Gray said students would also have the option to not participate and instead do an alternative activity….

    The yoga-banners love to rant about cancel culture.

  402. says

    Politico – “Prosecutors seek a slowdown in Capitol attack cases, calling probe the ‘most complex’ in history”:

    Federal prosecutors have begun seeking 60-day delays across a series of Capitol riot cases, calling the probe “likely the most complex investigation ever prosecuted by the Department of Justice.”

    In a nine-page filing lodged in multiple cases Friday morning, U.S. attorneys handling cases stemming from the Jan. 6 insurrection cited the rapidly growing roster of defendants and the enormous cache of evidence they must sift through to get a complete picture of the crimes committed that day.

    “The investigation and prosecution of the Capitol Attack will likely be one of the largest in American history,” prosecutors said, “both in terms of the number of defendants prosecuted and the nature and volume of the evidence.”

    That evidence, they said, includes findings of more than 900 search warrants executed in nearly every state. It also includes more than 15,000 hours of surveillance and body-worn camera footage supplied by some of the 14 federal and local law enforcement agencies that participated in the Capitol response — from the FBI to the Secret Service to the Arlington, Va., police department.

    Authorities are also combing through 1,600 electronic devices, conducting hundreds of searches of text messages from multiple providers, and reviewing 210,000 tips and 80,000 witness interviews.

    The new filings amount to an effort by the Justice Department — a day after Attorney General Merrick Garland took the helm — to pump the brakes…..

    Already, about 300 suspects have been charged — and at least another 100 are likely to be added, prosecutors say in the filings. Their alleged crimes range from easily provable trespass cases supported by video evidence to more complicated conspiracy allegations against paramilitary groups such as the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Federal officials have also indicated that graver crimes such as seditious conspiracy are possible.

    …

    “The failure to grant such a continuance in this proceeding would be likely to make a continuation of this proceeding impossible, or result in a miscarriage of justice,” they wrote in a filing lodged Friday morning in the case of Jenny Cudd, a riot suspect from Texas.

  403. says

    From today’s DN! headlines:

    …World Food Programme Warns 34 Million Face Famine in Yemen, Ethiopia and Beyond

    The U.N. says over 88 million people around the world were facing acute hunger by the end of 2020, and some 34 million are now on the brink of famine. This is The World Food Programme’s David Beasley.

    David Beasley: ”WFP estimates that at least 34 million people are knocking on the door of famine. These looming famines have two things in common: They are primarily driven by conflict, and they are entirely preventable.”

    Beasley said Yemen is heading toward “the biggest famine in modern history” and many parts of the country feel like “hell on Earth” after years of food shortages and destruction brought on by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led war.…

    Humanitarian groups are also raising the alarm for millions in Ethiopia’s Tigray region amid the ongoing conflict, which has prevented the delivery of food and other aid.

    …

    Report Condemns LAPD’s Mishandling of BLM Protests; Kentucky Tries to Make “Taunting” a Cop a Crime

    In California, a new report is denouncing the Los Angeles Police Department’s violent mishandling of racial justice protests last summer, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd. The report, commissioned by the City Council, cites LAPD’s illegal detention of peaceful protesters and the officers’ excessive use of force, including assaulting protesters with rubber bullets, bean bags and batons.
    Meanwhile, Kentucky’s state Senate passed a bill Thursday that would make it a crime to taunt a police officer. The legislation follows huge protests for Black lives in the wake of the police killing of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old African American EMT shot in her Louisville home. Saturday marks the first anniversary of her killing.

    …

    Rep. Pramila Jayapal Calls for Probe into Whether GOP Colleagues Aided Insurrectionists

    Washington Democratic Congressmember Pramila Jayapal is calling for a congressional investigation into whether three Republicans — Congressmembers Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Mo Brooks of Alabama and Paul Gosar of Arizona — took “active roles” in promoting the deadly assault. Jayapal was one of about a dozen lawmakers trapped in the House gallery that afternoon as violent pro-Trump insurrectionists pounded at the doors. She tweeted Thursday, “I didn’t know if I would make it out alive … GOP members who aided insurrectionists or stoked the flames that day must be held fully accountable.”

    …

    NY Assembly Opens Impeachment Investigations into Gov. Cuomo

    The New York Assembly has opened an impeachment inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations against Governor Andrew Cuomo, as well as his cover-up of COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes. It could lead to New York’s first impeachment effort in over a century. Meanwhile, the sixth and most recent public accusation against Cuomo — that he groped an aide last year at the Executive Mansion — has been reported to the Albany Police Department for possible criminal prosecution….

  406. says

    Senator Rubio is tricksy:

    [CNBC] Republican Sen. Marco Rubio on Friday sided with Amazon workers in Alabama who are in the midst of organizing their warehouse, lending bipartisan support behind the closely watched union vote. In an op-ed in USA Today, Rubio asserted that Amazon has “waged a war against working-class values” and is “looking to crush the union vote” at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.

    Commentary that reveals Rubio’s statements come from a forked tongue:

    […] “The days of conservatives being taken for granted by the business community are over,” Rubio wrote. “Here’s my standard: When the conflict is between working Americans and a company whose leadership has decided to wage culture war against working-class values, the choice is easy — I support the workers. And that’s why I stand with those at Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse today.”

    At first blush, it’s easy to understand why the Floridian’s op-ed caused a stir this morning: in situations like these, Democrats nearly always side with workers and organized labor, while Republicans nearly always do the opposite. At a minimum, it’s unexpected to see Marco Rubio, a very conservative Republican, take the same stand as Joe Biden as warehouse workers vote on whether to unionize.

    And for some, this may well represent the end of the conversation. Pro-union voices will almost certainly welcome Rubio’s backing, without regard for his motivations or objectives.

    But there is a larger context to this, and its political relevance is real.

    Rubio routinely tries to position himself as a Republican who wants his party to champion the interests of workers, not the powerful. Rubio also routinely takes policy positions that are fundamentally at odds with that goal: the Florida senator has not only balked at raising the minimum wage, he also, just this week, helped introduce a bill to eliminate the estate tax. The bill would exclusively benefit millionaires and billionaires.

    The senator will nevertheless likely point to his op-ed in support of Bessemer warehouse employees as proof that he’s a genuine “pro-worker” Republican. But a closer look at what Rubio wrote suggests his position is far more anti-Amazon than it is pro-union. His op-ed complains, for example, not about working conditions in the Alabama warehouse, but rather about companies like Amazon being “allies of the left in the culture war.” He added, “If Amazon thinks that conservatives will automatically rally to do its bidding after proving itself to be such enthusiastic culture warriors, it is sorely mistaken.”

    In all, Rubio’s op-ed referenced the so-called “culture war” four times. He also derisively used the word “woke” twice.

    In fact, it’s hard not to get the impression that Rubio, in the midst of writing an ostensibly pro-union opinion piece, isn’t actually pro-union at all. His op-ed added, for example, “[T]oo often, the right to form a union has been, in practice, a requirement that business owners allow left-wing social organizers to take over their workplaces.”

    The senator went on to explicitly denounce the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO Act), which labor leaders and many progressive lawmakers consider one of the most important pro-union bills to be considered in decades.

    If Rubio’s USA Today piece helps sway some votes in the unionization drive, the practical effect of this context may not amount to much. But if the senator uses this to position himself and his party as newly “pro-worker,” skepticism is in order.

    Link

  407. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Brazil has scaled back testing in recent months, even as infections soar and it recorded the most deaths in the world over the past week, Reuters reports, citing health ministry data. The agency says:

    The result is a nation navigating in the dark, experts said, without the ability to trace and contain transmission, let alone track the spread of dangerous new virus variants in real time.

    Brazil’s public health system and major private laboratories conducted about 44,000 daily PCR tests – the gold standard for identifying the novel coronavirus – in the last week of February, the latest public Health Ministry data show.

    That was down by nearly a third from Brazil’s peak for testing: more than 65,000 per day in the third week of December.

    By comparison, the United States – the only nation with more total Covid-19 deaths – has averaged over a million tests per day in the last nine months.

    Brazil’s Health Ministry did not answer questions about the decline in testing. Recent ministry notes cited investments to increase testing capacity.

    “There’s no justification,” said Diego Xavier, a public health researcher for the Fiocruz biomedical institute. “We’ve processed more tests before. So the only explanation is a reduction in the testing program at a time when we should be increasing it.”

    One in three tests in Brazil were positive in late February, ministry data show, far above the benchmark 5% positivity rate cited by the World Health Organization for countries containing their outbreaks.

  408. says

    The financial cost of Trump’s 2020 ‘Big Lie’ keeps going up

    “I realize federal officials can’t literally send a $521 million bill to the former president, but the idea is not without some appeal.”

    It’s been 65 days since an insurrectionist mob launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, and while much of the political world has been eager to move on, the effects of the violence linger.

    […] thousands of National Guard troops remain on Capitol Hill […] the Guard’s mission was scheduled to end today. This week, however, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, in coordination with the U.S. Capitol Police, approved an extension of the Guard’s presence through May 23.

    As the Wall Street Journal reported, none of this is cheap.

    The National Guard’s months-long deployment at the U.S. Capitol is projected to cost $521 million through May, the Defense Department said Thursday…. The [new extension approved by Austin] will add $111 million to the cost of the mission, covering from March to May, said Lt. Col. Robert Carver, a National Guard spokesman. That is on top of an estimated $410 million in costs for the mission from January to March, Col. Carver said.

    Journalist Garrett Graff this morning suggested an alternative headline to reports like these: “Former President Trump’s lies, rhetoric force US government to spend a half-billion dollars securing and defending legislators from Trump fanatics.”

    […] Trump peddled seditious lies about his election defeat; some of his extremist followers still accept the scam as true; and the possibility of a second violent attack appears to be quite real.

    […] Let’s not forget that it was just last week when the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI sent a joint intelligence bulletin to state and local law enforcement agencies warning that some domestic groups have “discussed plans to take control of the U.S. Capitol and remove Democratic lawmakers on or about” March 4. […]

  409. says

    Exactly one year later, Biden’s address did what Trump’s did not

    “It matters, I think, that we did finally, finally get a real presidential address on COVID.”

    t was on March 11, 2020, when Donald Trump delivered a White House address on the coronavirus crisis. It did not go well — largely because Trump, despite reading from a prepared script, repeatedly described his own policies in ways that were untrue.

    The then-president, for example, said his administration was “suspending all travel from Europe,” which wasn’t actually the administration’s policy at the time. Trump also said that his new prohibitions would apply to “tremendous amount of trade and cargo,” prompting White House officials to “scramble” to “fix his apparent misstatement.” He went to boast that the health insurance industry had agreed to waive “all co-payments for coronavirus treatments,” which also wasn’t true.

    What’s more, Trump’s inability to get the details right wasn’t the only problem. The then-president stoked nativist tensions by labeling COVID-19 a “foreign virus” that “started in China”; he offered very little in the way of a policy vision for addressing the intensifying pandemic; […] failed spectacularly to reassure Americans during a public-health crisis that he was up to the task at hand.

    […] the then-president boasted that “the risk is very, very low” for “the vast majority of Americans,” boasts that seem especially cruel now.

    Exactly one year to the day later, his successor delivered a very different kind of speech on the pandemic.

    President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he will direct states to make all adults eligible for coronavirus vaccinations no later than May 1, a move that he said could help the United States return to some sense of normalcy by Independence Day. In his address marking the anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic shutdowns, Biden offered the country a somber reflection on a year tainted by grief and devastation while providing a renewed sense of hope that a post-pandemic future is near if Americans do their part.

    Biden set realistic goals, expressed empathy for those who’ve lost so much, took care to condemn “vicious hate crimes against Asian Americans,” and called on all Americans to do their part in our collective efforts.

    “I promise I will do everything in my power, I will not relent until we beat this virus, but I need you, the American people,” Biden said. “I need you. I need every American to do their part. And that’s not hyperbole. I need you. I need you to get vaccinated when it’s your turn and when you can find an opportunity, and to help your family and friends and neighbors get vaccinated as well.”

    Ahead of last night’s White House speech, I revisited Trump’s remarks […] the differences between the two men and their capacity to lead came into sharp relief.

  410. says

    Josh Marshall: “It’s True. Trump Had No Plan to Vaccinate the Country”

    […] The Trump administration really did do some solid work on ‘Operation Warp Speed’. My own take is that that was pretty basic blocking and tackling you’d expect any White House to do. But in the context of a general COVID response which ranged from negligent to borderline criminal that actually stands out.

    […] Trump didn’t create or develop any vaccines. Neither did his administration. What they did do though is important. They essentially backstopped the risk to pharmaceutical companies to throw everything into vaccine development. […] That’s good. There were various goofs along the way. But that’s real.

    Ex-President Trump is still claiming that without him we’d have waited five years for a vaccine. That’s clearly nonsense. And we can see it’s nonsense because other countries with totally different pharmaceutical industries have developed their own vaccines in roughly the same timeframe. […]

    Where things change dramatically is on the distribution front. It’s not too much to say that the Trump White House had literally no plan to distribute the vaccine at all beyond the small but critical subgroup of assisted living facility residents and staff. […] It was their ‘plan’, such as it was.

    The federal government’s role [under Trump] – all the stuff about getting the military involved to bring their logistics expertise to bear – was to drop off pallets of vaccine at major airports in each state. And then it was up to the states. Critically, it was up to states and municipalities which were already in acute budgetary distress because of the pandemic.

    […] The administration had a system and funding for getting assisted living facilities vaccinated and I believe also health care workers vaccinated. But that program and funding was designed to run out at the beginning of February. […] it seemed almost intentionally designed to get everyone pumped up about getting vaccinated and then have all the plans and money run out about one week after Biden’s inauguration. So a pre-planned train-wreck on Biden’s watch.

    In any case, point being, all the stuff the Biden folks said about showing up and realizing the Trump administration had no plan is 100% true. They just rebranded no plan as their ‘plan’.

    […] TPM Reader WH

    I concur with the points you make in your recent post on Biden’s speech. […]

    In terms of describing what he inherited, is there any way to give a succinct, honest assessment of how we ended up where we are without sounding like an attack against Trump et al.? I think not, and appreciate Biden being upfront about this and not shying away from giving the nation some real talk about the last administration’s colossal fuckup (especially as the “actually, Biden is inheriting all the good stuff Trump had ready to go” articles seem to keep popping up). […]

    COVID has obviously been polarized to provide cover for Trump and his lackeys’ willful inattention, but I sincerely hope that this speech was able to transcend that and serve as a welcome reminder of what a president sounds like and how they behave in exigent moments. I’m hoping this stirs some well-warranted optimism about the path ahead and disabuses us of any notion that things weren’t as bad as they most definitely were.

  411. says

    Scaffolding Company’s Surreal Jan. 7 Inspection Shows Capitol Grandstands After Battle

    […] The day after that attack, a Scaffolding Solutions manager, identified by his name tag as Steve Ott, filmed an after-action report of sorts, capturing footage of the debris: the makeshift weaponry, body armor, bullhorns, backpacks and medical supplies left by dozens of rioters.

    “Anything you touch here, anything at all, has teargas on it,” Ott says at one point, walking around the inauguration stage that, two weeks from the time he was filming, would host American political royalty at Joe Biden’s inauguration.

    […] The video appears to have been clipped from Scaffolding Solutions’ YouTube page. A full 20-minute inspection video that was live on that YouTube page Wednesday night has since been removed. I’ve reached out to Scaffolding Solutions to see why they removed the video, but for now, check out this clip: [clip is available at the link]

    The full video, which I downloaded before it was removed from YouTube, is bracing. Ott faithfully describes the detritus at his feet and his sense of surreal shock, standing on a battlefield that also happens to be the nation’s seat of government. At one point, he discovers a large roll of netting belonging to his company that, he surmises, rioters used as a battering ram at the Capitol’s West Terrace doors.

    “It looks like somebody took our netting and tried to break down the door with it,” he says.

    Elsewhere, we see discarded Capitol Police shields, “Stop the Steal,” “Trump 2020” and “Women for America First” posters, a “pedophile hunter” ball cap, goggles, gauze, scissors, spent tear gas canisters and yet more scaffolding equipment seemingly used as weaponry.

    “Just an incredible, incredible place to be right now, very surreal, can’t quite get my head around this,” he says.

    Part of my interest in this video is the freshness of the crime scene: Where was the FBI? Had they collected what they needed to by this time? Did they know who had access to the scene? The bureau didn’t respond to my questions Thursday.

    But the video also acts as a time capsule, the only footage I’ve seen so far of the trashed Capitol before real clean-up efforts began.

    It’s worth mentioning: To Scaffolding Solutions’ credit, according to Ott’s videotaped inspection, their grandstands held up extremely well under extraordinary circumstances.

    “Due to amazing engineering and building, our scaffolding supported a much higher number of people than it was intended for,” Imogen Ott, a logistics manager at the company, commented above the video on LinkedIn. “We will not let this set back phase us!”

  412. says

    Trump is fading away:

    […] it’s not just Twitter that’s been purging. Recent data from SocialFlow indicates that, while our long, national nightmare isn’t exactly over, at the very least it’s fading fast.

    Axios:

    The big picture: During the first month of his post-presidency, Trump remained as discussed as he was when he was in office, when he dominated social and traditional media. His numbers have plunged the past couple weeks.
    * During the first four weeks after he left office, daily clicks to Trump articles — indexed to 100, based on highs and lows during the past year — averaged 53.
    * In the last two weeks, the average has fallen to 21.

    Whew!

    As Axios notes, some of this disappearing act has been of Trump’s own choosing. He gave his barmy, lie-filled (i.e., standard) CPAC speech on Feb. 28 but has largely been invisible the rest of the time. My original theory was that he was stuck in his toilet like Winnie the Pooh’s head in a honey jar and the Palm Beach PD’s Jaws of Life was broken, with no federal money available to replace it.

    Then he showed up at CPAC looking only slightly like a trenchcoat filled with mescaline-besotted prairie chickens propping up a genetically altered muskmelon with Art Garfunkel’s gently used merkin stapled to it. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt and assumed that was the real Trump.

    Then I saw his deeply callow “statements” (i.e., tweets) and knew for fucking sure he was still with us.

    But that’s neither here nor there, because he’s fading … fading … fading away.

    So here’s my prediction. In four years, after Biden is through steering the ship of state out of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, Trump will have shrunk to a tiny comic sans asterisk. He’ll be seen as the failed, disgraced pr*sident he was […]

    Link

  413. says

    Follow-up to SC’s comment 375.

    Wonkette: “Former Acting SecDef Blames Trump For Riot, Blames Self For NOTHING”

    Last night, Vice on Showtime aired an interview with former acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller about the Capitol Riot in which he directly blamed his former boss for the attack.

    “Would anybody have marched on the Capitol, and tried to overrun the Capitol, without the president’s speech?” Miller told Vice’s Seb Walker. “I think it’s pretty much definitive that wouldn’t have happened.”

    Which is YEAH, NO SHIT and also HOLY SHIT, because he’s actually saying the true part out loud. And in a church, set to creepy woo music, for some reason.”The question is, did he know that he was enraging the crowd to do that,” Miller continued. “I don’t know.”

    Presumably this bout of candor was provoked by the former president’s attempt to deflect blame for the lack of preparation for the January 6 riot onto Miller. On February 28, Trump called in to Fox News and described a conversation he had with Miller on the evening of the 5th.

    I said “Look, this rally is going to be bigger than anyone thinks because everyone I see said, ‘Oh, we’re going to be at the rally, we’re going to be at the rally.'” … Hundreds of thousands of people, and more than that. But hundreds of thousands of people. And I said that I think you should have 10,000 — I think I gave the number, I definitely gave the number of 10,000 National Guardsmen. I think you should have 10,000 of the National Guard ready. They took that number, from what I understand, they gave it to the people at the Capitol, which is controlled by Pelosi, and I heard they rejected it because they didn’t think it looked good.

    […] Miller characterized this to Ciralsky as typical BS from the Bullshitter in Chief, saying “The president’s sometimes hyperbolic, as you’ve noticed.” We did! We also noticed that this appears to confirm that Trump knew there was a potential for violence long before he got up there and gave that speech telling the crowd to “go and fight.” Almost like he actually intended for it to happen.

    Miller is no resistance hero, of course. You already knew that after watching him systematically block access to the Biden transition team while blaming Covid and Christmas and Sasquatch […] But the former Defense official proved it again last night with his derisive brushoff about the delayed response to request for help when the Capitol was under attack.

    “What’s your response to those that say, Well, this should have happened quicker? Or could it have been done better?” Walker asked.

    “It comes back to understanding how the military works. This isn’t a video game. It’s not Halo, you know. It’s not Black Ops Call to Duty [sic],” Miller snapped, before belittling the concerns of those who feared a military coup, describing it as “not possible in the United States military right now.”

    […] calling bullshit on Miller’s claim that only a dumbass would expect the Guard to deploy without hours of deliberation and reams of permission slips signed in triplicate.

    Scene 1: Trump’s acting Defense Secty claims critics of delays on 1/6 don’t understand how military works

    Scene 2: DC Guard Commander testifies under oath that approval process can take “minutes”

    Scene 3: DC Guard Commander testifies could have gotten forces to Capitol in 20min [Ryan Goodman]

    During that same hearing on March 3, Gen. Walker testified that he’d received a memo on January 5 revoking his power to deploy guardsmen on his own authority and forcing him to run it up the chain to Miller.

    […] According to Walker’s testimony, Miller withheld that permission for three hours while he conferred with Lt. Gen. Walter Piatt and Lt. Gen. Charles Flynn, aka Mike Flynn’s little brother. So maybe Miller can take that “Call to Duty” joystick and shove it up his ass.

    In summary and in conclusion, the Trumpers are all going to shiv each other. And they all deserve it.

    Link

  414. says

    At the current pace of vaccination, a New York Times chart estimates that 90% of the U.S. population might be vaccinated by August 22, 2021.

    New York Times link

    The state in which I live is one of the slowest when it comes to percentage of the population that is vaccinated. Other states in that slow group include: Texas, Arkansa, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah and Missouri.

    […] If the country maintains its current pace of vaccinating people, about half of the total population would be at least partially vaccinated around late May, and nearly all around late August, assuming supply pledges are met and vaccines are eventually available to children. […]

    Biden recently announced that a federal pharmacy program would begin prioritizing pre-kindergarten through 12th grade educators and staff, as well as childcare workers. People in this group have access to vaccines in every state, starting Monday. But even as states have expanded eligibility, demand has outstripped supply and appointments remain hard to come by.

    Every state except Montana has expanded its occupation-based vaccination program to include some non-medical workers, beyond teachers, such as bus drivers or police officers, who are at risk of being exposed to the virus on the job. The lists of which professions are eligible vary widely by state. At least 26 states and Washington, D.C., are allowing some grocery store workers to get shots. […]

  415. says

    Why Biden is right to share credit with Pelosi, Schumer

    “[…] when it comes to legislative breakthroughs, it’s congressional leaders who often deserve the credit.”

    After the Senate passed the Democrats’ COVID relief package, President Joe Biden offered some generous praise for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

    “I served in the Senate, as you all know, for many years. I’ve never seen anyone work as skillfully, as ably, as patiently, with determination, to deliver such a consequential piece of legislation that was so urgently needed as the American Rescue Plan. Senator Chuck Schumer, when the country needed you most, you led, Chuck, and you delivered. Neither I nor the country will ever forget that.”

    A few days later, once the same bill had cleared the House, Biden was again eager to share the credit.

    “[House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is] the finest and most capable speaker in the history of our nation. Once again, she has led into law an historic piece of legislation that addresses a major crisis and lifts up millions of Americans.”

    […] In the case of the American Rescue Plan, the president obviously showed effective leadership, unveiling the policy blueprint, aiming high, and helping put out fires as they arose during the legislative process. But it’d be a mistake to overlook the work of his governing partners on Capitol Hill.

    Success on the COVID relief package was hardly assured. In the Senate, Schumer’s margin for error simply did not exist: he needed to keep every member of his 50-member conference together, not only on the reconciliation strategy, but on each of the substantive details. It would be a foolish mistake to think it’s easy to shepherd through a $1.9 trillion package that makes Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) happy simultaneously. Schumer pulled it off anyway.

    And then, of course, there’s Pelosi, who started the year with an unexpectedly small majority, and a group of ideological factions that didn’t see eye to eye. The conventional wisdom was that the Speaker would struggle and may have to temper her ambitions.

    She did not.

    Jonathan Bernstein noted this week, “[I]t’s tempting to overlook just how easy it would have been for things to go wrong, especially in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes it all look inevitable, but it most definitely is not — as anyone who remembers the frequent internal party fights under Republican Speakers Paul Ryan or John Boehner or, for that matter, Democrat Tom Foley.”

    The California Democrat can add this to her list of historic successes, which already includes historic accomplishments such as passing the Affordable Care Act, which almost certainly would’ve failed without her.

    It was 10 years ago this month when I first wrote that we tend to name buildings after leaders with records like hers. I haven’t changed my mind.

  417. says

    Washington Post:

    The GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction, when Southern states curtailed the voting rights of formerly enslaved Black men, a Washington Post analysis has found.

  419. tomh says

    CNN:
    Arizona has introduced 24 bills restricting voting rights since January
    Most of the legislation targets limits on absentee voting after roughly 80% of Arizonans voted by mail in the 2020 election.

    Rep. John Kavanagh, a Fountain Hills Republican who chairs the Government and Elections Committee… said GOP lawmakers are concerned about what happens to ballots automatically sent to people who have moved or have died.

    He acknowledged that the concerns about those ballots being cast fraudulently are “anecdotal, because obviously if nobody’s there and they throw it away, you wouldn’t know…

    “There’s a fundamental difference between Democrats and Republicans,” Kavanagh said. “Democrats value as many people as possible voting, and they’re willing to risk fraud. Republicans are more concerned about fraud, so we don’t mind putting security measures in that won’t let everybody vote —but everybody shouldn’t be voting.”

    “Not everybody wants to vote, and if somebody is uninterested in voting, that probably means that they’re totally uninformed on the issues,” Kavanagh said. “Quantity is important, but we have to look at the quality of votes, as well.”

  420. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    France’s Covid cases top four million

    The number of confirmed Covid cases in France rose above four million on Friday, as the health ministry reported 25,229 new infections.

    The increase was lower than the 23,507 new cases reported last Friday [?], and took the total number of confirmed infections since the start of the pandemic to 4.01 million, Reuters reports.

    France has the world’s sixth-highest total of Covid cases, just behind Britain, which has had more than 4.24 million infections.

    The number of people with Covid-19 in intensive care units in France increased by 41 to 4,033 on Friday, exceeding 4,000 for the first time since 26 November, at the end of the second nationwide lockdown.

    The number of people in intensive care units (ICU) in France increased by 41 to 4,033 on Friday, Reuters reports, citing health ministry data. The figure has exceeded 4,000 for the first time since 26 November, at the end of the second nationwide lockdown.

    The Geodes health ministry website, which releases provisional data, also reported 64,809 deaths in hospitals, an increase of 223, which would put the total number of deaths since the start of the epidemic – including retirement home deaths – over 90,000.

    The state of the pandemic in Brazil is very concerning and serious action needs to be taken to deal with rising cases and deaths there, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

    “Unless serious measures are taken the upward trend now flooding the health system and becoming more than its capacity will result in more deaths,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

    “The situation is deeply concerning and the measures that should be taken should be as serious as possible,” he added.

  421. says

    Reuters – “Iranian ship hit in attack in Mediterranean, company says”:

    An Iranian container ship was damaged in an attack in the Mediterranean, the state-run shipping company said on Friday, adding it would take legal action to identify the perpetrators of what it called terrorism and naval piracy.

    The ship, Shahr e Kord, was slightly damaged in Wednesday’s incident by an explosive object which caused a small fire, but no one on board was hurt, the spokesman, Ali Ghiasian, said, according to state media.

    “Such terrorist acts amount to naval piracy, and are contrary to international law on commercial shipping security, and legal action will be taken to identify the perpetrators through relevant international institutions,” Ghiasian said.

    The vessel was headed to Europe when the attack occurred and will leave for its destination after repairs, he added.

    …

    Two maritime security sources said initial indications were that the Iranian container ship had been intentionally targeted by an unknown source.

    The incident comes two weeks after an Israeli-owned ship the MV HELIOS RAY was hit by an explosion in the Gulf of Oman.

    The cause was not immediately clear, although a U.S. defence official said the blast left holes in both sides of the vessel’s hull. Israel accused Iran of being behind the explosion, a charge the Islamic Republic denied.

    …

    A third maritime security source told Reuters that three other Iranian ships had been damaged in recent weeks by unknown causes when sailing through the Red Sea.

    Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel has targeted at least a dozen vessels bound for Syria and mostly carrying Iranian oil out of concern that petroleum profits are funding terrorism in the Middle East.

    Iran, which often threatens strong retaliation for any Israeli attack, has often declined to point the finger at Israel over repeated air strikes on Iranian-backed forces in Syria, in an apparent effort to avoid all-out war with Israel.

    Israeli officials declined comment on the report, which cited unnamed U.S. and regional officials and came as the Biden administration reviews policy on Iran. The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem had no immediate comment….

  423. says

    tom @418, that Republican emphasis on “the quality of votes” is a telling detail. Republicans think their votes are high-quality votes and other people’s votes are of lesser quality. Republicans like Representative Kavanagh in Arizona want to use their criteria for voters to keep other potential voters out of the game entirely. He doesn’t want Democrats in general (or people of color in particular) in Arizona to be able to vote.

    In other news: “Can Cyrus Vance, Jr., Nail Trump?”

    New Yorker link

    Insiders say that the Manhattan District Attorney’s investigation has dramatically intensified since the former President left office. “It’s like night and day,” says one. According to another, “They mean business.”

    On February 22nd, in an office in White Plains, two lawyers handed over a hard drive to a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney, who, along with two investigators, had driven up from New York City in a heavy snowstorm. Although the exchange didn’t look momentous, it set in motion the next phase of one of the most significant legal showdowns in American history. Hours earlier, the Supreme Court had ordered former President Donald Trump to comply with a subpoena for nearly a decade’s worth of private financial records, including his tax returns. The subpoena had been issued by Cyrus Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney, who is leading the first, and larger, of two known probes into potential criminal misconduct by Trump. The second was opened, last month, by a county prosecutor in Georgia, who is investigating Trump’s efforts to undermine that state’s election results.

    Vance is a famously low-key prosecutor, but he has been waging a ferocious battle. His subpoena required Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars U.S.A., to turn over millions of pages of personal and corporate records, dating from 2011 to 2019, that Trump had withheld from prosecutors and the public. […]

    If the tax records contain major revelations, the public probably won’t learn about them anytime soon: the information will likely be kept secret unless criminal charges are filed. […] people familiar with the office presume that it has been secured in a radio-frequency-isolation chamber in the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, on Centre Street. The chamber is protected by a double set of metal doors—the kind used in bank vaults—and its walls are lined with what looks like glimmering copper foil, to block remote attempts to tamper with digital evidence. […]

    [snipped details of Vance’s background] New York University historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, whose recent book “Strongmen” examines the characteristics of antidemocratic rulers, told me, “If you don’t prosecute Trump, it sends the message that all that he did was acceptable.” She pointed out that strongmen typically “inhabit a gray zone between illegal and legal for years”; corrupt acts of political power are just an extension of their shady business practices. […]

    Trump, in his effort to shield his financial records, took the fight all the way to the Supreme Court—and then back again, after the case was remanded—but the D.A.’s office won every round.

    [Vance] plans to retire from the D.A.’s office on December 31st. […] Even before the Trump case crossed his desk, Vance had largely decided not to run for reëlection. He and his wife, Peggy McDonnell, felt that he had done much of what he set out to do […] Vance is sixty-six, and the pressure of managing one of the highest-profile prosecutorial offices in the country has been wearying. […]

    His decision to leave midcourse, however, exposes the case to the political fray of an election. Some candidates have already made inflammatory statements denouncing Trump, and such rhetoric could complicate a prosecution.

    The investigative phase of the Trump case will likely be complete before Vance’s term ends, leaving to him the crucial decision of whether to bring criminal charges. But any trial would almost surely rest in the hands of his successor. Daniel R. Alonso, Vance’s former top deputy, who is now a lawyer at Buckley, L.L.P., predicts that if Trump is indicted “it will be nuclear war.”

    […] Trump has already demonstrated a willingness to engage in almost unthinkable tactics to protect himself. Among his social circle in Palm Beach, speculation abounds that Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, an ally, might not honor an extradition request from New York if a bench warrant were issued for Trump’s arrest. Dave Aronberg, the state’s attorney for Palm Beach County, doubts that such defiance would stand. Extradition, he points out, is a constitutional duty, and a governor’s role in it is merely “ministerial.” But he admitted that the process might not go smoothly: “You know what? I thought January 6th would go smoothly. Congress’s role was just ministerial then, too.” […]

    Vance’s office could well be the only operable brake on Trump’s remarkable record of impunity. He has survived two impeachments, the investigation by the special counsel Robert Mueller, half a dozen bankruptcies, twenty-six accusations of sexual misconduct, and an estimated four thousand lawsuits. […]

    [I snipped statements from Vance’s peers about his integrity, and snipped more details about Vance’s patrician/prestigious upbringing and family: “A third-generation public servant,”]

    […] Vance’s opposition to charging the Trump children in the SoHo case stirred scandal after a 2017 investigative report—produced jointly by ProPublica, WNYC, and The New Yorker—revealed that, a few months after meeting with Marc Kasowitz, a lawyer for the Trumps, Vance told his prosecutors that he had overruled their recommendation to go ahead with the criminal case. Several months after Vance dropped it, the report revealed, he accepted a sizable donation from Kasowitz. After the article appeared, Vance returned the donation: thirty-two thousand dollars.

    Adam Kaufmann, the former chief of the Investigation Division in the D.A.’s office, whom Vance overruled on the Trump SoHo matter, dismisses the notion that Vance was bought off. Vance, he said, “wrestled with the case from the beginning.” The condominium owners were not particularly sympathetic victims—their apartments were primarily used as pieds-à-terre—and real-estate practices in New York are so often sleazy that it would have been hard to persuade a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that the Trumps were unusually criminal. […]

    Vance’s team investigated the case for two years, but he never became convinced that it merited criminal charges. Among other problems, the apartment owners settled their grievances privately with the Trump Organization, then declined to coöperate with prosecutors. Vance said, “I had a hundred thousand other cases in the office that year, with victims who actually wanted us to take the case.”

    Mary Trump, a psychologist and the former President’s niece, who is suing him and two of his siblings for allegedly defrauding her out of her proper inheritance, sees it differently. “Vance let two of my cousins off the hook,” she told me. “If he hadn’t, he may well have kept Donald from running. […] “It’s incredibly urgent that Vance prosecutes Donald now,” she said.

    Vance has shown that he is capable of redressing his past lapses: last year, his office delivered an impressive conviction in the case of the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, despite having declined to pursue charges against him five years earlier. […] The belated conviction, perhaps the biggest of the #MeToo era, helped bolster Vance’s reputation. He now faces an even riskier target in Trump.

    […] Cohen was once Trump’s most loyal associate, willing to do and say nearly anything to protect him. That has long since changed. On “Mea Culpa,” a podcast that Cohen now hosts, he recently made his resentment clear. “I went to frickin’ prison for him and his dirty deeds,” he said. “It’s the Vance investigation that I believe causes Trump to lose sleep at night. Besides the horror of actually having to open up eight years of his personal income-tax statements, Vance is accumulating a vast road map of criminality for which Trump must answer.” Cohen, who has been coöperating with Vance’s office, believes that Trump’s children and Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, are also under legal scrutiny.

    […] Vance’s probe has since expanded into a broad examination of the possibility that Trump and his company engaged in tax, banking, and insurance fraud. […]

    Several knowledgeable sources told me that, in the past two months, the tone and the pace of Vance’s grand-jury probe have picked up dramatically. […] the person said, prosecutors’ questions have become “very pointed—they’re sharpshooting now, laser-beaming.” The source added, “It hit me—they’re closer.”

    The change came soon after the D.A.’s office made the unusual decision to hire a new special assistant from outside its ranks—Mark Pomerantz, a prominent former federal prosecutor. Pomerantz was brought on, one well-informed source admits, partly “to scare the shit out of people.” The press has characterized Pomerantz, who formerly headed the criminal division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, as a specialist in prosecuting organized crime […]. Given Trump’s talk of a witch hunt, Milgram noted, the fact that Pomerantz comes from outside the D.A.’s office helps take the case “out of politics.”

    Vance also recently hired a top forensic-accounting firm, F.T.I., that is capable of crunching vast amounts of financial data. Taken together, George Conway told me, the hirings “are signs that the D.A.’s office is approaching this investigation very seriously—they clearly think they have something, and they’re trying to hone it and move it to a jury in New York.”

    […] Prosecutors may hesitate to call Cohen as a witness, given that he is a convicted felon and an admitted liar. But Paul Pelletier, a highly regarded former federal prosecutor, told me, “I’ve used much worse people than him. Angels don’t swim in the sewers. You can’t get angels to testify.” What would be crucial, he said, is corroborating Cohen’s allegations.

    […] sights are set on Allen Weisselberg. […] As the man who managed Trump’s money flow for decades, Weisselberg would certainly make a star witness. […] Weisselberg isn’t believed to be coöperating with prosecutors, but he may be vulnerable to pressure. He is seventy-three, and he has two sons who are both potentially enmeshed in the case. Jack Weisselberg, the younger son, works at one of the Trump Organization’s largest lenders, Ladder Capital. […]

    But investigators in Vance’s office have debriefed Jennifer Weisselberg, […] In Jennifer’s first extensive public remarks, she told me that, when someone works for the Trump Organization, “only a small part of your salary is reported.” She explained, “They pay you with apartments and other stuff, as a control tactic, so you can’t leave. They own you! You have to do whatever corrupt crap they ask.”[…]

    Jennifer described her former father-in-law as being in Trump’s thrall: “His whole worth is ‘Does Donald like me today?’ It’s his whole life, his core being. He’s obsessed. He has more feelings and adoration for Donald than for his wife.” Asked if Allen Weisselberg would flip under pressure, she said, “I don’t know. For Donald, it’s a business. But for Allen it’s a love affair.” [OMG … not the first time we’ve heard that people worship Trump. Sick relationships.]

    Jennifer told me that she first met Trump before she was married, at Allen Weisselberg’s modest house, in Wantagh, on Long Island. That day, the Weisselberg family was sitting shivah, for Allen’s mother. Trump showed up in a limousine and blurted out, “This is where my C.F.O. lives? It’s embarrassing!” Then, Jennifer recalled, Trump showed various shivah attendees photographs of naked women with him on a yacht. “After that, he starts hitting on me,” she said. Jennifer claimed that Allen Weisselberg, instead of being offended on her behalf, humored his boss: “He didn’t stand up for me!” […]

    The targets of complex financial prosecutions often defend themselves by noting that their accountants and lawyers had approved their allegedly criminal actions. Trump has already started making this argument. In a statement denouncing the Supreme Court’s upholding of Vance’s subpoena, Trump protested that his tax returns “were done by among the biggest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the U.S.”

    […] Weissmann also thinks that bringing in F.T.I., the forensic-accounting firm, is a major leap forward. Such experts “are the people you put on the stand” to explain potential crimes to the jury: “The fact that they are exterior to the office is really important. You can discount the argument that they’re political. It’s invaluable.”

    […] Weissmann believes that Trump obstructed justice in the Mueller probe, and would rather see him prosecuted for that. He said, of Vance’s pursuit of Trump’s possible financial crimes, “It’s not ideal. But at least there’s some accountability. […]”

    […]the lesson from democracies under strain elsewhere around the world is that failing to lay down the law “is dangerous—it creates long-term feelings of impunity, and incentives for Trump and those around him to misbehave again.” […]

  424. tomh says

    CNN Poll: Most Americans think election results could lead to political violence in the coming years
    By Jennifer Agiesta, CNN Polling Director
    Fri March 12, 2021

    (CNN)A broad majority of Americans say that political violence in response to election results is likely in the United States in the next few years, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

    Overall, 71% say political violence in response to election results is at least somewhat likely, including 34% who believe it is very likely. The expectation that elections will lead to violence also cuts across party lines (78% of Democrats, 70% of independents and 65% of Republicans describe it as likely)…

  425. says

    Fox News’ coverage of Biden speech underscores the total disintegration of conservative news

    […] on Fox News, viewers saw a presidential address as they never had before—with a real-time box allowing Tucker Carlson to mug for the camera in response to everything Biden said. Under the banner “Live Tucker Reaction,” Carlson did his best to demonstrate outrage and disgust with expressions large enough to overcome the relatively small size of his on-screen box. Meanwhile, the shifting Fox chyron offered its own commentary, including reminding viewers repeatedly in the last 10 minutes that “Biden speech nearly finished; Tucker will respond.” And spending the last couple of minutes pouting that “Biden should be finished.”

    On the one hand, it may seem a wonder that Fox News decided to air the speech in any form. After all, since President Biden moved into the Oval Office, Fox has determined that it would be much better to cover anything—including devoting a full day to a misread press release about a plastic toy potato—rather than deal with the issues facing the nation. But the Carlson-in-a-box episode may serve to underscore something that’s been obvious for months: Fox News is dead.

    It may be difficult to remember at this point, but four short years ago, Fox News actually had a substantial news content. Yes, it was forced into nooks and crannies during couch time for racists and friends, and it was squeezed into the hours before folks like Bill O’Reilly laid out their personal pet peeves for the day. […]

    There used to be news on Fox News. That news was carefully filtered. It was often too clipped to avoid dealing with the messy bits of reality that did not fit with the day’s narrative. […]

    There was Shepard Smith warning that many of Donald Trump’s statements were simply lies and warning against content that was “misleading and xenophobic.” There was former Fox White House Correspondent Carl Cameron, who was widely regarded as an impartial operator[…] As recently as last September, Fox Reporter Jennifer Griffin was hounded by the White House after confirming that Donald Trump had, in fact, whined about being asked to visit a cemetery for military veterans in France and personally instructed staff not to lower the flag to mark the death of Sen. John McCain. A year earlier, Griffin had also fact-checked a Trump statement that he had never made a commitment to protect the Kurds.

    […] Smith is gone. Cameron is gone. And Griffin is not exactly leading off the prime-time broadcast. There’s still Chris Wallace, but Wallace’s opening statement when he hosted a 2020 presidential debate—“My job is to be as invisible as possible”—might well define his current role at Fox.

    Roger Ailes resigned in the summer of 2016 under a cloud—actually, more like a tornado-producing supercell—of sexual harassment charges. […] But the Rupert Murdoch-owned network could not put down its conservative credo. They chose to become a mouthpiece for Trump […] Fox doubled down on Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, and Laura Ingraham.

    Increasingly, the never-too-solid firewall between the news part of Fox News and the “entertainment” of the frothing-mouthed hosts was burned down to ash. […]

    Not only did the network continue to give false reports about these items [potato head, Seuss, “cancel culture”] long after the true nature of what had happened was clear, they turned each into multiday affairs that were allowed to dominate the schedule over such trivial events as a raging pandemic, confirmation of white supremacist planning for the Jan. 6 insurgency, and the passage of a $1.9 trillion relief package. […]

    That doesn’t mean Fox is lacking in purpose. The pipeline between Fox and the floor of the U.S. Congress […] has been on full display in Kevin McCarthy reading his favorite novel on the House floor between jetting off to Mar-a-Lago to check in with the boss.

    Fox News isn’t slated news. It’s not even fake news. It’s simply not news. It is a Trump-flavored circus show that chased NewsMax down the rabbit hole and, unfortunately, caught it. […]

  426. KG says

    Lynna, OM@353,

    Delighted to hear it! Ms. KG (who’s 5 years younger than me) has an appointment on Monday.

  427. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Joy Reid’s winner of the week. Grandparents, who can hug their grandchildren thanks to receiving the Covid vaccine. Let the hugs and tears begin….

  429. says

    KG @425, good. Ms. KG is on the right path.

    SC @427, I agree.

    Good news, as posted by the Associated Press:

    The Biden administration hopes to relieve the strain of thousands of unaccompanied children coming to the southern border by ending a Trump-era order that discouraged potential family sponsors from coming forward to care for them.

  430. says

    Sen. Johnson tells radio host there was no insurrection because white people can’t break the law

    Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has always been […] willing to say just about anything the money people tell him to say, including claims that net neutrality consumer protections help pornography production at the expense of health care. […] Shortly after his strange attack on net neutrality protections, Johnson argued for paid internet “fast lanes,” the literal thing that conservatives and their telecom overlords were trying to pretend wouldn’t be a part of telecommunications’ business model if net neutrality protections were rolled back. […]

    About one month after the Capitol building was beset upon, vandalized, and law enforcement members were hurt and died, Johnson told right-wing radio host Jay Weber that the insurgency “didn’t seem like an armed insurrection to me.” He went on to basically say that since the group hid their firearms outside of the Capitol building and didn’t walk in with muskets and bayonets, this couldn’t be classed as an “armed insurrection.” He followed that up, while in the Senate, by promoting baseless conspiracy theories that MAGA, white supremacists, QAnon extremists, and right-wing militias were not involved in the Jan. 6 insurgency.

    On Thursday, Johnson spoke with conservative radio host Joe Pags. Johnson, who has clearly embraced the depths of his dirtbagitude, decided to really elucidate what we all knew he meant when he said the insurrection wasn’t an insurrection.

    Johnson first reexplained his alternate dimension take on Jan. 6, 2021, saying: “I’m also criticized because I’ve made the comment that on January 6, I never felt threatened, because I didn’t. And mainly because I knew that even though those thousands of people that are there marching to the Capitol were trying to pressure people like me to vote the way they want me to vote. I knew those are people that love this country, that truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law, and so I wasn’t concerned.” […]

    Johnson was voting the way those people wanted him to vote. He wasn’t under any pressure to do anything. The die was cast for old Ronnie, who had weeks before given up even the semblance of integrity in fealty to Donald Trump and his dangerously fake election fraud claims. “These people” love this country? What are they loving about it, exactly? […] it’s unclear what these MAGA faketriots “love,” about our country. […]

    But the killer here is this assertion that the people who threw fire extinguishers, who hit, punched, kicked, shoved, and bear-sprayed law enforcement, while also breaking into a federal building and numerous off-limit private spaces in that building, “truly respect law enforcement, would never do anything to break a law” is not simply laughable: It’s the opposite of true. This is not an opinion. You either “truly respect law enforcement” and therefore you listen to law enforcement when law enforcement is being reasonable […] there is an abundance of video evidence, physical evidence, and digital evidence illustrating exactly how many laws you did indeed break.

    Here’s the second half of Johnson’s statement:

    SEN. RON JOHNSON: Now, had the tables been turned, Joe, and this’ll get me in trouble—had the tables been turned, and President Trump won the election, and those were tens of thousands of Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters, I might have been a little concerned.

    […] Donald Trump didn’t win the election. So that’s not a thing. Johnson’s entire racist argument here relies on the concept that it’s okay for U.S. officials like Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Talib, Chuck Schumer, and even Mike Pence to have been “concerned” that they might be hurt and/or murdered by a mob of mislead insurgents because … they represent the opposition to … Donald Trump. That’s not how a democracy is set up to work. […]

    Newspapers in Wisconsin have called on Johnson to resign for being part of a seditious cabal within the Senate along with Josh Hawley. Johnson has said that he’s considering retirement after 2022. […] Johnson’s faux-emotional attempt to accuse Democratic officials of “using the race card” really reminded people how goddamn racist people like millionaire Johnson are. […] the entire Republican Party has been, and continues to remain, complicit in the racism and the conspiracy bullshit that people like Trump and Johnson and others have been vocalizing for years.

    Here’s Johnson saying super racist, double-standard crap. [video available at the link]

  431. says

    Humor/satire from Andy Borowitz:

    Donald J. Trump delivered a scathing review of Joe Biden’s first prime-time White House speech as President, accusing his successor of “assaulting the American people with long words.”

    In a statement issued from his home at Mar-a-Lago, Trump ripped Biden for spewing a stream of words that were often three or four syllables.

    Reeling off a list of the offensively long words in Biden’s speech, Trump singled out “hyperbole,” “administer,” and “effective.” “This should never be allowed to happen in this country,” he said.

    “No one knows what these words mean, and no one will ever know,” Trump said.

    New Yorker link

  432. says

    Biden and Buttigieg are emphasizing transportation as civil rights issue

    […] A January memorandum ordering a review of Trump-era housing policies singled out not just federal housing policies but the effects of the Interstate Highway System, which produced highways “deliberately built to pass through Black neighborhoods, often requiring the destruction of housing and other local institutions.”

    It falls to new Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to follow through, and Buttigieg has been emphasizing the role of reformed transportation plans in interviews and public appearances. In an interview with Politico, Buttigieg again repeated that saddling Black communities with the pollution and bifurcation associated with highways was “not just a matter of halfway accidental neglect” but “intentional decisions that happened.” […]

    What all involved seem to agree on, however, is that addressing the intentional damage done by past and present transportation decisions is going to require actual funding, not just policy reforms. Former Obama transportation official Beth Osborne noted that it “would be a bold statement for them to create a pot of money specifically to knit neighborhoods that have been divided back together.”

    In this case as in many, many others, addressing discriminatory government policies and restructuring those policies to better reflect our urgent climate crisis end up leading to the same place; environmental policy is always a civil rights issue, and few examples are as clear as those provided by U.S. highway systems. Moving swiftly to electric vehicles would alleviate the thick soot buildups recognizable to anyone who has lived next to a major artery. Restructuring mass transportation networks so that more Americans can use them to get to more places both lessens the climate impact single-person transportation and allows residents of currently isolated neighborhoods access to far more jobs and services than they currently have. Removing highways to replace them with smaller surface roads and more green space not only stitches together now-divided neighborhoods, but lessens urban heat island effects that magnify heatwaves and further strains our electrical grids.

    […] In American metropolises, the space devoted to roads, highways, garages, parking spots, setbacks and related structure takes up so much space that it makes the islanding of each neighborhood a fiat accompli. You could not walk to a grocery store or other services even if you were motivated to do it, but need a car […]

    Because government is complex, muddy, and forever prone to obsessing over the needs of the already privileged and connected over the unprivileged and silent, it is not a given that a focus on undoing the climate and environmental damage of our now-archaic transportation policies would give sufficient heed to those communities that have suffered the most in damages. Biden and his team are being quite clear in emphasizing the need to do precisely that, however, and from the first days of the administration. That bodes well, if Congress can rally behind it and deliver the needed funds.

  433. says

    […] On Friday, yet another picture of a GOP seditionist and congressional campaign chief kissing Donald Trump’s ring at Mar-a-Lago made the rounds on social media. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy may have beaten him to it, but Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was still brimming with enthusiasm.

    Yet another installment in the GOP chronicles of, “Can’t live with him, don’t have the mettle to give him the heave-ho.”

    So while Trump and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are still trading jabs over who doomed their Senate majority, Trump bootlickers are begging him to be a team player in 2022 rather than settle personal scores.

    “Endorse as many incumbents that you can. Come out for the folks that you can come out for,” Sen. Lindsey Graham told Trump Monday, according to Politico. “Play team ball to the extent it’s possible.”

    Because appealing to the King of Reason is definitely a recipe for success. I mean, what could possibly be more team-y than sending a cease and desist letter to all the GOP campaign committees using your likeness to fundraise?

    But Republicans—who are simply too dim to find new ways to appeal to voters themselves—are stuck clinging to a loser. […]

    Link

  434. says

    As a high school basketball team kneeled for anthem, announcers used racial slurs to describe them

    An entire girls basketball team decided to kneel during the national anthem of the Oklahoma 6A state basketball tournament Thursday night. Playing against Midwest City High School, every member of the Norman High School girls team knelt but instead of being applauded for their stance against racism and police brutality, announcers on the National Federation of State High School Association (NFHS) Network’s official live stream attempted to degrade the players by using disgusting racial slurs.

    Clearly forgetting to turn off their mic during the anthem, the game announcers were heard making racist and derogatory comments toward the players. “They’re kneeling? I hope Norman gets their ass kicked,” one announcer could be heard saying. Another said, “F**k Norman. I hope they lose. C’mon, Midwest City. They’re gonna kneel like that? Hell no.” Later in the clip, an announcer could be heard muttering, “F*cking [N-words].”

    Video clips of the incident posted by the program’s junior varsity coach Frankie Parks have since gone viral. Alongside sharing the clip, social media users noted that racism like this is the reason why people kneel for the anthem. “See why we do it!?! They still think it’s about the flag,” NFL player Gerland McCoy, who also kneels for the anthem, said on Twitter. […]

    Video is available at the link.

  435. says

    Follow-up to comment 433.

    […] According to ABC News affiliate WFAA, announcers for the NFHS broadcast were contracted by the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association (OSSAA). While both have not yet been identified, multiple sources have identified one announcer as Scott Sapulpa, The Oklahoman reported. Sapulpa is listed as the head high school football coach at Hulbert, a school in northeast Oklahoma. Calls to hold him, the other announcer, and the association accountable have ensued.

    In a statement released Friday, announcer Matt Rowan admitted it was his voice using hate speech to describe children. He then blamed his racist ramblings on his blood sugar.

    It was not until a subsequent interview with TMZ Sports that Rowan bothered to apologize to the student athletes whom he’d insulted. He also claimed he wasn’t trying to hide behind his diabetes.

    The network issued a statement Friday noting that it is “aggressively investigating” the incident and “condemns racism, hate, and discrimination.” The NFHS streams high school games not only in Oklahoma but around the country, so such behavior is unacceptable and a statement issuing an apology is not enough.

    After issuing a statement Friday in support of its students and their resilience, Norman Public Schools superintendent Nick Migliorino confirmed that Norman Public Schools would no longer allow NFHS to broadcast its games.

    “We condemn and will not tolerate the disgusting words and attitudes of these announcers,” Migliorino said in a statement. “This type of hate speech has no place in our society and we are outraged that it would be directed at any human being, and particularly at our students.”

    “We fully support our students’ right to freedom of expression and our immediate focus is to support these girls and their coaches and families, particularly our Black students and coaching staff. It is tragic that the hard work and skill of this team is being overshadowed by the vile, malignant words of these individuals. We will do everything in our power to support and uplift our team and everyone affected by this incident.”

    Additionally, Norman mayor Breea Clark also tweeted about the incident Friday, saying she was “livid and absolutely disgusted with the broadcaster’s “racist and hateful comments” and plans to schedule a “listening session town hall” to hear how this incident has impacted the youth of the city in efforts to learn how the community can be improved. She also called for OSSAA to end their contract with NFHS Network.

    “(NFHS) employees do not need to be anywhere near children,” Clark’s tweet read. “Further, these young women & their team deserve a public apology from NFHS and OSSAA. There is NO PLACE for this behavior in our nation, & certainly not in youth sports.”

    Despite the announcers’ racist slurs and hopes the team would lose, Norman defeated Midwest City 53-40 and advanced to Friday’s state semifinals game against Union!

  436. says

    Top Florida Dem says DeSantis is letting his ‘white wealthy donors’ skip the COVID-19 vaccine line

    Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried (D) said in an interview that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is letting his “white wealthy donors” skip the line for COVID-19 vaccines.

    “What we’re seeing here in our state is that the governor is playing favoritism to his white, wealthy donors,” Fried said in a Friday interview with MSNBC.

    ”What’s happening is that the governor who had never had a plan on how the vaccines would be rolled out so he’s had this hodgepodge plan in place and is allowing a lot of the white, wealthy donors to get to the front of the line where all of our minorities and all of our disenfranchised communities are still waiting for the vaccine,” she added.

    Fried’s accusations that DeSantis is playing favoritism with the vaccine distribution led her to ask the FBI to investigate the matter at the beginning of March. […]

  437. says

    Yay! Good news. Judge sides with Austin in Texas mask lawsuit.

    A Texas judge has sided with the city of Austin in Attorney General Ken Paxton’s (R) lawsuit over the city’s mask mandate.

    Judge Lora Livingston on Friday declined to grant the state a temporary injunction, according to NBC affiliate KXAN.

    The ruling keeps the mandate in place for at least two more weeks and another hearing is set for March 26, KXAN reports. Livingston could change her ruling after hearing more arguments.

    Austin Mayor Steve Adler praised the ruling on Twitter, saying “Good news! We learned this morning that Austin’s mask rules will remain in effect for the next two weeks. We return to court March 26.”

    “No matter what happens then, we will continue to be guided by doctors and data. Masking works,” he tweeted. […]

    “After today’s court hearing, the requirement to wear masks in Travis County and Austin businesses remains in effect,” Brown tweeted. “Thank you to our County Attorney [Delia Garcia] and team for fighting to keep our community safe.” […]

  438. says

    Oh, FFS.

    Former President Trump on Friday made an appearance at a dog rescue fundraiser his daughter-in-law Lara Trump was involved with at the former president’s private Mar-a-Lago club.

    Trump gave an impromptu speech at the Big Dog Ranch Rescue event, which aimed to raise $500,000 to bring 500 dogs from China to the U.S., the group’s founder and president told a local NBC affiliate.

    “I’m with you 100 percent. We had many meetings in the White House and the Oval Office having to do with saving and helping dogs!” Trump said on stage while sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat. […]

  439. says

    Police arrested a man after he spit on and then punched an Asian American grandmother in New York.

    New York police arrested a man in connection with an attack on an Asian American grandmother after he allegedly spit on and punched her.

    Glenmore Nembhard, 40, was arrested on Thursday and charged by the Westchester County Office of the District Attorney. He faces a felony charge of assault in the second degree with intent to cause physical injury to a person who is 65 years of age or older, according to NBC News.

    Nancy Toh, who is 83, told police that Nembhard allegedly attacked her outside of a local shopping center on Tuesday. She reported being knocked to the ground and that she “blacked out momentarily,” suffering face and hip injuries and a possible concussion.

    Westchester District Attorney Miriam E. Rocah released a statement on Friday stating that the incident will be investigated as a possible hate crime.

    “Attacks like this one impact all of us,” she said. “They create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation that keeps us from feeling safe and secure in our homes and communities.”

    “I urge everyone to report all hate crimes and bias incidents, even if you are not the victim so that law enforcement can track and work to prevent these terrible acts,” Rocah added .[…]

    Link

  440. tomh says

    Lawfare:
    No, Florida Can’t Regulate Online Speech
    By Corbin Barthold, Berin Szóka
    March 12, 2021

    Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has promised that Florida will soon enact “the most ambitious reforms yet proposed” for “holding ‘Big Tech’ accountable.” The bill would force large “social media platforms”….to apply their content moderation standards in a “consistent manner,” to change those standards no more than once a month, and to let users turn off algorithmic promotion or post sorting.

    It would also block websites from moderating content posted by politicians during an election. “We’re going to take aim at those companies,” DeSantis says, “and pull back the veil…

    Although DeSantis poses as a champion of free speech, his bill would trample on private companies’ First Amendment right to exercise editorial discretion. Private actors cannot be compelled either to host certain speakers, or to privilege some forms of speech over others. This is even more true of political speech, which, contrary to DeSantis’s claims, the bill is likely to suppress….

    …politicians in other states, such as Texas [Texas gov Abbott,”Conservative speech will not be cancelled!”], are considering bills similar to Florida’s…

    In short, DeSantis wants tech companies to host certain speakers and viewpoints against their will. This is unconstitutional.

    Other laws that were struck down and cases detailing them at the link.

  442. says

    Why the Trump administration didn’t have a plan, an analysis from Josh Marshall:

    […] There are roughly 330 million people living in the United States. It’s a vast country – one of the largest in the world by population and geography – with no unitary health care distribution system. Quite simply it’s a gargantuan task to get two shots each in 330 million arms. It’s a huge feat of logistics, data management, public persuasion and manufacturing. We all want to get this done tomorrow. But it’s worth taking a moment to get our heads around just how big a job that is. 330 million people. People in the country’s endless suburbs. People in rural America. Immigrants families with language barriers or trepidation about interactions with the government. It’s a huge endeavor. Quite simply, it’s super hard.

    The risk protection provided by Warp Speed was important. But it was still fairly straightforward to accomplish. Work with a relatively small group of pharmaceutical companies to subsidize some efforts and agree in advance to purchase vast quantities of product before it’s certain that the vaccines will work or even be needed. This mainly relies on something the federal government has in abundance: money. This isn’t to cheapen the work of the civil servants and appointees involved. But it is a discrete, manageable endeavor. That’s altogether different from a nationwide vaccination effort. You need people who are experienced in sweating the details of governance in almost all its dimensions. And the Trump administration had virtually none of those people. Indeed it had an ingrained disdain for those people.

    Which brings us to the second, related point. From the very start of the Pandemic in the first weeks of 2020 the Trump administration consistently sought to disclaim responsibility for things that would be genuinely difficult and could have challenging or bad outcomes. Push the tough tasks on to others and if it goes badly blame them. This frequently went to absurd lengths as when the White House insisted that states short on ventilators at the peak of the spring surge should have known to purchase them in advance of the pandemic. Over the course of the year Trump spun up an alternative reality in which the US was somehow still operating under the Articles of Confederation in which individual states were responsible for things that have been viewed as inherently federal responsibilities for decades or centuries.

    But the impetus wasn’t ideological. It was mainly a means of self-protection and risk avoidance: arrange things so that the administration could take credit if things went well and blame states if they went bad. Nowhere was this more clear than in the months’ long crisis over testing capacity. Since the administration was actually hostile to testing in general and couldn’t solve the problem in any case, they simply claimed it was a state responsibility.

    This is the origin of the White House’s “plan” to not have a plan to inoculate the country. The federal government would manage the relatively easy task of airlifting supplies in bulk to states at designated airports and then let the states figure out how to get them into people’s arms.

    It was an incredibly hard task and the best solution was to put it off on someone else so the White House didn’t get the blame. It’s really that simple. The through line to Trump’s Pandemic response from January through his final day in office was protecting himself. It really is as simple and depressing and disgraceful as that.

    Link

  443. says

    Why COVID-19 Vaccines Aren’t Yet Available to Everyone

    New Yorker link to an article by Sue Halpern.

    President Biden has promised that all adults will be eligible to receive a vaccine by May. But manufacturing and distributing enough doses will depend on a lot of things going right.

    About a year ago, Chaz Calitri, the head of operations for sterile injectables at Pfizer, was at home in suburban Philadelphia, when he got a call from his bosses. The company was moving forward with an experimental covid-19 vaccine. Calitri, a chemical engineer by training, was in charge of Pfizer’s manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where the constituent parts of the vaccine would eventually be assembled before being shipped across the country. “At first, I was really excited,” he told me. “And then, after I sat down on the couch and started thinking about it, I was horrified, because I knew that it was going to take the full force of everything we could throw at it.”

    […] Pfizer’s vaccine, which was developed in collaboration with BioNTech, a German biotechnology company, took a record ten months. The vaccine received emergency-use authorization from the F.D.A. on December 11th; two days later, the company began shipping tens of thousands of doses, all of which had been made while clinical trials were still under way.

    In Kalamazoo, on a campus larger than Central Park, Calitri’s team worked around the clock. Pfizer hired roughly seven hundred workers, reassigned experienced engineers to the vaccine effort, and increased the number of vials that it could produce by installing additional “fill and finish” machines. Even so, by the end of 2020, the company had delivered only half of its initial production goal of a hundred million doses. A Pfizer spokesperson told me that, among other things, “securing enough raw materials took longer than we expected.”

    […] The Trump Administration had left distribution planning up to the states; as vaccine appointments were made available to older Americans in many states, in mid-January, some vaccination sites were flooded with requests, but others sat relatively empty. “It was like running out on the field during the Super Bowl and telling the players to just do whatever they want,” Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of health policy and management at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, told me. […]

    On Wednesday, the President announced a plan to secure an additional hundred million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. On Thursday, during his first prime-time Presidential address, he directed states to make all adults eligible for the vaccine by the beginning of May. The catch: none of the increased supply that has been established since Biden’s Inauguration will be available until late spring, at the earliest, and most of it will not arrive until the end of the year. All adults may be eligible to receive a vaccine in a couple of months. But whether doses actually will be available will depend on a lot of things going right.

    […] For much of the past year, it has taken Pfizer a hundred and ten days to produce each vial of vaccine. The time line starts at the company’s plant in Chesterfield, Missouri, outside St. Louis, which houses a cell bank of frozen E. coli bacteria. Scientists extract DNA from the E. coli cells to grow the template, called a plasmid, on which the vaccine’s mRNA will be built. Once the plasmid is made, purified, and tested, the double-helix structure of the DNA has to be linearized—literally, made linear. The process takes about ten days, after which it goes through additional testing. “We’re going twenty-four hours a day with three manufacturing shifts,” Christine Smith, the Chesterfield-site leader, told me. “And then there’s another shift making all the buffers and media to grow the cells in and getting ready for the next day. It’s a very regimented process. It’s not like we can just open up a door to the room next door and start making it.”

    From Missouri, the plasmid is flown to Pfizer’s campus in Andover, Massachusetts, where it is incubated in a bath of enzymes and nucleotides—the building blocks of RNA—for several hours. The process, called in-vitro transcription, synthesizes the genetic material, the RNA, which carries the instructions to make a modified form of the spike protein that causes covid-19. […] A few days later, the RNA is placed in specially designed bags, frozen, and flown overnight to Kalamazoo, where Calitri’s team puts the final drug product into vials, and inspects and labels them before freezing them at ultra-low temperatures. When it’s time to ship them out, the vials are packed with dry ice—Pfizer has its own dry-ice-manufacturing facility on site—in thermal containers created specifically for this vaccine, each with its own G.P.S. unit and temperature alarm. […]

    Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccine candidates require rare ingredients that are in short supply, such as the lipids used to encase the mRNA and the enzymes used to transcribe it. Calitri, meanwhile, had been grappling with a series of engineering puzzles. “There’s a step in which the mRNA is coated with these lipids, and it’s done in a specialized mixer,” he told me. “The mixers we were using to develop the process are very small”—about the size of a silver dollar. His team didn’t have time to design a larger mixer, so they tied together a hundred of the silver dollars. When the filters on some of the filling equipment needed to be replaced, switching to a different filter was not an option, because any adjustment to the process would have to be approved by the F.D.A. Instead, the team had to learn how to “regenerate” the ones they had. It took six months and numerous prototypes to figure out how to store and ship a frozen product that needed to be kept at subzero temperatures. […]

    Even before the clinical trials were completed, it was obvious that Pfizer’s domestic operation would not have enough capacity to meet the U.S. demand. In July, Pfizer ordered two prefabricated modular manufacturing suites, but they took eight months to build and finally arrived in Kalamazoo in mid-February. “This is not like a production line for making cars or trucks,” Tim Manning, the supply coördinator for the Biden Administration’s covid-19 response team, told me. “This is extraordinarily complex biochemistry. And it happens at the molecular level. . . . It’s really complicated, and made on extremely rare and difficult-to-make machinery.”

    […] The government has been able to use the Defense Protection Act to secure a sufficient number of vials so far. Some recent advancements in glass technology will likely help, too. […] Pfizer signed a multiyear contract with Corning, which is based in New York and manufactures a super-strong pharmaceutical-grade glass called Valor. [Some amazing chemistry is involved.] In June of last year, the Trump Administration awarded Corning more than two hundred million dollars to scale up production. But that deal will address only a fraction of the need. […]

    The vials also need rubber stoppers. Last fall, tropical storms in rubber-producing regions of Thailand, Vietnam, and India led to shortages that could have jeopardized the vaccination effort. The government used the Defense Protection Act to round up sufficient supplies, but it was clear that a tremendous strain had been placed on the world’s rubber supply. […]

    Recently, the Biden Administration has used the Defense Protection Act to acquire enough low-dead-space syringes to be sent out with every Pfizer-vaccine shipment. (Such syringes enable a sixth dose to be extracted from Pfizer’s vials, automatically increasing the company’s vaccine doses by twenty per cent.) With government support, a company called ApiJect is building a “Gigafactory” in North Carolina to manufacture single-dose injectables to reduce waste and simplify the distribution of vaccines. (It is expected to come online in 2022.) The White House is also investing in the construction of factories that would be able to make more than a billion surgical gloves a month. The goal is to move enough production Stateside, so that the domestic health-care supply chain is not dependent on other countries […]

    Perhaps most crucially, the government brokered a deal between Johnson & Johnson and Merck, paying Merck up to $268.8 million to upgrade two of its manufacturing facilities. But it will take months for Merck to retrofit its facilities; the vaccines it will be making for Johnson & Johnson are not expected to be ready until the second half of the year. Meanwhile, the company that Johnson & Johnson currently contracts with to produce its vaccines domestically has yet to receive F.D.A. approval. (The four million or so Johnson & Johnson vaccines that are now being distributed were made abroad.)

    The most hopeful news is that Pfizer has cut the time it takes to make a batch of its vaccine to sixty days. As of mid-March, the company expects to deliver more than thirteen million doses a week, up from around five million last month. At a congressional hearing in February, John Young, Pfizer’s chief business officer, explained that the company has begun making its own lipids, and has increased capacity at its facilities in Kansas and Wisconsin (in addition to the new production suites in Michigan). It has also doubled batch sizes, increased yields per batch, and developed faster laboratory tests.

    “We’re getting better at it,” Calitri said, of the manufacturing process. […]

  444. says

    Oh, FFS.

    Alabama Republican Party to gift Trump with resolution acknowledging him as one of the ‘greatest’ presidents

    The Alabama Republican Party will honor former President Trump for being “one of the greatest and most effective presidents in the 245-year history of this Republic,” Fox News reported.

    At a Saturday evening reception held at Mar-a-Lago, the party will present Trump with a framed resolution that grants him the honor.

    “The resolution, basically, it just talks about the greatness of Donald J. Trump, how he made America great again and I hope other states will follow suit,” Perry Hooper Jr., a former state representative and a member of the state party’s executive committee, told Fox News. […]

  445. says

    The Race to Make Vials for Coronavirus Vaccines

    New Yorker link

    A Corning factory in upstate New York is running around the clock to help meet the urgent demand.

    Excellent photos are available at the link.

    Excerpt from the text:

    […] Under any circumstances, putting medicine into glass is a tricky business. Standard medical vials—made of borosilicate—often break as they’re filled, and just one damaged vial can ruin a batch of doses and stop a production line.

    […] These photographs, taken by Christopher Payne at two Corning facilities in upstate New York, tell the story of an alternative to borosilicate, called Valor Glass, and its use in the effort to deliver covid-19 vaccines. The development of Valor Glass began in 2011, when Corning’s researchers were working to reinvent medical vials, which had not changed substantially for a century. Using platinum-lined ceramic crucibles, heated to more than a thousand degrees, they spent hundreds of hours combining silica with new ingredients. As Robert Schaut, one of the project’s leaders, said, “The periodic table is our toolbox.” They found that, by adding alumina and removing boron, they could make the glass far more resistant to degradation, and therefore less likely to leach contaminants into the contents.

    […] They cut and shape tubes of Valor Glass into vials, which are then submerged in a molten-salt bath. Potassium atoms in the hot mixture swap with smaller sodium atoms embedded in the surface of the glass, creating tension and therefore toughness. […]

    Afterward, the glass is rinsed, and the exterior is given a polymer coating, so that bottles don’t grind against one another on a filling line, generating glass dust that can ruin doses. All this work is being conducted under conditions of severe urgency. Corning’s facility is running around the clock. […]

  446. says

    tomh @439, thanks for those details. It looks like Governor DeSantis is going to lose. “In short, DeSantis wants tech companies to host certain speakers and viewpoints against their will. This is unconstitutional.”

    It shows a certain level of desperation that DeSantis and other Republicans are even considering this.

  447. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Lynna@ #442 & #444. Before my retirement, I was the Sr. Scientist Process Chemistry who signed Quality Assurance documents for my company that the FDA inspected. I’m very impressed with the efforts of Pfizer and Corning to get the vaccine safely into the arms of people like myself with the appropriate Quality Assurance rigor in a timely. Salute!
    I’m sure both the Moderna and J&J vaccines will have the same Quality Assurance rigor.

  448. says

    Nerd @446, I agree. Those people at Pfizer and Corning deserve a lot of credit. The way they have taken on a complicated job and have done all the aspects of the job well … it’s impressive. And it contrasts highly with the Trump administration.

  449. KG says

    A sequence of events, ranging from terrible to merely disturbing, has been prominent in the UK news over the last 10 days.

    On 3rd March a young woman, Sarah Everard*, disappeared while walking home from a friend’s home in south London. Several daya later, her body was found near Ashford in Kent, and a serving Metropolitan Police officer was charged with her kidnap and murder. A number of vigils were planned around the country, but in several places including London, the local police force objected, saying the vigils would break coronavirus regulations. The organisers of the London vigil tried to get the courts to intervene, but failed. (It’s not clear to me exactly what the regulations say – I’ve seen both claims (from police) that they ban all protests (but is a vigil a protest?), and claims that the police could seek to agree safe conditions with the organisers. The organisers of the London vigil called it off, but quite a number of people turned up anyway – and the Metropolitan Police broke the vigil up in an extremely heavy-handed way – none of the other vigils that went ahead were the subject of police attack. There have now been calls for the Commissioner (the top London police officer – Cressida Dick, notorious as leader of a police operation in which a Brazilian electrician was shot dead after being mistaken for a terrorist suspect) to resign. Dick also said, falsely, that such events are “incredibly rare” – they are not common, but by no means unknown. All this against the background of complaints that the police generally are using coronavirus restrictions as an excuse to suppress dissent, and the govenrnment intending to introduce legislation which would severely limit the right to protest on a permanent basis.

    *No fault of hers, of course, but Everard was white, straight, cisgender, and conventionally attractive. Would her disappearance and murder have attracted as much press (and hence public) attention if she had lacked one or more of these qualities?

  450. tomh says

    Chickasaw Nation Offers Free Vaccines to All Oklahomans, Beating State Officials
    March 13, 2021 DAVID LEE

    ADA, Okla. (CN) — The Chickasaw Nation announced Friday evening it is immediately offering Covid-19 vaccines for free to all Oklahoma residents without restrictions, beating state officials who only days earlier expanded access to essential business employees and students and staff at daycares, colleges and trade schools.

    The Native American nation tweeted it is accepting online appointments from Oklahomans with “no tribal citizenship or employee requirements” needed. The nation’s registration website said it continues to offer the vaccine to tribe members, Chickasaw Nation Department of Health patients, tribe employees and their families — including those who live outside of Oklahoma.

    Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby said the nation is “pleased to do our part” in ending the pandemic. He urged residents to continue wearing masks, socially distance and wash their hands….

    Applicants must be at least 16 to receive the Pfizer vaccine and 18 to receive the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines. The shots are administered at the Chickasaw Nation Emergency Operations Facility in Ada, as well as satellite health clinics in Ardmore, Purcell and Tishomingo….

    Federally-recognized Native American nations are provided vaccine doses by the federal Indian Health Service and have the authority to administer the doses as they see fit….

    The Chickasaw and Cherokee, among other tribes, were subjected to removal to Oklahoma after the Indian Removal Act was enacted in 1830. Thousands of Native Americans died from disease and starvation on the Trail of Tears.

  451. says

    Fauci braves Fox News to talk COVID-19 vaccine timeline and what Trump can do to help the nation now

    Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, appeared on Fox News Sunday to speak with host Chris Wallace about COVID-19 vaccine rollout, supply versus demand concerns, where the nation might be in terms of the virus come to the Fourth of July, and of course, Donald Trump.

    […] nearly half of Republican men don’t plan to receive the coronavirus vaccine […] Fauci broke down what he believes Trump, who unlike some of his recent predecessors has taken a notable backseat in promoting the vaccine, can do to help matters along. Because, after all, public health matters affect both the individual person and, in the big, big picture, the whole country.

    First, Fauci and Wallace discuss whether Fauci thinks President Joe Biden’s tentative time outline for vaccine availability and distribution might be reasonable. Biden has suggested that by May 1st, states open vaccine eligibility to all adults and that by July 4th, he believes it’s possible people will be able to have small, outdoor gatherings, like a barbeque, with family.

    Fauci said he does believe this timeline is entirely possible, but warned against states reopening too early, as that could cause another surge in cases. He noted that while a fresh surge would not necessarily affect vaccine availability, it would still negatively impact our overall public health situation. He also pointed out that our nation has previously experienced dips in cases only to have numbers surge back up. Basically: States need to slow way down. Now is not the time to get confident and toss out masks and regulations.

    […] Wallace’s question: How much of a difference does Fauci think it would make if Trump “leads a campaign” for the people who are “most devoted to him” to actually get the vaccine?

    “I think it would make all the difference in the world,” Fauci stated. He went on to say that he is “surprised” at the high percentage of Republicans who say they don’t want to get vaccinated, stressing that it’s not a political issue, but a public health issue. “I just don’t get it, Chris, why they don’t want to get vaccinated,” he added.

    Wallace, for the second time in the segment, credited Trump for vaccines being widely available (in reference to Operation Warpspeed) and asked Fauci why he thinks Trump didn’t participate in the PSA promoting the vaccine. Fauci, delicately, said this was “puzzling” to him.

    “I wish he would,” Fauci stated. “He has such an incredible influence over the people of the Republican party, it would be a game-changer if he did.”

  452. says

    Yo-Yo Ma throws impromptu cello concert at vaccination site after receiving second dose

    Legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma threw an impromptu concert at a vaccination clinic in Massachusetts over the weekend after the 65-year-old musician received his second dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

    According to The New York Times, Ma had to be under observation for 15 minutes after receiving his shot on Saturday at the Berkshire Community College’s vaccination site in Pittsfield.

    Ma, who has a residence in Berkshire, used the brief window to perform “Ave Maria” and more songs as others waited in observation. […]

    See also:
    https://www.instagram.com/p/CMXrlh9nT0V/?igshid=1eai8lv8ihbgh

  453. says

    Police Shrugged Off the Proud Boys, Until They Attacked the Capitol.

    New York Times link

    A protester was burning an American flag outside the 2016 Republican convention in Cleveland when Joseph Biggs rushed to attack. Jumping a police line, he ripped the man’s shirt off and “started pounding,” he boasted that night in an online video.

    But the local police charged the flag burner with assaulting Mr. Biggs. The city later paid $225,000 to settle accusations that the police had falsified their reports out of sympathy with Mr. Biggs, who went on to become a leader of the far-right Proud Boys.

    Two years later, in Portland, Ore., something similar occurred. A Proud Boy named Ethan Nordean was caught on video pushing his way through a crowd of counterprotesters, punching one of them, then slamming him to the ground, unconscious. Once again, the police charged only the other man in the skirmish, accusing him of swinging a baton at Mr. Nordean.

    Now, Mr. Biggs, 37, and Mr. Nordean, 30, are major targets in a federal investigation that prosecutors on Thursday said could be “one of the largest in American history.” They face some of the most serious charges stemming from the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January: leading a mob of about 100 Proud Boys in a coordinated plan to disrupt the certification of […] Trump’s electoral defeat. [Photo at the link]

    But an examination of the two men’s histories shows that local and federal law enforcement agencies passed up several opportunities to take action against them and their fellow Proud Boys long before they breached the Capitol.

    The group’s propensity for violence and extremism was no secret. But the F.B.I. and other agencies had often seen the Proud Boys as they chose to portray themselves […]: as mere street brawlers who lacked the organization or ambition of typical bureau targets like neo-Nazis, international terrorists and Mexican drug cartels.

    […] Although law enforcement agencies cannot investigate political groups without reasonable suspicion of a crime, some former officials said they were surprised by the Proud Boys’ apparent impunity.

    “They committed violence in public, used videos of that violence to promote themselves for other rallies and then traveled across the country to engage in violence again,” said Mike German, a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University and a former F.B.I. agent who worked undercover among right-wing groups. “How that didn’t attract F.B.I. attention is hard for me to understand.” […]

  454. says

    COVID-19 update: At least 533,904 Americans have died from the coronavirus; the global death toll stands at 2.6 million. One in three Americans is grieving the loss of someone who died of Covid-19.

  455. says

    Biden will deploy FEMA to care for teenagers and children crossing border in record numbers.

    Washington Post link

    The Biden administration is deploying the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the Mexico border to help care for thousands of unaccompanied migrant teens and children who are arriving in overwhelming numbers and being packed into detention cells and tent shelters, the Department of Homeland Security said Saturday evening.

    The deployment marks another escalation in the administration’s response to the growing crisis at the border. It is part of what DHS said would be a 90-day government-wide effort at the border, where an unprecedented number of minors are arriving without their parents each day and must be sheltered and cared for until they can be placed with a vetted sponsor, usually a parent or relative already living in the United States.

    About 8,500 teens and children are living in shelters run by Health and Human Services, and unaccompanied minors are arriving more quickly than HHS officials can place children with sponsors. They have been unable to quickly add capacity to accommodate the new arrivals, which means nearly 4,000 minors are jam-packed in Border Patrol station holding facilities and jail cells designed for adults. These sites have become dangerously overcrowded in recent days, according to lawyers who represent migrant children.

    Soon after taking office, President Biden said his administration would no longer turn back unaccompanied minors who cross the border without their parents, a policy that the Trump administration implemented using an emergency health order. Immigrant activists and child advocates denounced that practice for denying minors the opportunity to apply for asylum in the United States while exposing them to potential risks in Mexico. […]

    While FEMA can help provide logistical support, it would not be able to leverage disaster funding without the assent of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has blasted the Biden administration’s immigration policies. Abbott has also balked at a DHS proposal for FEMA to handle coronavirus testing for migrants as well as isolation procedures for those who test positive. […]

    The latest HHS and DHS statistics show about 75 percent of the minors are ages 15 to 17. But some of those in custody are age 6 or even younger, and the specialized care they require has placed significant strain on federal agencies.

    Homeland Security officials have requested that employees volunteer to go to the border immediately to help care for the minors and assist with administrative duties and security functions.

    Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is NOT helping.

  457. says

    Lara Trump caught pumping charity money to Donald Trump—from a dog rescue

    […] What if a charity claiming to help dogs were to funnel nearly $1.9 million worth of donations straight into Donald J. Trump’s high-end resorts? And what if, let’s say, an event chairwoman of that charity was the daughter-in-law of the one who financially benefits?

    […] Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law in question, imagines herself a potential candidate for U.S. Senate in North Carolina next year, as Trump reminded everyone at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser for Big Dog Ranch Rescue on Friday.

    The would-be candidate may regret this video being out there, though, as it shows that these dog events are a great way to give her father-in-law funds.

    A dog rescue charity with links to Lara Trump has spent as much as $1.9 million at former President Donald Trump’s properties over the last seven years and will drop an additional quarter-million at his Mar-a-Lago country club this weekend.

    According to a permit filed with the town of Palm Beach, Florida, Big Dog Ranch Rescue estimates it will spend $225,000 at the club where Donald Trump has taken up full-time residence since leaving the White House. All the profit from that spending winds up in his pocket.

    This kind of self-dealing has been the subject of an investigation by state attorneys elsewhere and the results have not been good.

    Daughter-in-law Lara Trump has been advertised as a “chairwoman” of the charity’s fundraisers over the past several years. The spending by a charity she is associated with at her family’s businesses mirrors practices at Donald Trump’s now-shuttered Trump Foundation and Eric Trump’s Eric Trump Foundation, which also spent donor money at Trump properties.

    The self-dealing by the Trump Foundation was so egregious that New York state Attorney General Letitia James cited it as the reason the charity could no longer operate.

    You might consider helping your local Humane Society instead.

  458. says

    Massive Facebook study on users’ doubt in vaccines finds a small group appears to play a big role in pushing the skepticism.

    Washington Post link

    Internal study finds a QAnon connection and that content that doesn’t break the rules may be causing ‘substantial’ harm.

    Facebook is conducting a vast behind-the-scenes study of doubts expressed by U.S. users about vaccines, a major project that attempts to probe and teach software to identify the medical attitudes of millions of Americans […]

    The research is a large-scale attempt to understand the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy, or the act of delaying or refusing a vaccination despite its availability, on social media — a primary source of health information for millions of people. It shows how the company is probing ever more nuanced realms of speech, and illustrates how weighing free speech vs. potential for harm is more tenuous than ever for technology companies during a public health crisis.

    […] Some of the early findings are notable: Just 10 out of the 638 population segments contained 50 percent of all vaccine hesitancy content on the platform. And in the population segment with the most vaccine hesitancy, just 111 users contributed half of all vaccine hesitant content.

    […] The research effort also discovered early evidence of significant overlap between communities that are skeptical of vaccines and those affiliated with QAnon, a sprawling set of baseless claims that has radicalized its followers and been associated with violent crimes […]

    Coronavirus-related misinformation has flooded the company’s platforms, including false narratives about covid-19 being less deadly than the flu, that it is somehow associated with a population-control plot by philanthropist Bill Gates and that vaccines are associated with the Antichrist. Its content decisions, potentially anticompetitive behavior and its use by extremist groups to foment violence have drawn the attention of regulators […]

    Facebook has also banned a wide range of baseless or misleading claims about vaccines and covid — removing more than 12 million pieces of content — and connects people to authoritative information with labels on posts and with a banner atop the Facebook site, according to the company.

    […] a small minority of people, particularly influencers and people who post frequently or use underhanded tactics to spread their message, can have an outsize impact on the conversation and act as superspreaders of misleading information.

    […] the concentration of such comments in small groups suggests that they are becoming echo chambers where people simply reinforce people’s preexisting ideas […]

    “on social media — a primary source of health information for millions of people” … I’m not sure that social media should be a primary source of health information.

  459. says

    Duke students on Covid-19 lockdown for a week due to ‘rapidly escalating’ outbreak

    Duke University leaders instituted a “stay-in-place” order Saturday due to coronavirus spread connected to “recruitment parties for selective living groups.” Translation: Fraternity parties spread COVID.

    […] “Over the past week more than 180 students are in isolation for a positive COVID 19 test, and an additional 200 students are in quarantine as a result of contact tracing,” wrote administrators of the Durham, North Carolina, school. “This is by far the largest one-week number of positive tests and quarantines since the start of the pandemic.”

    The stay-in-place order, issued on Saturday, is in effect until the morning of Sunday, March 21. It came just days after Duke withdrew it’s mens basketball team from the Atlantic Coast Conference basketball tournament due to a positive Covid-19 test.

    […] On-campus students will be allowed to socialize only outdoors and in groups of three at most, and group activities are not permitted even with masks. Dining is pick-up only.

    Common spaces will be closed, off-campus students are banned from coming onto campus and are encouraged to stay home. Students returning from travel will be required to submit negative tests.

  461. says

    MSNBC is reporting that two coupists have been arrested for assaulting Officer Sicknick with bear spray. They haven’t been charged with murder, but are currently being charged with nine other offenses.

  462. says

    Here’s a link to the March 15 Guardian coronavirus world liveblog.

    From there:

    Germany, France and Italy have suspended the Oxford/AstraZeneca’s Covid vaccine as the World Health Organization said it had seen no evidence the shot had caused incidents of blood clots and a low platelet count in some people who received it….

    A number of European countries have now suspended its use. In addition to the WHO, the UK and Canada say there’s no evidence to support any link.

  463. says

    Guardian – “Third Covid wave sweeps across EU and forces new restrictions”:

    A third wave of the Covid pandemic is now advancing swiftly across much of Europe. As a result, many nations – bogged down by sluggish vaccination campaigns – are witnessing sharp rises in infection rates and numbers of cases.

    The infection rate in the EU is now at its highest level since the beginning of February, with the spread of new variants of the Covid-19 virus being blamed for much of the recent increase.

    Several countries are now set to impose strict new lockdown measures in the next few days – in contrast to the UK, which is beginning to emerge slowly from its current bout of shop and school closures and sports bans….

    Increased infection rates in Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic discussed at the link.

  464. says

    Guardian world liveblog:

    Dr Michael Head, senior research fellow in Global Health, University of Southampton, says the decisions by France, Germany and other countries to suspend the AstraZeneca jab looks “baffling”.

    In a comment published by the UK’s the Science Media Centre, he said:

    The data we have suggests that numbers of adverse events related to blood clots are the same (and possibly, in fact lower) in vaccinated groups compared to unvaccinated populations. The UK MHRA, WHO and also the International Society on Thrombosis and Haemostasis have recommended continuing the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine roll out.

    Halting a vaccine roll out during a pandemic has consequences. This results in delays in protecting people, and the potential for increased vaccine hesitancy, as a result of people who have seen the headlines and understandably become concerned. There are no signs yet of any data that really justify these decisions.

  465. says

    Guardian – “EU launches legal action over UK plan to extend Brexit grace period”:

    The EU has formally launched legal action against the UK, alleging that Boris Johnson has broken international law over Brexit implementation in Northern Ireland.

    It is the second time in six months that Brussels has launched infringement proceedings against the UK over Brexit, following last year’s threat by the British prime minister to override part of the withdrawal agreement through the internal market bill.

    Ultimately the action could see a case held at the European court of justice and lead to financial penalties and trade sanctions.

    The EU has accused the UK of breaching the good faith provisions in the withdrawal agreement after its unilateral decision two weeks ago to delay implementation of part of the Northern Ireland protocol relating to checks on goods shipped from Great Britain to the region.

    The formal notice of legal action was issued with an accompanying letter from the European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič, to the new Brexit minister David Frost.

    It calls on the UK to “rectify and refrain from putting into practice” its decision on 3 March to extend grace periods for checks on supermarket goods crossing the Irish Sea.

    An EU official said: “The UK must stop acting unilaterally and stop violating the rules it has signed up to.”

    …

    EU sources say they hope the legal action will “register our discontent” over the unilateral decision but hope that the matter can be resolved through further negotiations on the Northern Ireland protocol….

  466. says

    Guardian – “Questions over new CDU leader as Angela Merkel’s party slumps to defeats”:

    Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats face questions over their new leader and the impact of a corruption scandal involving face mask production following historic defeats in German regional elections on Sunday – just six months before a national vote.

    Merkel’s successor as chancellor is due to be chosen by the voters in September and the CDU’s worst ever results in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, which were once considered its strongholds, have increased pressure on the party to work out how it can regain the confidence of the public in time.

    In the wealthy southern state of Baden-Württemberg, the CDU’s result slumped to just 24%, way behind its main rival, the pro-environmental Greens, who made gains to secure 33%. The CDU had previously ruled the state from 1953 for almost 58 years.

    In Rhineland-Palatinate, south-western Germany, the CDU vote fell by more than four points to 28%, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) securing victory with 36%.

    The CDU has had to face up to the fact that a corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks over face mask procurement, which led to the resignation of three MPs within a week, in the run-up to the votes, has seriously damaged its image. On Monday it hinted at plans it would refresh an existing “codex” under which MPs have to make public their allegiances to business and any other interest groups.

    A sluggish nationwide vaccine rollout, which has been largely blamed on Merkel and her health minister Jens Spahn’s decision to allow the European commission to take control of orders, is also thought to have contributed to voter distrust. So far only about 3.3% of Germans have received the full vaccination, and 7.4% have had the first jab. These figures are far lower than those for the US, where 11% have been fully vaccinated and 21% have had the first injection, and Britain, where only 2.4% have been fully vaccinated, but 36% have had their first jab.

    The fact that the CDU has returned such historically bad results, which have plunged the party into its worst crisis for years two months after electing a new party leader, Armin Laschet, has raised serious questions as to whether he is the right candidate to take it forward.

    Commentators on Monday said the lack of the so-called “Merkel bonus” the party enjoyed for years, owing to the popularity of the chancellor, who will not stand again in September, had also had an impact on the result.

    …

    Basking in their party’s results, the co-leaders of the Greens, and potential candidates for chancellor, Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck, said voters had demonstrated their trust in the Greens to govern and said that the pandemic had contributed to the party’s boost by highlighting deficits in governance.

    …

    [Baerbock] said the Greens’ result in Baden-Württemberg in particular showed that people wanted a different sort of politics….

    …

    Sunday’s state elections kicked off what has been labelled “superwahljahr” or “super election year”,…

    In both Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, the Greens, SPD, and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) are potentially in a position to forge “traffic light” alliances – so-called because of the parties’ colours – which would leave the CDU out in the cold. If managed successfully on a state level, it makes the constellation more likely on a national level.

  467. says

    Oh, FFS.

    On COVID, senator thanks God for Trump administration’s ‘genius’

    If Team Trump had demonstrated “genius” abilities worthy of celebration, the current death toll probably wouldn’t stand at over 536,000 Americans.

    An encouraging sign of the times: there’s less political debate about whom to blame for the failed U.S. response to COVID-19 and more political debate about whom to credit for recent U.S. progress in the response to the pandemic.

    Last week, for example, Donald Trump issued a pitiful statement, practically begging the public to thank him for the vaccines that are now reaching Americans’ shoulders in large numbers.

    The former president’s plea roughly coincided with President Joe Biden’s White House address last week, in which he implicitly criticized his predecessor. “A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked,” Biden explained. “Denials for days, weeks, then months that led to more deaths, more infections, more stress, and more loneliness.”

    This didn’t sit well with Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who pushed back a day later during a Fox News appearance. The senator argued, “[F]or there to be no ability to share credit on such a day, when we were recognizing 520,000 Americans had lost their lives, thank God for the genius of the Trump administration, who delivered 300 million doses ready to be put in arms on Day 1.”

    If this sounds bizarre, there are two good reasons for that. First, as Tim Scott really ought to know, the Trump administration did not deliver 300 million doses of the vaccine, ready to be put in arms on Day 1. As Vox’s Aaron Rupar explained:

    According to a recent fact check by Kaiser Health News, Trump had contracts in place for enough vaccine to vaccinate 200 million Americans when he left office, but that’s not the same as “doses ready to be put in arms.” Furthermore, beyond vaccinating health care workers and people in assisted-living facilities, Trump’s plan to get them in arms did little more than offer thoughts and prayers to the states.

    In fact, as of right now, we still don’t have 300 million vaccine doses ready to be put in arms. We’re on track to reach that point eventually, but the South Carolinian’s insistence the Trump administration reached this goal months ago is deeply odd.

    But just as important is the conflict between the first part of Tim Scott’s sentence and the second. Take another look at the senator’s quote: he wants Biden to share credit with his predecessor on a day in which we honored the half-million Americans who died from the coronavirus, while in the next breath, thanking God for the “genius” of the Trump administration.

    By any fair measure, Donald Trump and his team failed spectacularly in the response to the pandemic — including failing to craft a credible plan for vaccine distribution. […]

  468. says

    Bits and pieces of news:

    * Add Texas to the list of states considering new voting restrictions. NBC News reported this morning, “More than two dozen GOP-sponsored elections bills are under consideration in the Legislature as lawmakers seek to tighten ID requirements and voter rolls, limit early voting and up the penalties for errors.”

    * Though there were rumors that Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) would run for the U.S. Senate next year, the Georgia Republican explained on “Meet the Press” yesterday that he will not take on Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) next year.

    * The latest Des Moines Register poll found that 55% of Iowans hope that incumbent Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) does not seek an eighth term next year.

    * And in Alabama, the Republican Party’s U.S. Senate primary is still a year away, but former U.S. Ambassador to Slovenia Lynda Blanchard (R) has already launched her first TV commercial, investing $100,000 into raising her profile. The candidate’s ad focuses on, among other things, her opposition to “transgender athletes who participate in girls’ sports.”

    Link

  469. says

    On voting rights, maybe Republicans will listen to Big Business?

    “The more executives and business leaders urge GOP policymakers to leave voting rights intact, the more likely Republicans are to listen”.

    In recent years, Americans have seen plenty of Republican officials across multiple states pursue voter-suppression tactics. But in the wake of the 2020 elections, the anti-voting crusade is qualitatively different.

    A Washington Post analysis last week noted that the Republican Party’s national push “to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction, when Southern states curtailed the voting rights of formerly enslaved Black men.”

    The question, of course, is what voting-rights advocates will — or even can — do about it.

    To be sure, we can expect to see pro-democracy forces appeal to GOP lawmakers’ consciences. We can also expect to see protests, pro-election media commentary, and plenty of voting-rights lawsuits.

    But there’s one piece to the puzzle that might give Republicans pause. CNBC reported over the weekend that progressive voices are “turning up the pressure on large Georgia companies like Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines to oppose sweeping voting restrictions proposed by Republican state legislators.”

    Groups including Black Voters Matter, the New Georgia Project Action Fund and the Georgia NAACP on Friday launched the next phase of their campaign in local press and on social media asking supporters to directly contact CEOs, presidents and headquarters of major Georgia-based corporations. They’re urging them to speak out publicly against the proposed voting restrictions and to stop donating money to the Republican legislators sponsoring the bills.

    […] It’s difficult to say who, if anyone, can prevent the voting-rights assault from advancing, but if there’s one group of people who’d get Georgia Republicans’ attention, it’s the state’s business community. To that end:

    The coalition is focusing on six of the biggest companies in Georgia — Aflac, Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Home Depot, Southern Company and UPS — with full-page ads, demonstrations and text banks. A March 3 investigation by Popular Information found the six corporations gave a combined $190,800 to co-sponsors of [key anti-voting proposals] since 2018.

    […] the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, whose members include several corporate giants, said it has “expressed concern and opposition” to lawmakers about provisions found in two of the state’s most offensive anti-voting proposals.

    […] The point is, Republicans may not listen to many outside forces, but they do care about Corporate America. The more executives and business leaders urge GOP policymakers to leave voting rights intact, the more likely Republicans are to listen.

  470. says

    From today’s DN! headlines:

    …Italy Back in Lockdown, Germany Declares Third Wave, as Brazil Deaths and Cases Surge

    In Italy, three-quarters of the population are under a new lockdown after a 15% increase in cases was recorded last week. A more transmissible coronavirus variant, first identified in Britain, has been spreading throughout Italy. Meanwhile, a German health official has declared Germany’s third coronavirus wave has begun.

    Brazil has surpassed India in COVID-19 cases, making it the second-hardest-hit country for both infections and deaths in the world, after the U.S.

    …

    Burma Sees Deadliest Day of Anti-Coup Protests as U.S. Grants TPS Status to Burmese Nationals

    Burma’s military rulers have extended martial law after the deadliest day of political violence since the February 1 coup that toppled the elected civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party. On Sunday, Burmese soldiers killed at least 38 people countrywide, with widespread reports of soldiers firing live ammunition into crowds of nonviolent protesters. A human rights group said at least 126 people have been killed and over 2,100 arrested since the coup. A parallel civilian government-in-exile is calling for a “revolution” to overthrow the military junta.

    Meanwhile, in the United States, the Biden administration has granted temporary protected status to Burmese people living in the U.S. for 18 months.

    …

    Bolivia’s Far-Right Former President Jeanine Áñez Arrested, Facing Terrorism Charges

    In Bolivia, former interim President Jeanine Áñez has been arrested and faces terrorism charges over her involvement in the 2019 military coup that overthrew then-President Evo Morales. Other members of Áñez’s right-wing interim government also face possible charges, as well as military and police accused of carrying out massacres and violent repression against Indigenous communities and supporters of Morales. Evo Morales returned to Bolivia last November — after one year in exile — following the election of President Luis Arce and the return of Morales’s MAS party.

    …

    Australians Rally to Demand End to Sexual Violence and Gender-Based Discrimination

    In Australia, tens of thousands took to the streets across the country today amid a recent wave of allegations of sexual assault and discrimination against high-level political figures, including Australia’s attorney general. A former staffer for the Liberal Party, Brittany Higgins, recently went public with an accusation of rape against a former colleague. Other women have since come forward to say they, too, survived sexual assault by the unnamed man. Brittany Higgins spoke at today’s rally in Canberra.

    Brittany Higgins: “I was raped inside Parliament House by a colleague. And for so long, it felt like the people around me only cared because of where it happened and what it might mean for them. It was so confusing, because these people were my idols. I had dedicated my life to them. They were my social network, my colleagues and my family. Then suddenly they treated me differently. I wasn’t a person who had just gone through a life-changing, traumatic event; I was a political problem.”

  471. says

    More re #460 – Law&Crime – “Two Men Arrested and Charged for Assaulting Brian Sicknick, the Capitol Police Officer Who Died the Day After Jan. 6”:

    Two men, one from West Virginia and another from Pennsylvania, have been arrested and charged in connection with an assault on 42-year-old Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick on Jan. 6. Sicknick died the next day. The suspects are 39-year-old George Pierre Tanios and 32-year-old Julian Elie Khater, the Washington Post first reported on Monday.

    The two were arrested on Sunday are supposed to appear in court on Monday. Tanios’s appearance is scheduled for 2 p.m.

    “Khater was arrested as he disembarked from an airplane at Newark Airport in New Jersey. Tanios was arrested at his residence in West Virginia,” the DOJ said in a statement.

    …

    Initial reports about Sicknick’s death said that authorities believed he was hit by a fire extinguisher, but investigators later suspected that a chemical irritant like bear spray may have been to blame. Court documents quote Khater as saying to Tanios, “Give me that bear shit,” an apparent reference to bear spray. Khater was allegedly recorded using a spray on Sicknick.

    Documents allegedly show the suspects communicating with one another (Khater in blue Trump hat, Tanios in red hat).

    “A tipster to the FBI provided information that TANIOS and KHATER knew each other and grew up together in New Jersey,” documents explained the connection.

    …

    Khater and Tanios face charges for assault, obstruction of an official proceeding, and civil disorder. Here is the full list of federal offenses they are accused of:…

    The feds said two witnesses identified the defendants. A Witness-1 (W-1) said they were “100% sure” their Khater, their former colleague, was subject 190 on the FBI’s wanted list.

    Witness-2 (W-2) also said that they were 100-percent sure Tanios was BOLO 254 once presented with one image of him….

    …

    The defendants are also accused of assaulting officers C. Edwards and D. Chapman, the former with Capitol Police and the latter with the Metropolitan Police Department. Authorities have been investigating Sicknick’s death as a possible murder….

  473. says

    “NEW IMAGES: Julian Khater bear spraying #Capitol Police officer Sicknick & his colleagues.

    Once the officers are hit, they appear to react one-by-one and retreat to flush their eyes with water.

    Exchange between Khater and Tanios caught on video:

    Khater: ‘give me that bear [s–t]’ [reaches into Tanios’ backpack]
    Tanios: ‘hold on, hold on, not yet, not yet…its still early’

    Prosecutors: this shows they were working in concert & had a plan to use the bear spray….”

    Tanios had owned a sandwich shop in WV and had been dubbed the “Sandwich Nazi” locally. His former business partner, who identified him, claimed he had embezzled $435,000 from their former business.

  476. says

    From the Guardian world liveblog summary:

    Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas has tested positive for Covid-19 but is feeling well, the country’s government said.

    A World Health Organization expert on Monday said that the past week has seen an 11% increase in Covid cases worldwide.

    Turkey has recorded 15,503 new Covid-19 cases in the space of 24 hours, the highest daily rise this year, health ministry data indicated….

  478. says

    Guardian – “Alexei Navalny moved to ‘concentration camp’ known for strict control”:

    The Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny is being held in a prison camp in the Vladimir region of Russia north-east of Moscow known for its strict control of inmates, a message posted on the opposition politician’s Instagram account confirmed on Monday.

    Navalny’s precise location had been unknown after his legal team said last week that he had been moved from the nearby Kolchugino jail and that they had not been told where he was being taken.

    “I have to admit that the Russian prison system was able to surprise me,” Navalny posted on Instagram along with an old photo of himself with a close-cropped haircut.

    “I had no idea that it was possible to arrange a real concentration camp 100km from Moscow.”

    Navalny added that he was in Penal Colony No 2 in the town of Pokrov, Vladimir, with a “freshly shaven head”.

    Navalny’s lawyer Olga Mikhailova confirmed that she had been able to visit him at the colony.

    In his post, Navalny wrote that “video cameras are everywhere, everyone is watched and at the slightest violation they make a report.

    “I think someone upstairs read Orwell’s 1984 and said: ‘Yeah, cool. Let’s do this. Education through dehumanisation’,” he added.

    Navalny said he had not yet seen any hints of violence at the colony, but because of the “tense posture of the convicts”, he could “easily believe” previous reports of brutality.

    Earlier this month, the activist Konstantin Kotov, who spent nearly two years at the colony for violating protest rules, described to AFP an environment in which inmates are not treated “like people”.

    In February, the European court of human rights told Moscow to release the opposition politician out of concern for his life, a call Russia swiftly rejected.

    In his Instagram post, Navalny said that at night he was woken up “every hour” by a man who snapped a photo of him and announced that the convict, who was “prone to escape”, was still in his cell…. [This is torture.]

  481. says

    SC @473, yeah. And the guy that identified Trump as looking good is Nick Adams, who identifies himself as “Best selling author endorsed by President Trump. Founder/President of @1FLAGUSA. Presidential Appointee. Australian by birth; American by choice. Thalassophile.”

    Delusional.

  482. says

    Zac Petkanas:

    **Husband & wife sit down at the kitchen table**

    H: “So we just got $2,800.”

    W: “And we got a vaccine faster than expected.”

    H: “Right, and our kids’ school just got money to reopen faster.”

    W: “But I can’t shake the feeling that Biden isn’t holding enough press conferences.”

  483. says

    Text quoted by SC @477:

    In his Instagram post, Navalny said that at night he was woken up “every hour”

    Yes, that is definitely torture. It is sleep deprivation, and if prolonged it can cause psychosis, other mental problems and/or physical health issues.

  484. says

    GOPers Smear Migrants As Vectors Of COVID Who Will Take Pandemic ‘10 Steps Backwards’

    A group of House Republicans gathered on the southern border [today] to press on with their pivot to “Biden’s border crisis,” claiming that an influx of COVID-19-infected immigrants will set the country back in its fight against the pandemic.

    Republicans have increasingly aired their concerns about the spread of COVID-19 at the border, a worry starkly at odds with their stance on the pandemic and desire to reopen society almost everywhere else.

    “For our President to think opening the southern border to allow those coming in that are infected with or have been exposed to COVID makes no sense at all,” said Rep. Yvette Herrell (R-NM).

    “All the work we’ve done as a country to get our kids educated, open up our economies, ensure we’re doing the right thing to overcome this pandemic — opening the southern border makes no sense,” she added. “We’ve just taken three steps forward and 10 giant steps backwards.”

    […] Immigration will be a major topic on Capitol Hill this week, as the House is poised to vote on bills to provide a pathway to citizenship both for Dreamers and for farm workers in the United States illegally. Both passed the House last session but were not given a vote in the Senate.

    White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki on Monday called the border situation, which has seen a surge of migrants, a “big problem” and some facilities that are housing them “heartbreaking.”

    “The last administration left us a dismantled and unworkable system, and like any other problem, we are going to do everything we can to solve it,” she told reporters.

    […] This new flavor of focus on undocumented immigrants turns less on “caravans” like its previous iterations and more on immigrants as carriers of the COVID-19 virus. Though some, like House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), have managed to do both.

    “There are super-spreader caravans coming across our southern border,” he said at a House GOP leadership press conference last week. “I think it’s an interesting misplaced priority that the Biden administration’s agenda is to open America’s borders and close America’s schools.”

    […] Meanwhile, the future of Biden’s overarching immigration reform plan is still murky. Democrats in the House initially planned to bring the package to a vote this month but lacked the votes. They now reportedly expect the bill to come before the House Judiciary Committee in April, though possibly with some elements stripped out.

  486. says

    Follow-up to comment 483.

    Posted by readers of the TPM article:

    Disingenuous fear-mongering racist MFers.
    ——————-
    What you’re hearing is the sound of desperation. Nothing more, nothing less.
    ——————
    f it wasn’t Covid, they’d claim some other disease like they did during the migration of people from Central America in 2018, and every time before that.
    ———————–
    Why do we allow Republicans to simultaneously declare that “COVID is overblown” and that “migrants are bringing COVID?”

    Why do we allow Republicans to simultaneously tout that COVID is “99.99% survivable” and that “Democrat governors are causing COVID deaths?”

  490. says

    BuzzFeed – “Amazon Is Pushing Readers Down A “Rabbit Hole” Of Conspiracy Theories About The Coronavirus”:

    Conspiracy theorist David Icke’s lies about COVID-19 caused Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Spotify to ban him. But on Amazon, Icke, who believes in the existence of lizard people, is recommended reading.

    Despite being filled with misinformation about the pandemic, Icke’s book The Answer at one point ranked 30th on Amazon[dot]com’s bestseller list for Communication & Media Studies. Its popularity is partly thanks to the e-commerce giant’s powerful recommendation algorithms that suggest The Answer and other COVID conspiracy theory books to people searching for basic information about the coronavirus, according to new research shared exclusively with BuzzFeed News.

    “Amazon is doing the least, by a substantial measure, of any of the major platforms to deal with the misinformation and conspiracy theories around the COVID-19 virus,” Marc Tuters, an assistant professor of new media and digital culture at the University of Amsterdam, told BuzzFeed News.

    …

    The problem highlights how Amazon’s search and book promotion mechanisms often direct customers to COVID-19 conspiracy titles. Tuters does not advocate for banning the books but says Amazon needs to follow the lead of other platforms and elevate reliable information about COVID-19.

    For roughly a year, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, and Twitter have placed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines at the top of results pages when people search for information about the pandemic, and removed coronavirus misinformation from their platforms and their recommendation systems. This stands in stark contrast to Amazon, where researchers found that COVID conspiracy books have appeared on the first page of search results for basic terms like “covid,” “covid-19,” and “vaccine.” Amazon also recommended conspiracy books when the researchers browsed non-conspiratorial books about the virus and related topics.

    …

    Amazon’s approach means it’s profiting from sales of the conspiracy theory books, said evelyn douek, a lecturer at Harvard Law School who studies global regulation of online speech.

    …

    Amazon’s content guidelines for books reserve the right to remove any “material we deem inappropriate or offensive.” Although it has taken action against some books, the company is rarely transparent about why. In January, it removed books and other merchandise promoting the QAnon mass delusion, and removed the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the retailer sent a letter to US senators explaining that it recently decided to stop selling books that link LGBTQ identities to mental illness. It did not say how or why it came to that decision.

    The Amazon spokesperson declined to comment on the company’s reasons for removing books. “We invest significant time and resources to enforce these guidelines, using a combination of machine learning, automation, and dedicated teams of human reviewers,” they said.

    The prevalence of COVID conspiracy books suggests it’s far behind other platforms, according to Claire Wardle, cofounder and director of First Draft, a nonprofit organization that researches misinformation.

    …

    Amazon’s approach appears to be haphazard and driven by public pressure, which douek said can do more harm than good.

    “That’s a really spectacularly bad way of dealing with that,” she said. “Like, we don’t want it to be truly on the base of what they think is controversial or attracts attention. We want there to be clearer standards, that are upfront and that Amazon’s tying itself to, not just responding to public pressure.”

    …

    Aside from algorithmic promotion, the research also revealed a pipeline from YouTube to COVID conspiracy books, which people repeatedly mentioned purchasing after learning about them on YouTube….

  494. says

    Guardian – “Brazil set to lose its third health minister amid pandemic as Covid death toll rises”:

    The Brazilian health minister, Eduardo Pazuello, is set to be sacked after an inglorious 10-month tenure during which more than 260,000 Brazilians have been killed by a coronavirus outbreak that his government stands accused of catastrophically mismanaging.

    When the far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, named the army general his interim health minister on 16 May last year, nearly 15,000 Brazilians had died of Covid-19. Ten months later, the death toll has risen to almost 280,000 and South America’s largest nation has been thrust into the most deadly chapter of its epidemic.

    Pazuello, whose dismal performance earned him the nickname Pesadello (Nightmare), was Bolsonaro’s third health minister of the crisis, after two predecessors walked out over disagreements about the president’s stance towards Covid-19. From the outset, Bolsonaro has trivialized the disease, which both he and Pazuello caught, as a “little flu” and torpedoed efforts to contain it through social distancing, lockdowns or mass vaccination.

    Pazuello, a 58-year-old with no public health background, had made clear that the person calling the shots in the health ministry was Bolsonaro, not him. “It’s simple: one gives the orders and the other obeys,” he said of his relationship with the president last October after Bolsonaro after overruled his attempt to buy 46m shots of the Chinese-produced vaccine CoronaVac.

    Even so, it is Pazuello who now faces the most immediate risk of sanctions over his response to the health emergency. Earlier this year he was placed under investigation over his possible role in failing to prevent a calamitous health service collapse in the Amazon city of Manaus where hospitals ran out of oxygen for patients.

    Few believe Pazuello’s departure will herald a dramatic shift in the government’s behaviour towards what is widely considered the worst pubic health crisis in Brazilian history. Ludhmila Hajjar, a respected cardiologist who was reportedly offered the job by Bolsonaro, claimed she had turned the opportunity down because she believed in science.

    “The outlook looks really bleak. [If nothing changes] Brazil is going to hit 500,000 or 600,000 deaths,” Hajjar warned in a television interview after rejecting Bolsonaro’s offer. During a meeting the previous day, Bolsonaro was reported to have asked Hajjar: “You’re not going to fuck me by locking down the north-east and losing me the [presidential] election, are you?”

    Reports on Monday night claimed Bolsonaro would appoint another cardiologist called Marcelo Queiroga the following day.

    Bolsonaro told supporters outside the presidential residence on Tuesday: “The way I see things, he’s got all you need to do a good job, giving continuity to everything Pazuello has done so far.”

    He claimed the new minister would signal a new “aggressive” stance towards the epidemic.

    Writing in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper on Monday, the political columnist Ricardo Melo said: “Clearly, Doctor Nightmare … is good for nothing but filling up cemeteries … [But] the only way to avoid more Covid deaths … is to remove Bolsonaro from power.”

    Brazil’s former health minister José Gomes Temporão said: “The problem isn’t the health minister – the big problem right now is the president himself.”…

  495. says

    Guardian – “FBI facing allegation that its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh was ‘fake’”:

    The FBI is facing new scrutiny for its 2018 background check of Brett Kavanaugh, the supreme court justice, after a lawmaker suggested that the investigation may have been “fake”.

    Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator and former prosecutor who serves on the judiciary committee, is calling on the newly-confirmed attorney general, Merrick Garland, to help facilitate “proper oversight” by the Senate into questions about how thoroughly the FBI investigated Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing.

    …

    Among the concerns listed in Whitehouse’s letter to Garland are allegations that some witnesses who wanted to share their accounts with the FBI could not find anyone at the bureau who would accept their testimony and that it had not assigned any individual to accept or gather evidence.

    “This was unique behavior in my experience, as the Bureau is usually amenable to information and evidence; but in this matter the shutters were closed, the drawbridge drawn up, and there was no point of entry by which members of the public or Congress could provide information to the FBI,” Whitehouse said.

    He added that, once the FBI decided to create a “tip line”, senators were not given any information on how or whether new allegations were processed and evaluated. While senators’ brief review of the allegations gathered by the tip line showed a “stack” of information had come in, there was no further explanation on the steps that had been taken to review the information, Whitehouse said.

    “This ‘tip line’ appears to have operated more like a garbage chute, with everything that came down the chute consigned without review to the figurative dumpster,” he said.

    He also criticized FBI director Chris Wray, who Joe Biden has elected to remain in place, for not answering questions about the investigation.

    …

    While it is unclear whether the FBI would re-open an investigation into Kavanaugh, who is now one of nine justices on the supreme court, the letter could push Garland to force the DOJ to respond to questions about the investigation into Kavanaugh.

    Whitehouse said he is seeking answers about “how, why, and at whose behest” the FBI conducted a “fake” investigation if standard procedures were violated, including standards for following allegations gathered through FBI “tip lines”.

  496. says

    From today’s DN! headlines:

    WHO Urges Continued Use of AstraZeneca Vaccine as Countries Suspend Jabs over Blood Clot Fears

    Germany, France, Italy and Spain have suspended use of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine over concerns about reports of blood clots in people who’ve received it. They follow Denmark, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Venezuela in suspending AstraZeneca shots. The vaccine has been administered to millions of people around the world and is a major part of the U.N.’s COVAX initiative to bring mass vaccination to lower-income countries. A small number of recipients developed blood clots after at least one dose — and one person died of clotting — but the World Health Organization cautions there’s no evidence AstraZeneca’s vaccine caused the adverse outcomes. This is WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan.

    Dr. Soumya Swaminathan: “Two-point-six million people have died. At least 2.6 million people have died of COVID-19 disease. And so far, of the 300 million doses that have been given to people across the world, of course, using different vaccines, there is no documented death that’s been linked to a COVID vaccine. So I think that while we need to continue to be very closely monitoring this, we do not want people to panic.”

    Many European nations have suspended AstraZeneca vaccinations just as COVID-19 cases surge across the continent. Italy has imposed another national lockdown, and France is considering tough new measures after hospitalizations reached their highest levels since November.

    …

    U.S. Air Travel Hits Highest Pace Since Start of Pandemic

    The United States recorded about 56,000 new coronavirus infections on Monday and 741 deaths. Those figures are way down from January’s record-breaking peak but still comparable to levels seen during last summer’s peak of infections. Figures from the Transportation Security Administration show more people passed through airports last Friday than on any other day since the start of the pandemic.

    …

    Biden Admin to Detain Thousands of Teenage Asylum Seekers in Dallas Convention Center

    In immigration news, the Biden administration is planning to detain asylum-seeking teenagers at a convention center in Dallas, Texas. This is the latest facility opened by the Biden administration to hold unaccompanied children and teens, who are being apprehended in record numbers as they attempt to reach the U.S. seeking refuge. The AP reports the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center will be used by FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for up to 90 days to hold as many as 3,000 unaccompanied teens. In February alone, over 9,000 unaccompanied children and teens were apprehended by U.S. authorities.

    …

    Two Charged with Assaulting Capitol Police Officer Who Died After Jan. 6 Insurrection

    …Separately, federal prosecutors say a New Jersey Army reservist who joined the January 6 Capitol assault maintained a military security clearance — even though he was an overt white supremacist who wore a Hitler-style mustache and haircut. Co-workers say Timothy Hale-Cusanelli made frequent anti-Black, anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi comments while working as a security contractor at a U.S. naval weapons base in New Jersey.

    …

    Vatican Says Priests Cannot Bless Same-Sex Marriages

    The Vatican has declared it will not be blessing same-sex marriages or unions, arguing God “cannot bless sin.” The recent announcement radically contradicts earlier comments made by Pope Francis where he stated same-sex couples should be allowed to have civil unions. In 2013, he famously said, “If a person is gay … who am I to judge?” LGBTQ rights groups are condemning the Vatican’s move, calling it a drastic step backward….

  497. says

    Maddow last night:

    “CDC Purges Trump Era Junk Guidance In Quest To Restore Reputation”:

    Rachel Maddow looks back at the Donald Trump administration’s practice of forcing the CDC to release politically motivated, unscientific Covid-19 guidance, and reports on the new leadership under the Biden administration ordering a review of past coronavirus guidance officially getting rid of the junk.

    “Signs That Your Federal Contractor May Be A Nazi Sympathizer”:

    Rachel Maddow reports on the DOJ case against an alleged pro-Trump Capitol attacker who was reportedly widely known at his job as a Navy contractor for his white supremacist views, and was even reprimanded for wearing a “Hitler mustache,” and yet somehow not only retained his job but retained a security clearance.

  498. says

    Smithsonian – “Women Dominated Beer Brewing Until They Were Accused of Being Witches”:

    …So if you traveled back in time to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance and went to a market in England, you’d probably see an oddly familiar sight: women wearing tall, pointy hats. In many instances, they’d be standing in front of big cauldrons.

    But these women were no witches; they were brewers.

    They wore the tall, pointy hats so that their customers could see them in the crowded marketplace. They transported their brew in cauldrons. And those who sold their beer out of stores had cats not as demon familiars, but to keep mice away from the grain. Some argue that iconography we associate with witches, from the pointy hat to the cauldron, originated from women working as master brewers.

    Just as women were establishing their foothold in the beer markets of England, Ireland and the rest of Europe, the Reformation began. The fundamentalist religious movement, which originated in the early 16th century, preached stricter gender norms and condemned witchcraft.

    Male brewers saw an opportunity. To reduce their competition in the beer trade, these men accused female brewers of being witches and using their cauldrons to brew up magic potions instead of booze.

    Unfortunately, the rumors took hold.

    Over time, it became more dangerous for women to practice brewing and sell beer because they could be misidentified as witches. At the time, being accused of witchcraft wasn’t just a social faux pas; it could result in prosecution or a death sentence. Women accused of witchcraft were often ostracized in their communities, imprisoned or even killed.

    Some men didn’t really believe that the women brewers were witches. However, many did believe that women shouldn’t be spending their time making beer. The process took time and dedication: hours to prepare the ale, sweep the floors clean and lift heavy bundles of rye and grain. If women couldn’t brew ale, they would have significantly more time at home to raise their children. In the 1500s some towns, such as Chester, England, actually made it illegal for most women to sell beer, worried that young alewives would grow up into old spinsters.

    The iconography of witches with their pointy hats and cauldrons has endured, as has men’s domination of the beer industry: The top 10 beer companies in the world are headed by male CEOs and have mostly male board members.

    Major beer companies have tended to portray beer as a drink for men. Some scholars have even gone as far as calling beer ads “manuals on masculinity.”

    This gender bias seems to persist in smaller craft breweries as well. A study at Stanford University found that while 17 percent of craft beer breweries have one female CEO, only 4 percent of these businesses employ a female brewmaster—the expert supervisor who oversees the brewing process.

    It doesn’t have to be this way. For much of history, it wasn’t.

    (There are links in the article, but I’m not sure how firm its basis is in academic historiography since I don’t have much experience with these Smithsonian pieces.)

  500. says

    Politico – “Vindman twin set for promotion after bad evaluations from Trump appointees”:

    Army Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman is set to be promoted to full colonel, despite attempts by loyalists to former President Donald Trump to derail his career following his bit role in the president’s first impeachment, according to two people familiar with the matter.

    Vindman’s twin brother, Alex Vindman, was a star witness in Trump’s impeachment trial and accused the president of pressuring the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on then-candidate Joe Biden. Alex Vindman chose to retire from the military last July as a lieutenant colonel after what he called “a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” and is now writing a memoir and getting a doctorate.

    But Yevgeny “Eugene” Vindman, who was the senior ethics official at the National Security Council and its deputy legal adviser from July 2018 to February 2020, has stayed in the military. Both brothers were fired from the NSC a year ago by Trump, escorted out of the White House and sent back to the Pentagon.

    Yevgeny Vindman is now on a list of colonel promotions that has been approved by the White House and is going to the Senate for formal confirmation, according to the two people familiar with the matter. The list has recently circulated through senior leadership in the Army and is expected to be publicly released on Tuesday.

    …

    Vindman filed a complaint last August with the Pentagon inspector general alleging he was retaliated against by his former White House counsel’s office bosses, John Eisenberg and Michael Ellis, for reporting misconduct by Trump. He also lodged allegations of ethics violations by former national security adviser Robert O’Brien for allegedly using NSC staff’s official time for personal errands and “demeaning and demoralizing sexist behavior against … female NSC professionals.” A Trump White House spokesperson denied the allegations at the time, calling Vindman “a junior-level disgruntled former detailee.” That investigation is ongoing.

    Eisenberg and Ellis filed what could have been a career-ending evaluation of Vindman last year, saying he lacked judgment and had lost the trust of senior NSC leadership, according to the complaint Vindman filed. The promotions board first met roughly two months after the negative evaluations, according to the two people familiar with the matter.

    But Maj. Gen. Michel Russell, an assistant deputy chief of staff in the Army, conducted an investigation and found the evaluations to not be objective, according to the people. In mid-January, his findings were approved by Lt. Gen. Gary Brito, chief of personnel for the Army, leading to the evaluations being deleted and never making it into the official records for the promotions board to consider, according to the two people.

    …

    The year prior to the harsh review, Eisenberg in July 2019 wrote that Vindman was “a top 1% military attorney and officer” and “he can do any job in the legal field under unusual and constant pressure and scrutiny. Select now for SSC [Senior Service College] and promote immediately to COL. Absolutely unlimited potential!”

    But after the Vindman brothers raised concerns with Eisenberg about Trump’s conduct on the Ukraine call, which occurred later that July, both were sidelined from their jobs and Yevgeny Vindman was rated “Unsatisfactory” and “Unqualified” in his performance evaluation last April, months after he had left the NSC, according to the complaint.

    In that April 2020 evaluation, Ellis wrote that Vindman was “a hardworking officer, but he frequently lacks judgment and has difficulty understanding the appropriate role of a lawyer in an organization. … On multiple occasions, his unprofessional demeanor made NSC staff feel uncomfortable.” Eisenberg wrote that Vindman “would benefit from additional experience in a slower-paced work environment subject to less pressure and scrutiny.” He noted that “in time, he may become a better attorney.”

    But former Trump national security adviser John Bolton and deputy national security adviser Charlie Kupperman said the opposite, and Bolton even praised Vindman’s work on cable news.

    Vindman, who joined the military in 1997 in the infantry and served in Iraq as a legal adviser, is currently staff judge advocate and deputy chief counsel at the Army’s top research, development and tech engineering command in Aberdeen, Md.