i am always amused by horror movies that make something ludicrous have an erotic appeal for the characters, like hellraiser frank’s “it’s never enough.” likewise, “from beyond” has people get real horny for pushing a button to spooky slime dimension.
There was a certain hokey MTV era of 80s horror movies, most of which i haven’t seen in a long time. Might be a fun theme. Stuff like Critters, Ghoulies, House, Phantasm II and Evil Dead II more than the originals, Gremlins, what was that alien possession one with Kyle MacLachlan in it? Killer Klowns from Outer Space… I’m thinking of stuff where the monsters don’t look remotely realistic, like somebody took Ratt Fink art and sculpted it in latex.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a horror director at heart, but he’s so good that people hijacked him to make art films like Bright Future. His best stuff is in genre tho. Cure, Kairo, and Sakebi are the best ones I’ve seen, but even the low budget and early Guard From Underground (aka Guard From Hell) had some bizarrely strong filmmaking in it. Personally, if you’re only going to get one, I’d say go for Sakebi or Cure. Cure is more classy, but the sense of humor in Sakebi, when it comes out, is too good to miss. I love it.
birgerjohanssonsays
Rather than a film, I will mention a book.
“The End of October” by Lawrence Wright is a story about a pandemic – not this one, but a significantly worse one. It was published the spring of 2020.
It is chock-full of information about infectious disease, embedded in the story so you can ‘ingest ‘ it without slowing down or getting bored. The novel may not be a stellar literary achievement, it is rather in the style of Tom Clancy but if there is a prize for successful didactic literature this book would be qualified.
I do not mind a bit of lecturing. If people knew more basic science we would not be knee-deep in anti-vaxxers, creationists and goddamn flat-Earthers.
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You may recall “The Cobra Event” by Richard Preston, that book contributed to making the then president Clinton sit up and take notice of the threat of bioweapons, although Preston took a bit more liberties with facts than Wright (but as a layperson, my opinion does not carry much weight. My advice is you read the books and then check the science with the sources available to you)
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The book has some red herrings.
The human die-off is depicted in a horrifying way, but as far as I can tell the death toll in % of the population is not worse than some historically recorded pandemics.
The COVID unpleasantness of the last 21 months is by comparison ‘mild.
PZ – Fright Night! How could I forget? You knew exactly what I was talking about.
Akira MacKenziesays
My annual marathon always includes my collection of Lovecraftian films: HPLHS’ productions of “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Whisperer in Darkness!” “The Resurrected.” (An early 90s adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward starring Chris Sarandon), and now the Nick Cage adaptation of “The Color Out Of Space.” Then there are some of the old Universal movies, like Lugosi’s “Dracula” and Karloff’s “Frankenstein” and “The Mummy.” I’ve also got the original “Psycho,” “Forbidden Planet,” “Alien,” “Hellboy,” “Solomon Kane,” and a few others.
Of course, the night before Halloween, I always play the Mercury Theater on the Air’s infamous performance of “The War of the Worlds.”
I love Halloween!
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 7
what was that alien possession one with Kyle MacLachlan in it?
That would be “The Hidden” which, as I recall, also featured a young (and topless) Claudia Christian, long before she became Commander Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5.
birgerjohanssonsays
There is a rather competently done Alien rip-off film named “Creature”. Klaus Kinski makes a memorable performance as a creepy astronaut.
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‘Bad Taste’ is a spoof horror film, one of the early splatter films that does not take itself very seriously.
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Speaking of Klaus Kinski, he made a brief appearence in a Bruce Lee rip-off film. I do not recall the title, it was cheesy but watchable.
The 1986 horror comedy “Night of the Creeps” with Tom Atkins is pretty good. It is a homage to 50s and 60s horror films, it even begins with a black & white flashback.
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“Drive Angry” with Nicholas Cage is much better than its reputation. But what makes it great is the performance of William Fitchner as The Accountant.
birgerjohanssonsays
Another surprisingly good film is “Highway to Hell”. It did not easily fit into a genre which hurt the box office performance but has a cult following.
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Tom Selleck Gene Simmons and killer robots in the same film: “Runaway”.
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A cheesy film with Jack Palance and Martin Landau: “Without Warning”.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Lifeforce” is a high-budget film from the early 1980s that is better than its reputation. And the photo and actors (kapten Picard!) is great, but it was just too weird for its time.
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“Dog Soldiers” is a perfectly good film that just happens to be labelled “horror”.
birgerjohanssonsays
Slightly cheesy but objectively good films:
Hardware (Lemmy has a cameo).
-Death Machine.
And the more traditional The Gate
(Kudos to Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews).
birgerjohanssonsays
An artsy and unsettling film: “Under The Skin”.
Another unusual film is the Farsi-language “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (it has subtitles, so don’t worry). Made by a Californian-Iranian director.
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An artsy film that is an interesting failure is “The Hunger” with David Bowie, Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve.
birgerjohanssonsays
Possibly “so bad it is good”:
The evangelical horror film
“Silver Bells” with the son of Chuck Norris confronting a satanist cult ruling an isolated town. He realises something is odd when the townspeople object to him touching the children (yes, för real).
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The muslim film “Day (sic!) When Sun Rises From The West: Film That Shook The World”.
The end of days is supposed to be preceded by the sun rising in the wrong direction, this is not the only scientifically nonsensical element. Bizarre ideas, crap dialogue, a feast for the sceptic film watcher.
birgerjohanssonsays
Bizarre Japanese films:
“Cutie Honey” and “Big Man Japan”.
Korean zombie film: “Last Train From Pusan”.
hemidactylussays
Did someone say Japanese films? “Audition” then. Totally messed up. I told my neighbor it was a romcom like “When Harry Met Sally”. He was already suspicious before this turning point: https://youtu.be/azeK3-pv2CE
What’s in the sack? You don’t want to know.
“Ringu” was much tamer. Too bad Hollywood bastardized it.
“Phantasm” was creepy when I was younger, plus I loved the ‘71 ‘Cuda. Saw the rest, which weren’t as good.
For really messed up and disturbing some of the found footage in the first two “V/H/S” movies. Best segments: “Tuesday the 17th” featuring “The Glitch”(horrific well beyond silly Blair Witch nonsense), “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” (aliens), “10/31/98”, “Phase I Clinical Trials” (pretty creepy like “The Glitch” above), “A Ride in the Park” (Zombies!!!), “Safe Haven” (most disturbing stuff I have ever seen…death cult and satan baby…far worse than “Audition”).
Wouldn’t mind rewatching some of “The Strain” series which took vampires back from the whiny emos in the “Twilight” series. Back to Nosferatu roots.
PaulBCsays
birgerjohansson@20 I am almost certain I saw Siskel and Ebert review “The Hunger” when it came out, and I have not given it any thought since then. IMDB gives it a 6.7, which isn’t too bad. Ebert was not a fan: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hunger-1983
I might have remembered David Bowie playing a vampire if he had not outweirded himself by playing the Goblin King in Labyrinth a few years later. I had a friend who really liked that movie. I didn’t. The only thing I noticed years later is that a young Jennifer Connelly was in it. I have liked her in other roles (e.g. A Beautiful Mind) and and completely failed to make the connection.
Is there an actual subject to this thread? Are all weird movie references appropriate? I finally saw “Streets of Fire” (1984) and the best I will say for it is that true to its name, the streets are actually on fire for about 15 minutes of the movie (better than “Chariots of Fire”, right?). Also, Rick Moranis. Rick Freaking Moranis.
hemidactylussays
I haven’t watched “Donnie Darko” for many years. It wasn’t horrifically disturbing, just intricate. Took me several times to decipher it, but not a mindf-ck like “Memento”. “Donnie Darko” took place during an October (1988?). How can you make a rabbit creepy? They found a way.
PaulBCsays
Donnie Darko was OK. I was unaware of it (except maybe the title) until one of my kids wanted to see it a few years ago. At least it explained why my daughter’s friends knew the lyrics to an old Tears for Fears song.
Simply by phonetic association I thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film) which is also more intricate than disturbing and just very weird. It also has Jennifer Connelly. And I also completely forgot she was in it.
hemidactylussays
The most disappointing thing about “The Strain” is that unlike the Goth kids in South Park, the main protagonists never figured out all they had to do is burn down the Hot Topic store. Of course I doubt those vampires ever drank clamato through their juice box shrinking proboscis either.
get me an image and i’ll put it in my footloose.psd
Tethyssays
I don’t usually enjoy horror movies. I prefer the Addams Family version of creepy, and watch those films for Halloween. I plan to watch Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown with adorable granddaughter.
PaulBC
Is there an actual subject to this thread?
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It’s TET, (the endless thread) which once was used as a general conversation/ hang out thread. You can discuss any topic.
To that end, I want to say that whoever invented spray ceiling texture should be keelhauled. Why would you cover beautiful plaster ceilings in something that is impossible to clean or maintain? Why!?
PaulBCsays
Tethys@32 I guess for the same reason you’d covered a nice old brick rowhouse in Formstone.
birgerjohanssonsays
“Razorback” may not be an outright horror movie, but it is certainly competently made.
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For digging up weird , schlocky or so-bad-it-is-good film titles, Youtube places like “Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews” and “Decker Shado” are useful.
There are many B-film Youtube content makers, but those two are the ones I find most enjoyable (purely my own subjective taste).
And you have Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but then you have to watch the whole films. I cannot take more than 3-4 minutes of “The Terrible Claw”. But it was fun to see a very young Clint Eastwood.
The Strain disappointed me. It started out great, with truly repulsive vampires, and then just got weirder and more confused as it went on. They had to smuggle a nuke to the Master’s native soil? Come on. That’s overdoing it.
You all mentioned Lifeforce, which features a beautiful vampire woman who is naked for practically the whole movie (but then, baby, she got real ugly in her bat form). But what about Innocent Blood, with Anne Parillaud strutting around with full frontal nudity? That was also a bit much. Seeing Don Rickles explode added more to the story.
birgerjohanssonsays
I forgot to mention films usually referred to as “Turkish Superman” or Turkish Star Wars.
There are weird Italian films like Argoman where the hero has superpowers and behaves like a villain.
If you want to combine “horror” with “weird” you can dig up some Indonesian or Thai films, in addition to the Japanese and Korean ones.
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A forgotten US film is the horror/blaxploitation film ” Abby – The Devil is her lover now” (thank you, God Awful Movies).
A black archaeology professor digs up a vessel that contains a Nigerian sex demon trapped inside. The demon escapes and travel across the Atlantic to possess the wife of the professor’s son (is this some kind of quantum entanglement thing? Is it a lower energy barrier to possess a relative to the one that opens the magic vessel than the opener himself?).
birgerjohanssonsays
Dang! I forgot Innocent Blood!
But the film was too good to feature at the sites for cult movie classics.
An American Werewolf in London is horror with a lot of comedy thrown in. The Howling II has a bad plot, but some of the most realistic and terrifying werewolves in pre cgi films. I had never pictured bipedal werewolves.
The Shining is a classic. Redrum, redrum!!
@PaulBC
At least my original ceiling is in good condition, unlike brick that gets covered with non-breathable materials for decades. I’m sure it was the modern thing at the time. Every thing done to my home in the 60s is slowly being removed, as it’s all ugly and poor quality compared to the original construction. I have some plastering and texture matching to do before I can finally paint the darn room. It’s just been an endless and tedious task to get all the texture off the crown moulding and ceiling. I’ve got twelve square feet to scrub, and this messy step will finally be complete.
too bad Chas ain’t here to dispute the numbering
;-) wink wink
hemidactylussays
In toto “The Strain” fell flat, but as with “Mr. Robot” there were scenes. Setrakian taking out the Nazi bastard Eichhorst with the Warfarin. The scene in the “New Horizons” episode where Dutch is escaping from the baby factory and stops in her tracks upon seeing the sheer horror and efficiency of the blood extraction operation with people on meat hooks and…plus just the campy coolness of the Luchador storyline with Gus’s uncle. Anyone growing up watching Saturday afternoon wrestling could appreciate that cross-cultural throwback.
And The Ancients. Until this scene they seemed like a bunch of do nothing lazy privileged geezers then suddenly they developed a serious case of old school bad ass until the nuke: https://youtu.be/Il6n75S6Uy0
And of course there’s Quinlan the Born dhampir with daddy issues. I was biased toward him because I liked Adam Carter in MI5. Unlike Jack Bauer most of the great characters in MI5 (Spooks) had spectacular death scenes because people in that dangerous line of work die: https://youtu.be/YZQnp_OBDnc
I don’t like horror movies much. At our house we watch “Nightmare before Christmas,” do showtunes from “Phantom of the Opera,” stuff like that. I do recommend Korean horror movies. There’s a really good take on vampires with Thirst (2009), and I enjoyed the monster movie The Host (2006).
hemidactylussays
@39- John Morales
Damn you John you had to. Not only that several would go on to star in “The Walking Dead” the ironic ending where he does something horrific rendered unnecessary by subsequent events. It was a pretty good movie.
GerrardOfTitanServersays
“Dog Soldiers” is a perfectly good film that just happens to be labelled “horror”.
I’ll second that as perhaps my favorite werewolf film of all time. Done on a B budget, and I’ve heard other people complain about the effects and animal suits, but I loved it. I should add a gore warning. Plot tl;dr squad of British soldiers vs a pack of werewolves out in the wilderness away from civilization. It has just the right amount of British humor to make it is amazing.
chrislawsonsays
Tethys@32–
My list of horror films that are also genuinely funny/enjoyable/satirical rather than just traumatic (excluding movies that are pretty much straight-up comedies with horror tropes, also excluding a couple of Whedon films that are very good but I don’t feel like recommending):
Evil Dead 2
Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (this one really leans into Raimi’s Looney Tunes sensibilitities)
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (despite an absolutely appallingly bad creative decision in the denoument)
The Old Dark House
Arsenic and Old Lace
Bad Taste (already mentioned upstream)
Braindead (another lesser-known early Peter Jackson film, contains one of the great visual gags)
Beetlejuice
They Live
Delicatessen
Black Sheep
Drag Me To Hell
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Lobster
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
hemidactylussays
@47- chrislawson
I liked “They Live” starring Rowdy Roddy Piper, one of the most notorious heels in wrestling history. He knew how to piss fans off big time. And that movie got taken for reality by conspiracy theorists. Some of Piper’s best work toward the end of his life was on “Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.
chrislawsonsays
My list of off-the-beaten track horror movies worth watching…Not all of these are obscure (a couple are recognised classics, and one or two have already been mentioned upstream), but they’re not your standard Hollywood production, even those that were made there.
Raw
Neon Demon
Cure
Kairo
Carnival of Souls
I Walked With a Zombie
Diaboliques
Possession (the Sam Neill/Isabelle Adjani one)
Berberian Sound System (although its third act flounders)
The Lighthouse
The Haunting (1963 version only!!!!)
Pan’s Labyrinth
Cronos
Pi
Under the Skin
Memories of Murder (based on a real historical case of an incompetent police investigation into a Korean serial killer — and as the case resists being solved, the police become as terrifying as the murders)
Burning
Videodrome
Naked Lunch
chrislawsonsays
hemidactylus@28–
And Piper has been immortalised by They Live for his quote “I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, but I’m all out of bubblegum”, which was not in the script. He had to convince John Carpenter to let him use it.
John Moralessays
chrislawson @47,
add to that Death Becomes Her
and Beetlejuice
hemidactylussays
Oh snap and I don’t care about haters or critics or whatevers. Movie and music.
“Donnie Darko” has awesome music and storyline too, but holy fuck this movie is noir. I put it up as great.
brucegee1962says
We don’t go in for full-scale horror around here, but Bradbury’s animated “Halloween Tree” is always an October favorite, with Leonard Nimoy as Moundshroud.
hemidactylussays
“The Crow” or “Dark Knight” yeah I went there. But Bain:
Horror from the all-too-real news: Man jailed in solitary for over a year is first to sue private prison company under recent state law
A man who was swept up by federal immigration officials and jailed in solitary confinement for more than a year has sued, stating in his complaint that the private prison where he was detained subjected him to “unlawful conditions” that “amounted to torture,” advocacy groups representing the man said. Carlos Murillo, who was detained for 14 months beginning in December 2019, is the first person to sue under California law that allows victims to pursue legal action against private prison companies for failing to adhere to standards of care.
Now that part is good news. The new California law allow victims to file lawsuits against private prison companies. About time those fuckers faced some accountability.
“This isn’t just my story, this is the story of thousands of people who have suffered and continue to suffer in immigration detention,” Murrillo said in a statement from Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, among the advocates seeking justice for the man. “I’m speaking out today because I want to make sure that what I lived through doesn’t happen to anyone else. And if it does, I want to make sure that those causing the suffering are held responsible for it.”
Yep. This is also a story about immigration, and about anti-immigrant doofuses in the USA.
“Murillo was incarcerated in solitary confinement for 14 months beginning on December 13, 2019, at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility, where he spent 23 hours a day alone—a form of torture that was devastating to both his physical and psychological wellbeing,” the statement said. “The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, deemed that prolonged solitary confinement is a form of torture, and the UN’s Mandela Rules dictate that it should never be used with youth and those with mental or physical disability or illness, or for anyone for more than 15 days,” Vox reported in 2019.
“Here, Mr. Murillo was held for over a year,” the lawsuit said—and his detention in solitary began through trickery by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), the private prison profiteer running Imperial.
“Upon Mr. Murillo’s arrival at Imperial, an MTC employee gave Mr. Murillo a choice regarding where he wanted to be housed: general population or protective custody,” the lawsuit stated. “The MTC employee told Mr. Murillo that general population was dangerous and that he would be safer in protective custody.” The lawsuit states that Murrillo is a U.S. citizen though his military veteran dad, but had been unable to produce documents proving it. “Mr. Murillo, grateful for the advice and confident that his citizenship status would soon be sorted out, accepted the offer of protection. He was completely unprepared for what this ‘protection’ entailed.”
Horror
“What followed was a Kafkaesque nightmare of isolation, abuse, and callous disregard for Mr. Murillo’s physical and mental health,” Braun Hagey & Borden LLP, UCLA School of Law’s Human Rights Litigation Clinic, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area continued. “Detainees in administrative segregation spend twenty-three hours a day alone in a cell. Their access to the yard, the library, other detainees, and even the showers is severely limited or nonexistent. Mr. Murillo was not informed of these restrictive conditions before he agreed to ‘protective custody.’”
Murillo is now suing MTC under AB 3228, a first-of-its-kind bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year that went into effect this past January. “California is home to five civil detention facilities used to detain immigrants. As it stands the total number of individuals detained in this state is set to expand to 7,200 this year,” Immigrant Defense Advocates said last year. “Four out of five of these facilities are operated by private for-profit corporations, holding an estimated 90% of the detained population. These facilities lack transparency, accountability and a system to enforce uniform detention standards.”
Yes. A complete lack of standards and a lack of accountability. The only consistent standard is “how much money can we make.”
And, unfortunately, not shrinking in use by the federal government. While the president’s criminal justice reform platform pledged his administration would “make clear that the federal government should not use private facilities for any detention, including detention of undocumented immigrants,” a former Bureau of Prisons jail in Pennsylvania is set to reopen as a private immigration detention facility.
”There are many people inside detention that don’t speak English and are consistently taken advantage of because of this,” Murrillo continued. “I saw it with my own eyes. If my rights were violated, even as an English speaker, imagine what happens to those who don’t speak English: coercion, retaliation, bullying, you name it. It shouldn’t take being harmed by incarceration for us to care. We must have compassion and empathy for others and know that we should not stand by and watch these corporations make millions of dollars by violating a person’s human rights.”
At least two dozen lawsuits have been filed around the U.S., many in recent weeks, by people seeking to force hospitals to give their COVID-stricken loved ones ivermectin, a drug for parasites that has been promoted by conservative commentators as a treatment despite a lack of conclusive evidence that it helps people with the virus.
Interest in the drug started rising toward the end of last year and the beginning of this one, when studies — some later withdrawn, in other countries — seemed to suggest ivermectin had some potential and it became a hot topic of conversation among conservatives on social media.
The lawsuits, several of them filed by the same western New York lawyer, cover similar ground. The families have gotten prescriptions for ivermectin, but hospitals have refused to use it on their loved ones, who are often on ventilators and facing death.
There has been a mix of results in state courts. Some judges have refused to order hospitals to give ivermectin. Others have ordered medical providers to give the medication, despite concerns it could be harmful.
In a September case on Staten Island, state Supreme Court Judge Ralph Porzio refused to order the use of ivermectin in a situation where a man sued a hospital on behalf of his ill father, citing its unproven impact.
“This court will not require any doctor to be placed in a potentially unethical position wherein they could be committing medical malpractice by administering a medication for an unapproved, alleged off-label purpose,” he wrote.
It’s astonishing, said James Beck, an attorney in Philadelphia who specializes in drug and medical device product liability and has written about the influx of cases. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
Hospitals have pushed back, saying their standards of care don’t allow them to give patients a drug that hasn’t been approved for COVID and could potentially cause harm, and that allowing laypeople and judges to overrule medical professionals is a dangerous road to go down.
“The way medicine works is, they are the experts, the doctors and … the hospitals,” said Arthur Caplan, professor of bioethics at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine. “When you go there, you’re not going to a restaurant. You don’t order your own treatments.”
davidc1says
The later Peter Cushing said the Hammer Studio films of which he made a shed load were fantasy ,the real horror films were ones like Marathon Man .
American horror films seem to be the number one killer of American teenagers ,apart from skate board accidents .
Anyone seen a film called The Keep ? Part war film ,part horror film set in Rumania .
birgerjohanssonsays
The Keep was a film version of a book ca.1980 by the same title. I did not find the book interesting so I avoided the film.
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Recommended: “John Dies At The End” – American dark fantasy science fiction comedy horror film.
Tethyssays
I stopped watching horror films in the 80s, so I wasn’t aware there is a sequel to The Shining. The Kubrick film does differ from the novel, but the hotel used as the Overlook, and Jack Nicholson’s performance are iconic in American horror films.
The Serpent and the Rainbow is another 80s horror film that was entertaining. It features a pharmaceuticals company sending the protagonist to Haiti to discover the plants which voodoo priests used to create ‘zombies’.
Apparently the film inspired the song Voodoo by Godsmack, which I also enjoy. The video is entirely appropriate for Halloween.
I’m thrilled to report that my ceiling and crown moulding is free of horrible popcorn texture residue. Overhead work is always a nightmare, especially when you need to work wet so no dust is created. No spiders were harmed.
I’m tempted to watch “Trick Or Treat”, but only for the excellent sountrack by Fastway. As 1980s teen/horror movies go (e.g. “The Wraith”), “ToT” is one of those films that was a better as a memory than in rewatching.
One of my favourite 1980s teen/horror movies was “Night Of The Comet”, a film that passes the Bechdel Test even without the two female lead characters. NotC was the film that inspired many 1980s and 1990s capable women characters (e.g. Ripley, Buffy, etc.). Among zombie movies, it came between the Romero flicks of the 1970s and “Return Of The Living Dead” in 1985, so it has a very different feel.
As for Hallowe’en itself, this is the first time in years that I’ll probably stay home and stick to watching creepypasta videos. The only major parties here are outdoors because of restrictions on attendees (80 indoor, 300 outdoor), but given which foreigners are involved and running it, it’s better to stay away.
How about “environmentalist horror” movies like “Wolfen” (1981) and “The Frogs” (1972)? A young Sam Elliot, oh my. . . .
Yeah, “Jaws” falls into this category, but I never liked it.
birgerjohanssonsays
The murderer of the British MP David Amess was inspired by the notorious islamist and ISIS supporter Anjem Choudari . This is the second murder in Britain that has been inspired by his online presence. Choudari himself has not been convicted for doing physical harm, but he is the mother of all hate preachers.
birgerjohanssonsays
I want to praise Sabine Hossenfelder, who is making surprisingly easy-to-understand physics videos on Youtube.
birgerjohanssonsays
Harris Sultan – an exmuslim making videos at Youtube – found a guy who claims to be converting djinn to islam. The common evangelical kooks have to up their game or be left in the dust!
birgerjohanssonsays
Sabine Hossenfelder revisited:
she is doing quite a bit of mythbusting and is using language lay people can understand, without dumbing down the topic.
She works at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced studies (a clone of IAS at Princeton?).
@66 Yes ,I read the book as well as seeing the film ,I enjoyed them both .According to Wikipedia there is a book based On John Dies In the End ,and the sequel is called This Book Is Full of Spiders .
Just ordered a second hand copy of John Dies In the End ,the book not the film.
birgerjohanssonsays
“This Book Is Full Of Spiders, Seriously Dude, Don’t Open It”.
As Adam Laxalt moves forward with his Republican U.S. Senate campaign in Nevada, he also testified last week at Lev Parnas’ corruption trial. As part of a failed 2018 campaign, Laxalt allegedly received $10,000 in the name of Parnas’ business partner, Igor Fruman, using money from a Russian tycoon, Andrey Muraviev.
The summary above is Steve Benen’s take on reporting from The New York Times:
Adam Laxalt was a Republican candidate for governor of Nevada in 2018 when he bumped into Rudolph W. Giuliani in a ballroom at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
Mr. Laxalt, who, like Mr. Giuliani, was a staunch supporter of President Donald J. Trump, accompanied Mr. Giuliani to a balcony, and told him that the governor’s race was “very close.”
Among a group smoking cigars and having drinks, someone Mr. Laxalt did not know spoke up: It was Lev Parnas, a Ukrainian American businessman.
“He immediately offered to help my campaign,” Mr. Laxalt said on Friday while testifying as a prosecution witness at Mr. Parnas’s corruption trial in federal court in Manhattan. “He offered to throw a fund-raiser.”
Mr. Parnas is charged with conspiring to make campaign contributions by a foreign national and in the name of a person other than himself. Among the contributions at issue is one in the amount of $10,000 to Mr. Laxalt in 2018 that prosecutors have said was made in the name of Mr. Parnas’s business partner, Igor Fruman, using money from a Russian tycoon, Andrey Muraviev.
Later, Mr. Parnas and Mr. Fruman became known for helping Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, as he oversaw an effort in Ukraine to uncover damaging information about Joe Biden, at the time a leading Democratic presidential candidate who went on to beat Mr. Trump in the 2020 election.
Mr. Laxalt’s testimony illustrated how thoroughly Mr. Parnas appeared to have installed himself in Mr. Trump’s orbit. Mr. Laxalt was a co-chair of Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign in Nevada and he supported an effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s loss there.
The interactions between Mr. Laxalt, who is currently running for a U.S. Senate seat in Nevada, and Mr. Parnas also provided a glimpse into the life of a political candidate eager to keep money flowing to his campaign.
[…] As the election neared, Mr. Laxalt kept inquiring about money. Mr. Parnas said he would bring Mr. Giuliani to Nevada to barnstorm on Mr. Laxalt’s behalf. Mr. Parnas also asked Mr. Laxalt whether he would like help in arranging a robocall. […]
More details at the link. A bunch of pushy, mob-like clowns raising money from questionable sources. And … relying on Giuliani and Russians via Ukrainian connections?
One GOP state legislator who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 resigned after his arrest. He was, however, an exception.
The Donald Trump supporters who participated in Jan. 6 had a variety of different backgrounds, but there was one group that stood out: While no members of Congress attacked their own workplace, several elected state legislators were on hand for the insurrectionist violence.
One even faced real consequences. West Virginia’s Derrick Evans live-streamed himself entering the U.S. Capitol while shouting, “We’re in! We’re in! Derrick Evans is in the Capitol!” Two days later, the Republican lawmaker was arrested, and he resigned from the state legislature soon after.
The West Virginian was, however, the exception, not the rule. Politico reported today on a project launched by the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC), which focuses on electing state legislators, and which set out to identify every Republican state lawmaker who went to the Capitol at Trump’s behest.
[…] the DLCC found 21 Republican lawmakers whom the group described as “insurrectionists,” and several hundred who promoted “Stop the Steal” rhetoric or signed letters or briefs calling to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“We honestly thought that it was possible that some of these folks actually would at least face consequences or step down,” Christina Polizzi, the DLCC’s communications director, told Politico.
This was hardly an outlandish assumption. […]
We now know, of course, that this didn’t happen. From the Politico report:
Rather than shaming Republican state lawmakers out of office, Democrats found that many of the names on the list avoided pushback from party leaders in their state, grew their political platform and online following, and in at least three cases are now running for statewide office under the banner of former President Donald Trump and his lies about election fraud.
[…] Republicans who set out to rewrite the story of Jan. 6 have succeeded, at least with their target audience. At a GOP event last week in Virginia, in support of the state’s 2021 ticket, attendees literally pledged allegiance to a flag that was part of the Jan. 6 attack — as if it were a sacred relic from an event worthy of great reverence. [They have holy relics!]
It’s the same thinking that leads Trump to celebrate those who committed acts of political violence. It’s also the same thinking that leads GOP members of Congress to characterize Jan. 6 participants as innocent tourists who are being unfairly persecuted.
Jessica Post, who leads the DLCC, told Politico, “There’s a reason why representative Derrick Evans thought he could live-stream this thing from the Capitol without any accountability. A lot of these folks felt covered. This is today’s Republican Party.”
Colin Powell’s death says nothing about vaccine effectiveness. He had a blood cancer, which decreases effectiveness of vaccine and makes it harder to fight infection. Rather, it shows a big reason why we should all wear masks & get vaccinated: to protect the immune compromised.
From Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH:
Given the passing of General Powell who was fully vaccinated, a lot of misinformation is spreading about breakthrough infections.
So let’s talk about breakthroughs. What are they about? When are they a big deal? Let’s put on our public health and clinician hats on this thread.
First, what is a “breakthrough” infection? Its when someone who is fully vaccinated still gets infected
We know these vaccines prevent infection – but not 100%. So vaccinated people can still get infected
But then, your immune system, trained by vaccines, really kicks in and within days of infection, a vaccinated person’s immune system goes into high gear.
Memory B cells make antibodies. T cells arrive to kill infected cells. And for most people, they don’t go on to have severe disease. A few days of symptoms, then they recover. Awesome.
So why are breakthrough infections still a problem for some people? Usually, they are a problem for older people or people with chronic illnesses (like heart failure or kidney disease)
Why? First, their immune system may not mount as effective of a response.
Second, a breakthrough that most people tolerate can kill vulnerable folks.
A healthy person gets a breakthrough – 2 days of fever, cough, etc then recovers.
An 80 year old with heart or kidney disease? Those 2 days of fever can precipitate a heart attack or kidney failure. And that heart attack or kidney failure can kill them
We see this all the time in the hospital. Mild infections that kill vulnerable people.
Vaccines turn COVID into a mild disease. For most of us, that’s awesome. For vulnerable people, its helpful but often not enough.
So what do we do?
1. Vulnerable people need boosters to reduce risk of getting breakthroughs
2. Lower community spread
No matter how good our vaccines – if we have a raging forest fire of infections among unvaccinated it will spill over and kill vulnerable vaccinated folks
While Powell had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before his death, he had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that impairs the body’s ability to fight infections.
Kevin M. Kruse in response to Fox News hosts using Powell’s death to promote anti-vaccine propaganda:
The fact that you tweeted this without even mentioning he was an 84-year-old man with a kind of cancer that directly limits the body’s ability to fight viruses raises new concerns about how utterly godawful you are as a journalist.
Walter Solomonsays
Cool. Give me suggestions!
It Follows is one of my favorite horror flicks. There’s little in the way of gore and very few jump scares but the unrelenting, invulnerable nature of the entity chasing the protagonists is like Terminator dialed to eleven and much scarier.
Bad news concerning diplomatic ties between Russia and NATO:
Russia on Monday suspended its mission at NATO and ordered the closure of the alliance’s office in Moscow in retaliation for NATO’s expulsion of Russian diplomats.
Earlier this month, NATO withdrew the accreditation of eight Russian officials to its Brussels headquarters, saying it believes they have been secretly working as Russian intelligence officers. NATO also halved the size of Moscow’s team at its headquarters from 20 to 10.
[…] Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov delivered Moscow’s response Monday, announcing the suspension of Russia’s mission at NATO and the closure of the alliance’s military liaison and information offices in the Russian capital.
He charged that the alliance’s action has confirmed that “NATO isn’t interested in any kind of equal dialogue or joint work,” adding that “we don’t see any need to keep pretending that there could be any shift in the foreseeable future.”
Lavrov added that contacts between the Western military alliance and Russia could be maintained through the Russian Embassy in Belgium.
[…] “The alliance’s line towards our country is becoming more and more aggressive,” the ministry [Russia’s Foreign Ministry] noted. “The ‘Russian threat’ is inflated in order to strengthen the internal unity of the alliance, to create the appearance of its ‘relevance’ in modern geopolitical conditions.”
NATO spokesperson Oana Lungescu said the alliance has taken note of Lavrov’s statement, but added it hasn’t yet received an official notice from Moscow.
[…] Amid a strain in ties, Moscow has repeatedly voiced concerns over the deployment of NATO forces near Russian borders, describing it as a threat to its security. Russia and the alliance also have blamed each other for conducting destabilizing military exercises near the borders.
Colin Powell, the first Black secretary of State, has died at 84 from complications related to COVID-19. Powell was vaccinated, and he was living with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer that would’ve made it harder to fight off breakthrough infections. Nonetheless, this will unfortunately fuel the anti-vax narrative from conspiracy theorists with no regard for the health of at-risk Americans.
Born in New York City and raised in the south Bronx, Powell received a commission as an Army second lieutenant after graduating from the City College of New York City in 1958. President Harry S. Truman had desegregated the military just a decade earlier. He served in the military for the next 35 years (including tours in Vietnam) and rose to the rank of four-star general. He was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993. During that time he oversaw the invasion of Panama and Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf War, perhaps the last US military engagement that played out (superficially at least) like the action movie Republicans demanded.
[…] Powell’s parents were immigrants from Jamaica, and he considered himself someone “who’d lived the American dream to its fullest.” During his 1996 convention speech, he said to an almost entirely white audience, “We might be black and treated as second-class citizens, but stick with it. Because in America, justice will eventually triumph.”
POWELL: The Republican party must always be the party of inclusion. The Hispanic immigrant who became a citizen yesterday must be as precious to us as a Mayflower descendant; the descendant of a slave or of a struggling miner in Appalachia must be as welcome — and must find as much appeal — in our party as in any other party or any other American might. It is our diversity that has made us strong. Yet our diversity has sadly, throughout our history, been the source of discrimination. Discrimination that we, as guardians of the American Dream, must rip out branch and root. It is our party, it is our party, the party of Lincoln, that must always stand for equal rights and fair opportunity for all.
That was a fantasy even in 1996, as Newt Gingrich was the speaker of the House and Pat Buchanan was still an influential figure in the party. But the GOP didn’t promote its cruelty, ignorance, and bigotry as openly, or at least not in the same way. Powell represented the party’s veneer of respectability, so it’s both ironic and fitting that Powell would willingly tarnish his reputation during the buildup to the 2003 Iraq war.
Powell later said he regretted his February 2003 speech to the United Nations claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. […]
The Iraq War arguably remains Powell’s greatest single mistake. It’s certainly why leftists on social media are especially gross about Powell’s death today. Iraq wasn’t Powell’s idea, but the war’s chief architects, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saw everything Powell had built during his professional career as their own collateral to spend.
“We’ve really got to make the case” against Hussein, Bush told Powell in an Oval Office meeting in late January, “and I want you to make it.” Only Powell had the “credibility to do this,” Bush said. […]
Cheney reportedly told Powell before the infamous UN speech, “You’ve got high poll ratings; you can afford to lose a few points.”
[…] Four years later, Powell endorsed Barack Obama, a vocal opponent of the Iraq War. He railed against what he considered “a dark vein of intolerance in some parts” of the GOP, after Obama was elected. While privately not a fan of Hillary Clinton, he endorsed her for president in 2016 because he recognized the threat Donald Trump posed. […]
Powell officially abandoned his former party after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Some of his last public words, given during an interview after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, remained optimistic nonetheless.
“[Biden’s inaugural speech] puts us in perspective. We’re Americans. We have a great country. It’s great today as it’s ever been, even with the nonsense that took place two weeks ago … You know, I sat there, just looking up at the dome of the Capitol, that kind of yellowish tone that it has, and I just kept staring at it and listening to what the president was saying and rethinking what I saw two weeks ago from the riots that were taking place, and just saying to myself: We’ll wash that out. We’ll wash that out. This is a real America.”
A good man who was also too gullible and too optimistic. He was rolled by Cheney and Bush.
[…] a Miami private school […] made another startling declaration: If you vaccinate your child, they’ll have to stay home for 30 days after each shot.
The email from Centner Academy leadership repeated misleading and false claims that vaccinated people could pass on so-called harmful effects of the shot and have a “potential impact” on unvaccinated students and staff. [Oh, FFS!]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has debunked claims that the coronavirus vaccine can “shed or release any of their components” through the air or skin contact. The coronavirus vaccines do not contain a live virus, so their components can’t be transmitted to others. […]
[…] The West Virginia Democrat [Senator Joe Manchin] is making new demands that could badly impair our ability to combat child poverty and global warming, by shrinking two key components of the reconciliation bill.
Manchin’s new moves reveal the folly of arbitrary centrism. This posture is essentially that any effort to restrain liberal governance is an inherent good, with no serious acknowledgement required of the real-world trade offs it entails.
Manchin has told the White House that the expanded child tax credit (CTC) must be packaged with a work requirement and be capped at family incomes of around $60,000, Axios reports. TThis would dramatically downsize current policy […]
Manchin’s opposition to the bill’s clean energy program will likely mean it will be jettisoned […] This policy, which would reward power companies that transition to clean energy sources and penalize those that don’t, is widely seen as critical to securing our decarbonized future.
To satisfy Manchin and fellow spendophobe Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), Biden has proposed a reconciliation spending target of around $2 trillion. This has Democrats scrambling to chop down the package […]
Manchin has even suggested to colleagues that he doesn’t particularly care which progressive priorities get jettisoned; he just wants to see some of them gone.
In other words, Manchin and Sinema don’t begin by saying: “Here’s what we need to do for the country. How should we pay for it?”
Instead, they declare at the outset that we must spend much less than whatever liberals want to spend, and that liberals must junk major priorities to meet that demand. But the senators remain maddeningly vague about what programs they themselves will or won’t support.
The arbitrary nature of this is captured in Manchin’s CTC demand. Current policy temporarily expands the CTC to poorer families and grants it to families making up to $150,000 […] Manchin wants to impose a work requirement and means-test it to exclude those making more than a far lower threshold.
Manchin justifies such demands by warning against becoming an “entitlement society.” In this frame, the more we spend on things like the CTC and health care subsidies, the less incentivized people are to seek “rewarding” work. Fewer entitlements good; more entitlements bad.
[…] But the entire frame is wrong. The expanded CTC is empowering: It enables people to have families despite material constraints. It also provides a disproportionate boost in purchasing power in rural and less populous areas — because they tend to have more poor people and larger family sizes relative to population — potentially invigorating stagnating non-metro areas. One is West Virginia.
[…] Niskanen policy director Samuel Hammond calls Manchin’s position “performative austerity,” and points to a deep perversity. The work requirement is supposed to avoid fostering dependency. As it is, such a requirement is misguided: People need the CTC not because they are unwilling to work, but because children impose additional costs.
But beyond this, Hammond notes, means testing the program might create more dependency by creating incentives not to strive for a higher income, making it more like the sort of welfare program Manchin fears.
[…] “Narrowly targeting the credit to the lowest income families risks creating a stigmatizing poverty trap.”
[…] Manchin’s effort to downsize Biden’s climate agenda would also mean huge downsides. […] West Virginia’s geography and topography means the state’s infrastructure faces unusual risk levels from extreme weather events.
[…] the primary impetus seems to be mainly about doing less of whatever liberals want to do. But this will impose costs that will likely be much worse than those Manchin worries about. Alas, the ideology of arbitrary centrism is blind to these trade offs.
brightmoonsays
Not a fan of horror movies . But I rewatched Blacula recently which I hadn’t seen since the 1970s. William Marshall was still elegant and the movie was still silly
Tethyssays
Blade is another vampire movie that is fun and a bit campy, rather than the jump scares and gore genre of horror. Wesley Snipes is as indestructible as John Wick.
President Trump filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block the National Archives from releasing White House records to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, citing executive privilege.
It’s the latest escalation in Trump’s campaign to disrupt the committee’s sweeping probe into the circumstances surrounding Jan. 6, including his actions and communications leading up to the Capitol attack.
Trump has already attempted to assert executive privilege to block former aides from testifying, despite subpoenas issued by the committee.
The committee will vote Tuesday evening on a criminal referral for former Trump aide Steve Bannon over his refusal to comply with a subpoena.
President Biden has waived executive privilege on an initial set of White House documents produced in response to the committee’s requests for information — a move that Trump’s lawsuit attacked as “a political ploy to accommodate his partisan allies.”
[…]
The lawsuit seeks to invalidate the committee’s request and block the National Archives from turning the records over, at least until Trump can conduct “a full privilege review of all of the requested materials.”
birgerjohansson, we don’t embed videos in this thread. By the time the thread racks up hundreds of comments, it is slow to load if videos are embedded. Please just link to the video to which you want to call attention.
Trump participated in his first deposition in several years, and he “conducted himself in a manner that you would expect Mr. Trump to conduct himself.”
As NBC News noted yesterday, there are at least 10 civil cases pending against Donald Trump — and now that he’s out of office, it’s far more difficult for him to avoid them.
As The Associated Press reported, one of them led to the Republican’s first deposition in quite a while.
Former President Donald Trump was questioned Monday in a deposition for a lawsuit brought by protesters who say his security team roughed them up in the early days of his presidential campaign in 2015. Trump testified under oath behind closed doors at Trump Tower in New York City for several hours, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said.
[…] it wasn’t the highest-profile controversy of Trump’s 2016 candidacy, […] a small group of activists held a protest outside Trump’s New York office. Those same activists have alleged that they were violently assaulted by the candidate’s security guards, including Trump’s longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller, who allegedly punched a protester in the head while trying to wrest away his “Make America racist again” sign.
According to the plaintiffs, while the former president did not directly participate in the altercation, he bears legal responsibility for the actions of his employees.
During his time in office, Trump’s lawyers said he was too busy to answer questions about the case and made multiple attempts at having the case dismissed. Those efforts failed.
And now that he’s a private citizen, a New York judge directed Trump to give a deposition at Trump Tower. It was videotaped and could be played during the upcoming trial, though as The New York Times noted, “It is not yet clear whether Mr. Trump’s testimony will be made public; Mr. Trump’s lawyers could ask that it be sealed. But it may touch on several topics of interest, including Mr. Trump’s personal wealth and his relationship with at least one employee who has been scrutinized by prosecutors conducting an investigation into the former president and his business.”
Benjamin Dictor, the attorney representing the men who filed the lawsuit [told] CNN, “The president was exactly how you would expect him to be, he answered questions the way you would expect Mr. Trump to answer questions and conducted himself in a manner that you would expect Mr. Trump to conduct himself.”
Trump’s lawyers no doubt begged him to keep his answers brief and on topic. That description of his deposition suggests the former president chose a more predictable course.
The CNN report also said the Q&A, which was under oath, lasted more than four hours.
[…] Trump issued a written statement that read, “After years of litigation, I was pleased to have had the opportunity to tell my side of this ridiculous story — Just one more example of baseless harassment of your favorite President.”
Six months into Joe Biden’s presidency, approval ratings of U.S. leadership around the world had largely rebounded from the record-low ratings observed during the Trump administration. A new Gallup report shows that as of early August 2021, across 46 countries and territories, median approval of U.S. leadership stood at 49%. This rating is up from the 30% median approval at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency.
Commentary:
[…] The 49 percent approval rating for U.S. leadership ties the high point reached in the first year of Barack Obama’s presidency 12 years ago.
The results are not without caveats. […] Trump left a stain that has not washed off. What’s more, support for the U.S. varies greatly by nation, and in a handful of countries, the rebound is less pronounced. Our standing in Russia, for example, slid more over the last year than in any other country.
[…] the overall trend is unmistakable: The United States enjoyed solid global backing under Obama; that support collapsed under Trump; and it’s rebounding under Biden.
[…] Four months ago, the Pew Research Center released a related report documenting “dramatic” improvements in the United States’ international stature following the Democrat’s inauguration. […]
the international surveys shatter Trump’s assumptions. At a campaign event last summer, the then-president turned his attention to one of his very favorite falsehoods: “You know, we’re respected again. You may not feel it, although I think you do. You may not see it. You don’t read about it from the fake news, but this country is respected again.”
[…] The United States was an international laughingstock for decades, Trump believes, but thanks to how awesome his awesomeness is, he singlehandedly restored the nation’s global stature. It was a ridiculous idea he brought up constantly, seeing it as one of his most important accomplishments.
[…] everything Trump said about his successes in improving the United States’ standing was wrong, and it’s Biden who’s actually accomplishing what his predecessor felt compelled to lie about.
[…] the United States’ reputation soared under Obama, repairing the damage done during the Bush/Cheney era. Now, it’s déjà vu all over again, as Biden restores confidence in the wake of Trump.
All of this matters in ways that go well beyond bragging rights. As Rachel explained on the show in June, Biden is determined to show the world that the United States is back, it’s ready to lead responsibly […]
FBI agents have reportedly swarmed a Washington D.C. residence belonging to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.
An FBI spokesperson confirmed to TPM Tuesday that “court-authorized law enforcement activity” was taking place at an address belonging to Deripaska. The bureau declined to comment further. […]
Background:
[…] Deripaska played a starring role in allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.
Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort owed a debt of millions to Deripaska, which the Russian oligarch attempted to recoup during the campaign.
At one point during the 2016 presidential race, Manafort offered to brief Deripaska on Trump campaign polling and the inner workings of the campaign.
The longtime GOP political consultant had worked with Deripaska for years before the 2016 election, notably getting involved in an investment deal in the southern Ukrainian city of Odessa.
That deal led to litigation in which Deripaska attempted to recoup $25 million from Manafort.
Deripaska has also been involved in a series of business deals that involve U.S. metallurgical assets, a core component of the oligarchs’ business empire.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Deripaska in April 2018 for “attempting to subvert Western democracies.” Deripaska sued to have the sanctions removed, but that lawsuit was dismissed in June 2021.
Conservative radio host and anti-vaxxer Dennis Prager was delighted to announce yesterday that he now has COVID-19, a thing he is extremely happy about and, in fact, worked extremely hard to achieve. […]
It is infinitely preferable to have natural immunity than vaccine immunity and that is what I have hoped for the entire time. Hence, I have engaged with strangers, constantly hugging them, taking photos with them knowing that I was making myself very susceptible to getting COVID. Which is, indeed, as bizarre as it sounded, what I wanted, in the hope I would achieve natural immunity and be taken care of by therapeutics. That is exactly what has happened.
What Prager is calling “natural immunity” has not been shown to be consistent when it comes to protection. Vaccines work better and the protection they provide lasts longer. Nothing is 100% a guarantee that you won’t get COVID, but vaccines are the best bet, statistically speaking.
It is utterly bonkers to contract COVID deliberately.
Get vaccinated. If you qualify, get a booster shot. Stay away from Dennis Prager.
What a thing to boast about. More money for insurrectionists.
[…] Wren [Caroline Wren, a former top fundraiser for the Trump campaign] boasted of having raised $3 million to support the rally. She also described how she had “parked” unspecified amounts of money for Jan. 6 at an arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, at the Tea Party Express and at Turning Point, a collection of affiliated nonprofits that serve young Republicans.
Routing funds to multiple groups “added a layer of confidentiality for the donor and offered institutional support for the 6th,” Stockton said.
A Wren associate told another rally organizer that $3 million had been raised to support the rally on Jan. 6. […] the two accounts suggest the events of Jan. 6 may have been significantly better funded than previously known.
Earlier news reports estimated that staging the rally cost only about half a million dollars, primarily funded by a roughly $300,000 donation Wren facilitated from the Publix supermarket heir Julie Jenkins Fancelli.
[…] Ahead of the Jan. 6 rally, Wren directed roughly $150,000 from Fancelli to the Rule of Law Defense Fund, the dark-money arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association, or RAGA, according to a person familiar with the transaction. The Rule of Law Defense Fund then paid for a robocall inviting people to the Capitol in order to satisfy the conditions of the donation Wren brought in, the source said.
“At 1:00 p.m., we will march to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal,” the robocall said. “We are hoping patriots like you will join us to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections.” […]
Rally planning documents obtained by ProPublica also show that Wren listed RAGA as the payer for five hotel rooms in Washington the week of Jan. 6, including a $1,029-a-night suite for Fancelli. [Why do they always give the really rich people lots of free stuff?] The documents suggest Wren expected the group to pay for several other attendees’ hotel rooms, including those of Trump campaign surrogate Gina Loudon and Bikers for Trump founder Chris Cox.[…]
Lot’s of infighting, chaos and ill-will within the Trump camp:
[…] Wren pushed relentlessly for far-right provocateurs Alex Jones and Ali Alexander to appear on stage with the president, a proposal that was met with resistance from some Trump aides. The tension escalated until the morning of Jan. 6, when a senior White House official suggested rally organizers call the U.S. Park Police on Wren and have her escorted off the Ellipse. Officers arrived but took no action.
The robocall facilitated by Wren led to turmoil at RAGA, a 22-year-old group traditionally dedicated to helping conservatives win state attorney general races. Four days after the existence of the call was revealed by the watchdog website Documented, the attorneys general group’s then-executive director, Adam Piper, resigned. In the months to come, much of the organization’s senior staff followed suit, as did Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr, who was the organization’s chairman on Jan. 6. […]
“When we discovered that the executive director of RAGA had used the organization’s funds for an unauthorized robocall urging attendance at the Jan. 6 rally, I accepted his resignation, ordered an audit and investigation, imposed new internal controls, and began a search for a new executive director,” said Carr in his April statement. […]
The Supreme Court moved on Monday to strengthen the doctrine of qualified immunity, which protects police officers accused of excessive force from lawsuits. The court released two unsigned decisions, without dissents, backing police officers who in one case shot a suspect with bean bags and then put a knee on his back and in the other case shot and killed a suspect who brandished a hammer at them.
These actions were protected, the court said, because there must be precedent that a specific form of brutality is extreme enough to wipe away qualified immunity—and that precedent must come from the Supreme Court. It’s not enough that a lower court has told officers it is unacceptable to put a knee on someone’s back with enough force to injure them. The Supreme Court must have signed on to that very specific opinion. It’s almost like if an officer can figure out what the court hasn’t ruled out in the way of harming suspects—which is a lot—he has a free pass to do that.
[…] Earlier in the year, the court did find two cases vicious and disgusting enough to rule that the officers involved did not get qualified immunity. Notably, both those cases involved correctional officers, not police officers. In one, a Texas prisoner was held for six days in “shockingly unsanitary cells,” one covered in feces and one where the floor “was wet with urine and had a backed-up drain into which he was told to urinate, leaving him to sleep, naked, on the urine-soaked floor,” a judge on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote. In the other, another Texas prisoner was sprayed in the face with chemicals “for no reason at all.” In both cases, the 5th Circuit sided with the correctional officers. In the second case, for instance, a judge wrote that, sure, the abuse had violated a constitutional right, “But it was not beyond debate that it did,” he continued, “so the law wasn’t clearly established.”
In those cases, the Supreme Court disagreed, sending them back to the appeals court for reconsideration […] the court took it a step beyond simply saying “this was not bad enough” to saying that only cases where the facts line up with facts in previous Supreme Court cases are relevant.
Qualified immunity allows law enforcement to essentially torture at will, knowing that the courts will protect them in all but the most gratuitous, egregious, and outright disgusting cases—and even sometimes then. The Supreme Court earlier this year showed some willingness to say that there are limits to that. On Monday it qualified that with a “but not too often, not too many […]”
[…] a broad swath of land stretching from Nebraska to Ohio ranks as the globe’s most agriculturally productive region during the summer months. Its farms churn out the bulk of domestically grown corn and soybeans, most of which goes to feed the livestock that satisfies our meat habit, makes cheap fat and sweeteners for Big Food, and produces the ethanol that constitutes about 10 percent of our car fuel.
It’s also an ecological basket case. Fertilizer-laden farm runoff pollutes rivers, lakes, and wells. Ultimately, these chemicals flow to the Gulf of Mexico, where they feed an algae bloom bigger than Connecticut that every year morphs into an aquatic dead zone. Worse, under assault from increasingly fierce storms, the Corn Belt’s fields are hemorrhaging its most precious resource, topsoil. In a 2021 study, researchers at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, estimated that more than a third of the region has completely surrendered its topsoil layer. Crop yields are already starting to suffer.
There’s a deceptively simple trick that could help counteract this ecological unraveling, one that could keep food growing and help suck up climate-warming carbon in the process: Incentivize farmers to plant a bunch of trees.
The idea of trees sprouting from the low-slung green monotony might sound unhinged. Think of the Midwestern landscape before US settlers subjected it to the plow, and you probably picture grasses and flowers billowing in the wind. That vision largely rings true, but isn’t complete. Amid the tall-grass prairies and wetlands, trees and shrubs flourished in much of the region […]
Native Americans wove agriculture into this landscape, which also teemed with wildlife. They grew corn, beans, and squash in ridged gardens near settlements, and actively managed nut-bearing trees (hickories, walnuts, and acorns), often by thinning out lower-yielding ones to favor the most bountiful.
Everything changed soon after US enclosure in the mid-19th century, when settlers evicted most of the original inhabitants, drained wetlands, razed forests, and ripped into the land with plows. In place of staggering biodiversity, an agricultural empire featuring two main crops ultimately arose, tended with the tools of modern engineering and industry: genetically altered seeds, insect- and weed-killing chemicals, synthetic and mined fertilizers, and massive tractors and combines.
[…] Trees’ roots dig deep beneath the soil surface and fan out laterally, providing an anchor during heavy rain. They suck up nutrients all year long, keeping fertilizer from leaching away and polluting water. Trees shield crops and soil from the wind. And they both build carbon in the soil as their leaves drop and decompose, and also store it in their roots, trunks, and branches.
The intermixing of food-bearing trees and annual crops […] could ultimately be more profitable for farmers than the current corn-soybean rotation in the Midwest […]
breaking the all-corn-soybean habit will require a radical departure from today’s federal policy. Farmers currently growing those commodities get an immediate return from selling their crops at the end of the season. And even when prices are low, their profits are propped up by a bevy of government subsidies. So there’s little incentive to devote parts of their land to, say, walnut saplings, which would take years to pay off with a harvest. […]
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine has been found to be 93 percent effective against hospitalization for 12 to 18 year olds, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research from when the delta variant was predominant. […]
Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is a big whiny brat when it comes to COVID-19. He’s whined about masks and he’s whined about vaccine mandates. This summer, he compared vaccine passports to the Holocaust like a common Marjorie Taylor Greene. Now, he’s urging passive resistance against the mandates in the form of deliberate fraud.
Friday, Massie, a professional lawmaker, tweeted the following “hypothetical.”
hypothetically:
I believe if a person were to find a vaccine provider who would fake the administration of the vaccine, this would be an ethical form of non-compliance for both the provider and the receiver, legality notwithstanding.
It would also be hard to prove this happened
It’s hardly ethical to gain admission into a space under false pretenses. This isn’t the same as using a fake ID to get into a bar. You’re jeopardizing the health of other people, who think they’ve made the safe choice to avoid unvaccinated dullards.
Massie went on to say:
You’d have to be a fool to think this isn’t happening, hasn’t already happened thousands of times already, and won’t happen with increased frequency as the mandates affect more people.
No, we all assume crime exists. What’s alarming is that a sitting member of Congress is promoting this kind of behavior. […]
[…] A New Jersey woman known on Instagram as “AntiVaxMomma” sold several hundred fake COVID-19 vaccine cards to vaccine resisters who had $200 to spare. This reportedly included people working in nursing homes and hospitals.
Police arrested Chloe Mrozak from Illinois after learning she flew to Hawaii on August 23 with a fake vaccination card. She reportedly wanted to avoid the mandatory 10-day quarantine for unvaccinated travelers. The criminal mastermind’s scheme was foiled when authorities noticed that the handwritten card claimed Mrozak had received two doses of “Maderna” instead of Moderna. […]
Like most Republicans, Massie has vented about antifa and the impact of riots and looting in America’s cities. He smeared Louisville, Kentucky, residents protesting the police killing of Breonna Taylor as mostly “violent looters and and lawless criminals at this point” who couldn’t articulate their goals. The protesters simply wanted cops not to burst into a sleeping woman’s home and kill her. It’s not a tremendous ask.
What vaccine scofflaws want is equally clear, we guess, but it’s just sociopathic: they want to function in society the same as vaccinated people but without the apparent burden of taking a free and safe vaccine. […]
Monday, the National Hockey League suspended San Jose Sharks forward Evander Kane for 21 games because he submitted a fake COVID-19 vaccination card. The NHL has strict protocols for unvaccinated players, which Kane presumably found inconvenient.
[…] Kane won’t play again until at least November 30. This will also cost him $1.68 million of his $7 million salary for the season.
Before Massie starts getting any ideas, Kane isn’t a conscientious objector like Muhammad Ali. He’s just a selfish jerk, which is admittedly the ideal Republican constituency.
On the morning of Friday, June 4, an underground gas pipeline running through the ancient state of Tatarstan sprang a leak. And not a small one.
In a different era, the massive leak might have gone unnoticed.
But hovering 520 miles above the Earth, a European Space Agency satellite was keeping watch. The four-year-old Copernicus Sentinel-5P, which orbits the planet 14 times a day, looks for traces of methane and other gases.
At 11:01 a.m. in Moscow, the satellite spotted a methane leak on the edge of its field of vision.
On its next pass, 1 hour and 40 minutes later, the sensor captured an even larger view of the leak.
[…] methane […] was escaping into the atmosphere at a breakneck rate of approximately 395 metric tons an hour.
[…] Satellites can provide real time evidence of massive, unreported methane leaks — and who is responsible for them. […]
Methane, the second-most abundant greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide, accounts for roughly a quarter of global warming since the industrial revolution, according to NASA. It is the chief component of natural gas.
Today, the second-biggest natural gas producer is Russia, fed by the prolific Yamal region, followed by Iran and its Persian Gulf gas fields. Next come China, Canada and Qatar, with its flotilla of liquefied natural gas tankers. The United States, bolstered by horizontal fracking in the Permian Basin across west Texas and eastern New Mexico, remains the world’s largest natural gas producer.
Scientists say that rapidly cutting methane “is very likely to be the most powerful lever” to slow the rate of warming. But they have also documented a disturbing and surprising spike in atmospheric concentrations in recent years that they have not yet pinned down.
[…] The number of methane plumes emitted from the aging Russian gas infrastructure rose by at least 40 percent last year, even though natural gas exports to Europe fell an estimated 14 percent […] a significant portion of Russia’s estimated annual methane releases are due to a relatively small number of catastrophic events like the one on June 4 […]
• Russia has repeatedly revised its methods for calculating emissions, not only shrinking current figures but also rolling back past estimates. […]
[…] Russia’s gas enterprise remains shrouded in secrecy. Areas around key gas facilities that dot large parts of the Yamal Peninsula are considered restricted zones and are off limits to non-Russian citizens without special permission from state security services. […]
More details, including satellite imagery, charts and technical explanations of how methane can escape into the atmosphere all along a pipeline route are available at the link.
lumipunasays
Covid-19 related news from Finland over the last few days:
The general recommendation for workplaces to have as many people as possible working from home has been revoked. This was planned and announced some weeks earlier, and my university announced we will gradually start operating in an almost entirely normal manner over October. The health authorities have specifically noted that office and school settings are now deemed to be lower risk than was previously estimated. On this basis, masking on university premises was also made optional (recommended in relatively crowded settings, as opposed to generally mandatory) a couple weeks ago.
Also a couple weeks ago, covid restrictions on restaurants and other such venues were almost entirely scrapped, a move that many health experts fear was premature. Last weekend, a much talked-about national “covid passport” was finally introduced. It only practically applies in the areas where some mild restrictions on restaurant crowding and opening hours are still in effect, and only on non-essential services. Restaurants etc. can now choose to either use the passport and be entirely exempt from aforementioned restrictions, or continue operating as previously. Pretty weaksauce, some here might say.
The city of St. Petersburg in Russia also plans to introduce a “covid passport” soon, while there are plans to gradually open more transport connections with Finland. However, Finland and Russia still do not approve each other’s covid vaccines, so travel between the countries remains restricted/impractical for even vaccinated people. The current high infection rates in Russia, and moreso in Baltic countries, are a topic of concern in Finland. Russia has a massive problem with vaccine refusal that apparently isn’t going away anytime soon.
Here in Finland, infection rates have been moderately high since late summer (not the least in Helsinki area, where I live). For a while, they seemed to be going down, and I postponed some of my errands. Then they went up again recently, and I can’t postpone my errands any more (at least I’m vaccinated). There’s a small but steady trickle of new covid deaths – the total toll just surpassed 200 per million people. Soon, about 80 % of the 12+ population will have been vaccinated twice, but getting upwards from there is going to be a slow and tedious struggle. Previously, there was talk of scrapping most restaurant restrictions only after the 80 % mark had been surpassed, but eventually the government didn’t wait that long, as noted above.
In short, awkward pandemic conditions continue, with no end in sight, while everyone has recently decided we should just try to live more normally. The government and local authorities are very reluctant to reintroduce restaurant restrictions in areas where infections surge. Various regional healthcare systems remain more or less burdened with covid patients, and cautious with masking rules etc., which affects everyone’s access to healthcare in the short and long term.
An armed gang is demanding a $17 million ransom for the group of American and Canadian missionaries kidnapped in Haiti last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
In other news, many thanks to lumipuna @110 for keeping us up to date on conditions in Finland. Being next door to Russia certainly complicates things.
Donald Trump’s bid to impede the work of the Jan. 6 committee hit an early roadblock. In other words, Judge Chutkan has a lot of common sense, is well-qualified, and her integrity is intact.
Judge Tanya Chutkan has been among the harshest critics of Jan. 6 defendants.
The Jan. 6 committee has hit the judicial jackpot. Donald Trump’s lawsuit seeking to kneecap the committee before it obtains his White House records has landed on the docket of Judge Tanya Chutkan.
[…] During the sentencing of Jan. 6 rioter Carl Mazzocco, Chutkan specifically called out his allegiance to Trump. “He went to the Capitol in support of one man, not in support of our country.”— Judge Tanya Chutkan
A coalition of civil rights groups sued the state of Oklahoma on Tuesday over a law limiting instruction about race and gender in public schools. It is the first federal lawsuit to challenge a state statute implemented to prevent the teaching of critical race theory.
Iowa authorities are investigating multiple threats — including one of lynching — that Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Ross Wilburn received soon after writing an op-ed critical of former president Donald Trump.
Wilburn, the state party’s first Black chairman, wrote the opinion piece published in the Des Moines Register ahead of Trump’s Oct. 9 rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. It ran online Oct. 8 and in print the following day and, in it, Wilburn accused Iowa Republicans of putting their loyalty to Trump ahead of Iowans’ needs.
“The entire Republican Party of Iowa is welcoming Trump with open arms proving once again that they have completely surrendered themselves to a man who not only openly attacked the foundations of our democracy, but also has shown disdain for our Constitution, and failed to help the American people when we needed it most,” Wilburn wrote.
Immediately after publishing the op-ed, Wilburn, who is also a state representative, received threatening messages […] Only the first voice mail included a violent threat of lynching, but all included explicit language, he told reporters Tuesday morning.
“The n-word was used multiple times,” Wilburn said. “The voice mails and the email made reference to my writing about former president Trump and made specific references to my comments regarding Trump’s actions on January 6. This led me to believe that they had read my op-ed.” […]
The more we learn, the more we realize that we actually dodged a lot of bullets during the Trump administration.
Yes, it could have been worse.
New York Times: “Trump’s Pentagon Chief Quashed Idea to Send 250,000 Troops to the Border.”
Trump’s defense secretary thought the idea was outrageous.
In the spring of 2020, Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary, was alarmed to learn of an idea under discussion at a top military command and at the Department of Homeland Security to send as many as 250,000 troops — more than half the active U.S. Army, and a sixth of all American forces — to the southern border in what would have been the largest use of the military inside the United States since the Civil War.
With the coronavirus pandemic raging, Stephen Miller, the architect of Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda, had urged the Homeland Security Department to develop a plan for the number of troops that would be needed to seal the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico. It is not clear whether it was officials in homeland security or the Pentagon who concluded that a quarter of a million troops would be required.
The concept was relayed to officials at the Defense Department’s Northern Command, which is responsible for all military operations in the United States and on its borders, according to several former senior administration officials. […]
Mr. Esper declined to comment. But people familiar with his conversations, who declined to speak about them on the record, said he was enraged by Mr. Miller’s plan. In addition, homeland security officials had bypassed his office by taking the idea directly to military officials at Northern Command. Mr. Esper also believed that deploying so many troops to the border would undermine American military readiness around the world, officials said.
After a brief but contentious confrontation with Mr. Miller in the Oval Office, Mr. Esper ended consideration of the idea at the Pentagon.
Mr. Trump’s obsession with the southern border was already well known by that time. He had demanded a wall with flesh-piercing spikes, repeatedly mused about a moat filled with alligators, and asked about shooting migrants in the leg as they crossed the border. His aides considered a heat-ray that would make migrants’ skin feel hot.
Around the same time that officials considered the huge deployment to the American side of the border with Mexico, Mr. Trump also pressed his top aides to send forces into Mexico itself to hunt drug cartels, much like American commandos have tracked and killed terrorists in Afghanistan or Pakistan, the officials said.
Mr. Trump hesitated only after aides suggested that to most of the world, military raids inside Mexico could look like the United States was committing an act of war against one of its closest allies, which is also its biggest trading partner, the officials said. […]
At least three high-ranking public officials in Montana tried to pressure a hospital to allow a woman hospitalized with COVID-19 to access drugs that have not been authorized for treatment of the virus—and even “threatened” doctors and dispatched a state trooper, according to the hospital.
“Last week, several of our providers and care team members who are working tirelessly at the bedside were harassed and threatened by three public officials,” Andrea Groom, spokesperson for the Helena-based St. Peter’s Health, told The Daily Beast in a statement Tuesday. “These officials have no medical training or experience, yet they were insisting our providers give treatments for COVID-19 that are not authorized, clinically approved, or within the guidelines established by the FDA and the CDC.”
According to the Independent Record, a patient in her 80s had requested ivermectin, the anti-parasitic drug touted in right-wing circles as a miracle serum for COVID-19.
Groom said Tuesday that the officials “threatened to use their position of power to force our doctors and nurses to provide this care.” The conversations had been “deeply troubling” to hospital staff and doctors “because they were threatened and their clinical judgment was called into question by these individuals,” she said.
[…] “Any allegations or assertions otherwise are unfounded,” she wrote. “Despite occasional requests by patients or family members to use alternative therapies or medications like Ivermectin that are not authorized or clinically approved to treat COVID-19, St. Peter’s Health will continue to follow clinical protocols that have been developed by medical experts and are consistent with FDA and CDC guidelines and recommendations.”
Last week, Heidi Roedel, president of the Flathead County Republican Women, identified Shirley Herrin as a patient at the hospital embroiled in a firestorm to get alternative treatments for COVID-19. She urged members of the Facebook group “Montana Federation of Republican Women” to contact the hospital. […]
“El Chapo Refuses to Share a Prison Cell with Steve Bannon”
Amid news that Steve Bannon could soon be jailed for criminal contempt, the convicted drug lord Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán said that “under no circumstances” would he agree to share a prison cell with the former Trump adviser.
The ex-kingpin said that, although he had not heard of any plans to house Bannon in his prison cell, he was speaking “out of an abundance of caution.”
“If the Department of Justice is looking for a place to lock Bannon up, don’t even think about putting him in with me,” El Chapo, who is being held at ADX Florence, a maximum-security penitentiary, said. “It’s not going to happen.”
“I’ve tunnelled out of prison before, and I can do it again,” he warned.
El Chapo’s sentiments have been echoed by the nation’s prison population, two million of whom have signed a petition refusing to share their cells with Bannon.
Speaking at the D.O.J., the Attorney General, Merrick Garland, commented on El Chapo’s recoiling at the prospect of sharing a small space with Bannon. “I can’t say I blame him,” Garland said.
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court Tuesday declined an emergency application to stop the enforcement of a Covid-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers in Maine.
The state is requiring its health care workers to be fully vaccinated for Covid-19 by Oct. 29. Several health care workers challenged the mandate, citing in their complaint beliefs that prevent them from receiving a Covid-19 vaccine because of “the vaccines’ connections to aborted fetal cell lines,” among other religious reasons.
…..this case marks the first time the court addressed a statewide Covid-19 vaccine mandate.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) urged his party to focus on President Biden heading into 2022, and not relitigating the 2020 election that former President Trump still falsely claims was stolen.
McConnell, speaking to reporters during a weekly press conference, was asked if he was comfortable with the party embracing Trump. The former president was at a retreat over the weekend for Senate Republicans’ campaign arm and endorsed Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) for reelection in Iowa earlier this month.
“Well, I do think we need to be talking about the future, not the past,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday.
“I think the American people are focusing on this administration. … It’s my hope that 2022 election will be a referendum on the performance of the current administration, not a rehash about suggestions of what may have happened in 2020,” McConnell added.
The GOP leader’s comments come as Trump and some of his closest allies have continued to claim that that there was widespread election fraud last year, something Republican congressional hopefuls who align themselves with the former president have also echoed.
McConnell dismissed those assertions in a floor speech earlier this year, saying that there wasn’t evidence of fraud “anywhere near the massive scale that would have tipped this entire election.”
Since then, however, McConnell has largely stayed away from talking about Trump, who has continued to trash talk him and called for his ouster as Senate GOP leader.
“Mitch McConnell should have challenged that election because even back then, we had plenty of material to challenge that election. He should have challenged the election,” Trump said at an Iowa rally where Grassley and other top GOP officials appeared.
McConnell cannot face what happened on January 6. He doesn’t want you to think about January 6 when you go to vote.
McConnell can’t face the ever-increasing mountain of evidence against Trump and his cronies. He doesn’t want you to think about the past crimes, nor the ongoing crimes, of various Republicans.
Good news: Democrats are filling judicial vacancies at a pace unseen in more than a half-century.
[…]
[…] the Senate is quietly making history with his judicial nominees. The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 52-41 Monday to confirm Gustavo Gelpi to be a judge on the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Boston, making him the fifth new circuit judge with a background as a public defender on Biden’s watch.
Part of what makes this so striking is the professional backgrounds of these jurists: Most modern presidents made little effort to nominate judges with experience as public defenders. Under Biden, meanwhile, eight Senate-confirmed judges are now on the bench after having worked as public defenders.
But just as notable is the sheer volume and speed with which the narrow Democratic majority in the Senate is filling judicial vacancies. NBC News’ report added that Biden, at least for now, is “outpacing every other president since Richard Nixon in confirming circuit judges, who have the last word in most federal cases.”
Remember that the filibuster does not apply when it comes to confirming judges. The “narrow Democratic majority” is enough to get this important work done.
[…] For much of the left, the focus on the judiciary is welcome. As we’ve discussed on several occasions, Republicans in the Trump era prioritized judicial nominees above almost every other consideration. The campaign was as relentless as it was effective: the former president managed to appoint about 230 judges to the federal courts. That’s not as many as his recent two-term predecessors, but it was a striking tally for a failed one-term president who never won the popular vote.
[…] As of this morning, there are 79 vacancies on the federal bench — more if we include the Court of International Trade and the Court of Federal Claims — and that number is likely to grow as sitting judges retire and take senior status. Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse a Rhode Island, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, has said filling every vacancy by the end of 2022 is his party’s “very prudent goal.”
That’s an ambitious target, which will require a concerted effort on the part of Democratic leaders, but so far, the relevant players appear to be taking the right steps in a smart direction.
New polling suggests that over the course of 2021, the Republican Party and its voters have gradually become even Trumpier.
In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, there appeared to be a political consensus about the seriousness of the insurrectionist violence. Though he later changed his mind, Donald Trump himself described the riot as a “heinous attack,” launch by a “mob” that “defiled the seat of American democracy” and “trashed the halls of government.”
Nine months later, a new Quinnipiac poll suggests Republican voters simply don’t see Jan. 6 this way anymore. The survey asked respondents, “Do you consider what happened at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th an attack on the government, or not?” Consider the partisan breakdowns:
Democrats:
Yes, it was an attack on the government: 93 percent
No, it wasn’t: 5 percent
Independents:
Yes, it was an attack on the government: 56 percent
No, it wasn’t: 40 percent
Republicans:
Yes, it was an attack on the government: 29 percent
No, it wasn’t: 66 percent
The former president and many of his allies set out to rewrite the history of the riot, reframe the violence, and recast the perpetrators as patriots. The polling suggests those efforts are having an effect, at least with the GOP’s own voters.
Meanwhile, Quinnipiac also asked respondents whether they want to see Trump run for president again in 2024. In May, 66 percent of Republicans wanted the former president to run again, and now, that total is up to 78 percent.
This comes on the heels of related polling showing the number of Republican voters rejecting the legitimacy of the 2020 election getting worse, not better. […]
There can be no doubt that Steve Bannon has important insights to share about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. After all, he spoke publicly before the insurrectionist riot about what was going to happen.
With this in mind, it hardly came as a surprise when the bipartisan House committee investigating the attack issued subpoenas a few weeks ago, seeking information from key Trump insiders — and as regular readers know, Bannon was at the top of the list.
The former White House strategist, following Donald Trump’s instructions not to cooperate, declined to comply with the subpoena. That, in and of itself, was a striking step: When the 9/11 attacks were scrutinized, it would’ve been considered extraordinary if a prominent presidential adviser simply refused to honor a subpoena and instead chose to keep relevant information hidden.
As NBC News reported overnight, the bipartisan select committee investigating the Capitol attack is escalating matters.
The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol voted Tuesday to advance a measure to refer former Trump adviser Steve Bannon to the Justice Department for criminal charges of contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with its investigation. The committee voted 9-0.
I’ve confirmed with Capitol Hill sources that the House Rules Committee will take up the matter today, followed by a vote in the full House tomorrow. If the measure advances — given the Democratic majority, that’s a safe bet — the matter would be referred to a U.S. attorney’s office for possible prosecution.
If these circumstances seem unusual, it’s not your imagination. As Rachel noted on last night’s show, the last time the Justice Department pursued a criminal case like this one was nearly four decades ago, when a Reagan administration official refused to testify to Congress about EPA superfund sites. When the House voted that year on contempt of Congress, the vote was 413 to zero.
Why would members of both parties link arms on this? Because congressional subpoenas are not supposed to be optional. They are not casual invitations. The more people feel they can ignore these legal commands from federal lawmakers, the more difficult it is for Congress to do its job — no matter which party is in charge.
That said, Republican politics has changed dramatically since 1983, and it’s difficult to imagine a unanimous vote against Bannon tomorrow. Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a member of the select committee, was asked last night whether he expects other GOP members to agree to hold Bannon in contempt. “Should there be other Republicans? Yes,” the Illinois congressman said. “Are there going to be? I don’t know.”
In the meantime, the committee’s work continues. Rachel spoke last night with the panel’s Democratic chairman, Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson, who confirmed that the investigation has already generated new and previously unreported details about the attack.
“I assure you, at the end of the day,” Thompson concluded, “the public will be shocked to know how close we came to losing our democracy if those insurrectionists had succeeded.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), who is also an anesthesiologist, says that he has prescribed ivermectin, an anti-parasitic drug, to treat COVID-19, even though it has not been approved for use in COVID cases.
[…] The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that during a radio program he was hosting on September 17, Harris said he had prescribed the drug several weeks prior. The revelation came as he was complaining about the difficulty of finding a pharmacy that would fill the prescription.
“I wrote a prescription for ivermectin, I guess it’s now three weeks ago, four weeks ago, and yeah, couldn’t find a pharmacy to fill it,” the Republican said. “It’s gotten bad. . . . The pharmacists are just refusing to fill it.”
Harris griped that it was “ridiculous” that national pharmacy organizations had spoken out against dispensing ivermectin for use in COVID-19 cases.
Those organizations include the American Pharmacists Association and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which declared in early September that they “strongly oppose” the “ordering, prescribing, or dispensing of ivermectin outside clinical trials.” The American Medical Association co-signed that statement.
[…] The GOP lawmaker’s remarks indicate that he prescribed ivermectin in August, which is the same month the Federal Drug and Food Administration (FDA) warned that even though the drug was approved to treat certain infections caused by parasites in humans, it was “not authorized or approved” for COVID-19 and “has not been shown to be safe or effective” against the virus. The agency also warned that taking large doses of ivermectin is “dangerous” and that people should never take ivermectin products made for animals.
“You are not a horse,” the FDA tweeted at the time. “You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
[…] ivermectin has been heralded as a miracle drug for COVID-19 in the conservative world, particularly among those who refuse to get the actual COVID-19 vaccine (which has been proven overwhelmingly to protect people against becoming seriously ill from the virus).
Biden’s team wins this one. Jen Psaki is smarter and she has a nimble mind. She is well-informed. Fox News lackeys …. not so much.
Peter Doocy isn’t just a Fox News disinformation peddler. He’s a hereditary Fox News disinformation peddler and, perhaps, the most pathetic failson being publicly promoted by the network. Tucker Carlson is dangerous. Junior Doocy can only try to be so dangerous, but he’s so bad at his job that mostly he just makes White House press secretary Jen Psaki look really, really good.
And so it went on Tuesday when Doocy tried to press Psaki on COVID-19 vaccine mandates for police—his argument being that so many police would resign that it would compromise public safety. This led to a series of body blows and one indelible moment when Psaki asked Doocy, “What was the number-one cause of death among police officers last year, do you know?”
Then she waited.
Silence from Doocy.
“COVID-19.”
That was something of an understatement, actually. COVID-19 wasn’t just the leading cause of death for police officers on duty last year, it is also the leading cause of death for police officers on duty this year, and in both cases it is more than four times as common as the No. 2 cause of death.
Psaki also offered up a litany of statistics showing the effectiveness of vaccine mandates, and the degree to which the claim that large numbers of officers will quit has been overstated. “If you look at Seattle as an example, which I know has been in some of the reporting, 92% of the police force is vaccinated, as are 93% of firefighters. Ninety-nine percent of Seattle’s 11,000 employees have submitted vaccine verification or an exemption request.”
Doocy bravely/foolishly plowed on. “Public safety, though. All these other problems: Terror, murder, robberies, kidnappings. Is there any concern that if police forces shrink or if the size of the ready military force shrinks, that the United States or localities may not be equipped properly to deal with that?“
“Peter, more than 700,000 people have died of COVID. Again, it was the number-one cause of death among police departments and police officers. It’s something that we should take seriously. Departments are trying to save people in their departments, people who work for them, we support that effort, and there’s been success across the country in that regard.”
Terror? The U.S. is currently experiencing about a 9/11’s worth of COVID-19 deaths every two days. Murder? A year’s worth of homicide deaths from COVID-19 about every 12 days […]
Doocy’s […] angling for a “White House doesn’t care if police quit en masse” headline is clownishly obvious here, and it relies on Fox News viewers to fail to notice that evidence does not at present exist of large numbers of police resignations, and that evidence does exist of COVID-19’s deadly impact on police departments. Lucky for him, Fox viewers can be relied on to fail to notice those things, but this exchange is deeply unlikely to expand the audience for the Fox message on vaccinations.
Lynna… @ # 91: A good man who was also too gullible and too optimistic.
No no no no no! Much as I tend to agree with your other observations, since nobody else has corrected this I feel I need to.
Though building his own career on the sacrifices of civil rights campaigners, Colin Powell had nothing but disdain for that movement. He did his damndest to support the worst aspects of the US war on Vietnam, particularly in the initial attempted cover-up of the My Lai Massacre:
“In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.”
Never (publicly) re-thinking Vietnam, he moved on to serving in Nixon’s White House, and rose to a high-level aide of Reagan’s DefSec Caspar Weinberger, whom Powell served particularly well by lying about the latter’s (major and incriminating) role in the massive Iran-Contra scandal.
That got him to the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, just in time to mastermind Dubya Daddy’s first Gulf War and cement his position as the most powerful Black man (and, probably, military figure) in Washington. he leveraged that into claiming the foremost Cabinet position (Dubya wanted to make Powell SecDef, but had to yield to CP’s superior leverage). There, he – yet again- went along with a criminal Republican administration’s lies and atrocities, but no one should ever characterize that as a fall from any previously respectable stance.
Primarily through his ex-chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, in later years Powell did succeed in separating himself somewhat from the accelerating deterioration of his chosen political party, but we should consider that only a tactical withdrawal from a faction dominated by less-polished mobsters. Throughout his entire career, Colin Powell was a monster, and (pardon the redundancy) a Republican.
Pierce @126: I agree with you that I was too quick to give Colin Powell a pass.
He did admit that he was wrong concerning that speech to the U.N. about WMD in Iraq. He admitted it several times. That’s a low bar, but for a Republican it was at least some indication that he was ashamed of the role he played in getting us into that particular war.
I do not excuse nor forget Colin Powell’s failures.
The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper has made a comedy name for himself for his field pieces, where he interacts with the illogical circus that is MAGA Americana. As far as comedy field pieces go, the MAGA crowd has always been like shooting fish in a barrel as there are so many lost, confused, and outright ridiculous folks to interview at any MAGA or MAGA-related event. […] After Trump lost soundly to President Joe Biden, The Daily Show has continued to follow the various iterations of MAGA rallies and anti-mask rallies—which are pretty much the same thing.
On Monday, Klepper went to Des Moines, Iowa, to talk with MAGA types at a “Trump won” rally being held in October 2021, which is approaching a year since Donald Trump lost his bid at reelection. Klepper opened the piece by mentioning that this was his first Trump rally since The Donald lost his bid at a dictatorship on Jan. 6, 2021, “a day no one will ever forget … unless you’re a Republican member of Congress.” Humor can be cathartic, especially in the face of such willful ignorance.
After talking to the ludicrously dressed man in the photo at the top of this story, Klepper speaks with a couple, mentioning that he hasn’t been at a rally since Jan. 6. He begins with a little gallows humor dad joke: “Have you seen any gallows go up anywhere?” The couple laughs and says no, they haven’t. “Do you think Mike Pence will show up here today or does he not want to hang?”
The couple says he would be afraid because “he was a coward, he didn’t do the right thing.” Klepper reminds them that it might have more to do with the gallows thing, and the idea that a MAGA rally might end with the former vice president dying. Klepper then gives a little tour of some of the signage, including “a Confederate flag, in Iowa,” and “images of Trump on a velociraptor with a machine gun.”
The Klepper talks to two ladies—both wearing single shoulder-attached America flag overalls—who bristle at the portrayal of MAGA rally participants as “some kind of a cult.” He asks them if they are looking forward to the disgraced former president saying anything in particular:
WOMAN #1: Oh gosh, I feel like whatever he spews out of his mouth, I just love it.
WOMAN #2: I just love—
JORDAN KLEPPER: It doesn’t matter what he says?
WOMAN #1: Yeah.
WOMAN #2: We’re gonna love it, we’re gonna love being here. We’re going to love hearing what he has to say.
KLEPPER: But this isn’t a cult?
WOMAN #1: No, I don’t think so.
Images of someone selling “Womens [sic] Pee Funnel” for $15 fill the screen while Klepper says in voice over: “Not a cult at all. It’s not like they would rather almost piss themselves than miss a second of the Donald’s speech.”
But this is a rally for Donald Trump, and if they believe Donald Trump is still actually the president, it doesn’t also mean they can’t hope he will still run for … the job he supposedly still has … in 2024. Speaking with two younger men, both wearing sunglasses on an overcast day and holding out a banner that reads “TRUMP -2024- TAKE AMERICA BACK,” Klepper asks them what the big issues are that they hope Trump will address. They answer: “The border crisis,” which these two fellas believe has been “brushed under the rug.” Klepper asks if these two patriots are from Iowa. They are indeed! “So you’re worried about people coming from Minnesota?”
Exactly.
Then we move on to all of the “Fuck your feelings” MAGA types who think the left is so uncivil, and who feel like they are being disrespected for sharing their views. Two ladies dressed in matching bizarre outfits lament how some people have stopped talking to them completely “for my views.” Klepper understands, saying: “They should show respect.”
This is exactly the point, the women agree. Then Klepper points out that the two ladies are wearing T-shirts with images of Donald Trump holding up two middle fingers, with writing that says, “One for Biden, One for Harris.”
WOMAN: I think they speak for themselves.
KLEPPER: Why wouldn’t someone want to engage with that, am I right?
It is here that we walk into the world of QAnon. You can’t have a MAGA rally without a heavy Q presence. It’s the whole conspiracy: the ever-changing conspiracy. The cognitive dissonance and the break from this temporal plane of existence that must be employed to be a follower of “Q” is extraordinary. Speaking with one man who believes Donald Trump is still the acting president of the United States, Klepper attempts to pierce this delusion, specifically when the man asserts that Donald Trump is “flying around the world on Air Force One.” Klepper asks about how President Joe Biden can be on Air Force One if Trump is. The man says Biden is not, and that the entire Biden presidency is fake.
In fact, Trump is not only running the country, he is “Running the military.”
KLEPPER: And he’s running the military? So we should blame him for what happened in Afghanistan?
MAN: No.
KLEPPER: But it’s still his fault.
MAN: It’s way beyond my—
KLEPPER: —understanding.
And finally, guess what? The Jan. 6 insurrection at our country’s Capitol building was a job done by the FBI … and antifa … “Basically RINOs” … the deep state.
And the CIA.
Photos and video are available at the link.
lumipunasays
Lynna:
In other news, many thanks to lumipuna @110 for keeping us up to date on conditions in Finland. Being next door to Russia certainly complicates things.
You’re welcome. I felt like writing a summary, since many small or subtle developments have happened lately. Overall, I should be just content that nothing very dramatic or “interesting” ever happens over here, with regard to the pandemic or otherwise.
Since most traffic between Finland and Russia occurs on the Helsinki-St. Petersburg axis, the current pandemic situation between these two city areas isn’t actually that dramatically different. Experts estimate that Russia’s covid disaster is showing signs of slowing down, particularly in large cities where most people are by now either vaccinated or “naturally immunized”. In Finland we now rely mostly on vaccination rather than other means of infection control, so it seems traffic between countries shouldn’t pose much threat. However, eventually we need to either find some legal workaround to the vaccine recognition issue, or just scrap travel restrictions altogether.
Personally, I kind of worry that this pandemic has severe long term damaging effects on Russia’s public health, economy and political stability. Presumably, huge numbers of Russians have survived covid but now suffer from long term health problems. Since vaccination remains unpopular in Russia, in the future people will largely maintain their immunity by getting repeatedly ill with covid, risking disability and death every time.
On Wednesday, the House Rules Committee met to vote on whether the recommendation for charges of criminal contempt against former Trump campaign chair and Jan. 6 conspirator Steve Bannon would be forwarded to the full House. […] the full House could vote to drop Bannon’s file on the Department of Justice by Thursday.
[…] the vice chair of the House Select Committee, Liz Cheney, sat down to explain what makes Bannon’s documents and testimony vital. According to Cheney, it appears that Bannon “had substantial advance knowledge of the plans of January 6 and likely had an important role in formulating those plans.” And, more than anything else, Bannon simply, “has no legal right to ignore the committee’s lawful subpoena.”
That last point seems like something that should gather universal support from any member of Congress. After all, if it’s not possible to subpoena someone who worked for a former administration, and who holds no official position, exactly how much power does Congress have to compel testimony from anyone? But that reasonable position ignores the fact that the party known as the GOP party is actually the TOT party—as in Terrified Of Trump. So Republican leadership gave all members the word before the hearing to cast their inconsequential votes in favor of a powerless Congress.
But before that vote was cast, the committee had to listen to two defenders who charged in to uphold the right of Steve Bannon to plan the downfall of the nation and thumb his nose at consequences: Reps. Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan. And that appearance … was kind of hilarious.
Calling in Jim Jordan to defend Steve Bannon over his involvement in Jan. 6 is like calling in the Zodiac Killer to defend Jack the Ripper. That’s because, back in August, Jordan admitted that he had talked to Donald Trump on Jan. 6. But exactly when that call took place wasn’t exactly fresh in the congressman’s mind. “After?” said Jordan “I think after. I don’t know if I spoke with him in the morning or not. I just don’t know … I don’t know when those conversations happened.”
“Conversations” being the key word here. Because, as Politico has since made clear, there was more than one call between Trump and Jordan in the middle of that little insurrection thing.
“Look, I definitely spoke to the president that day. I don’t recall—I know it was more than once, I just don’t recall the times,” Jordan told Politico reporter Olivia Beavers. At least one of these calls apparently came after Congress members had been moved to a secure location, and since Jordan said that he, “like everyone” wanted the National Guard to get involved, that would be a very good sign that this call took place very much during the attack on the Capitol. Whether the second call also took place from this “secure location”—and whether there were only two calls—remains unclear.
But there is something else that is known about that call: Jordan wasn’t alone. Someone else was listening in as he talked with Trump.
After a group of lawmakers were evacuated from the House chamber to a safe room on Jan. 6, Jordan was joined by Rep. MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.) for a call during which they implored Trump to tell his supporters to stand down, per a source with knowledge of that call. The source declined to say how Trump responded to this request.
So, the two men who were in the room on Wednesday begging the House Rules Committee to give Steve Bannon a waiver, were the same two men who spent Jan. 6 talking to Donald Trump during an active attempt to overthrow the government. Which makes Jordan’s efforts to dodge questions about that call today more worthy of a world-class eye roll. [video is available at the link]
In his reply, Jordan insists that his call with Trump happened after the attack. But if it did, this was clearly a later call, because a call made while huddled in the House safe room was definitely not “after.” Jordan seems to recognize this, waffling around the idea of whether there was more than one call and in general trying to summon a semblance of being insulted by the question.
But that moment doesn’t come close to the […] immolation applied by Congresswoman Norma Torres—a moment that could serve as a model for how to deal with either of these men on any occasion. “This is not about somebody paying to have sex with a young girl, or somebody not protecting people that are under their jurisdiction. This is about our democracy.” [another video is available at the link]
Gaetz is certainly looking at plenty of legal action of his own in the near future. Jordan should be. But maybe this will help: During his reply, Jordan said that he “did not speak to the president during the attack.” That seems like something that could warrant a subpoena right there.
lumipuna @129: “Personally, I kind of worry that this pandemic has severe long term damaging effects on Russia’s public health, economy and political stability. Presumably, huge numbers of Russians have survived covid but now suffer from long term health problems. Since vaccination remains unpopular in Russia, in the future people will largely maintain their immunity by getting repeatedly ill with covid, risking disability and death every time.”
Yeah, that pretty much summarizes my feelings as well.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked Democrats from advancing a revised bill to overhaul federal elections, marking the latest blow to hopes of getting voting legislation to President Biden.
The Senate voted 49-51 to end debate on whether to bring up the bill, known as the Freedom to Vote Act, falling short of the 60 needed.
The bill would make Election Day a national holiday, set national minimum standards for early voting and voting by mail and include standards for states requiring voter identification. It also has new requirements on disclosing who is behind online ads and aims to stop partisan gerrymandering.
Democrats view voting rights and election reform as a top priority […]
“For every two steps forward, sometimes there are those who try to pull us one step back. Unfortunately, we find ourselves today in the midst of such a struggle. Across the country, the Big Lie – the Big Lie – has spread like a cancer as many states across the nation have passed the most draconian restrictions against voting that we’ve seen in decades. If nothing is done, these laws will make it harder for millions of Americans to participate in their government,” Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Wednesday.
Schumer switched his vote to “no,” a procedural step that allows him to bring the bill back up for another vote.
Biden and Vice President Harris made calls to senators this week on voting rights
[…] “I want to be clear: if Republicans join us in proceeding to this bill, I am prepared to hold a full-fledged debate worthy of the U.S. Senate,” Schumer said.
“What we can’t accept is a situation where one side is calling for bipartisan debate and bipartisan cooperation while the other refuses to even engage in a dialogue. If our Republican colleagues don’t like our ideas they have a responsibility to present their own,” he added.
The Senate was not voting on the actual bill, they were just voting on whether or not to allow discussion of the bill. Republicans voted to NOT allow even discussion. Obstructionist dunderheads.
[…] “Today, Senate Democrats would like to start debate on the Freedom to Vote Act. Senate Democrats have worked hard to ensure this bill includes traditionally bipartisan provisions. But Senate Republicans are likely to block even debate on the bill, as they have before on previous voting rights bills. It’s unconscionable,” Biden said in a statement issued just before the vote.
“The right to vote – to vote freely, to vote fairly, and to have your vote counted – is fundamental. It should be simple and straightforward. Let there be a debate and let there be a vote,” he said. […]
Wonkette: “Trump Argues For Absolute Right Of Presidents To Loot And Pillage In Copyright Lawsuit”
[…] Today’s WTF-ery comes to us from the copyright infringement suit filed by one Edmond Grant, AKA Eddy Grant, AKA the guy who did not fucking appreciate having his hit song “Electric Avenue” used without permission in one of Trump’s ridiculous campaign videos. Trump tweeted out the video on August 12, 2020, and Twitter yanked the video for copyright infringement within a few hours. Then Twitter yanked Trump himself, and not a moment too soon, so we can’t provide you with a link to the video in question. But we actually remember this one because the graphics were so embarrassingly crap — like Thomas the Tank Engine circa 1991, only worse. […]
See Trump is a BIG CHOO CHOO TRAIN VROOM, and Biden is just a skinny dude manually pumping himself along the tracks.
Which isn’t actually the dumbest thing you’ll read in this post, believe it or not.
Grant and his publishing company Greenheart Music promptly sued for copyright infringement in a New York federal court on September 20, 2020. Trump then spent a year bellyaching and trying unsuccessfully to get the case dismissed. On September 28, 2021, US District Judge John G. Koeltl refused to grant Trump’s motion for dismissal for failure to state a legally cognizable claim.
Trump had argued that the clip had transformed Grant’s song by turning it into a work of political commentary, making it a legitimate use under the Fair Use Doctrine, but the court disagreed.
“In this case, the video’s overarching political purpose does not automatically render its use of any non-political work transformative,” Judge Koeltl wrote.
And that meant that time was up, and Trump was going to finally have to answer the original complaint, which he did in the most Trump-y way possible.
In the section on affirmative defenses, i.e. the part where the defendant says “yeah, well, even if I did, so what, and here is why!” Trump claimed that “Plaintiffs’ claims against Defendants are barred, either in whole or in part, by the doctrines of waiver, laches, acquiescence, inequitable conduct and/or unclean hands.” Which falls under the category of meh, dumb, but whatever. Obviously Grant didn’t waive his rights, or wait too long to file, or do something nefarious to void his own copyright. But, okay, people say a lot of stupid shit in pleadings.
What they don’t usually say is this:
Plaintiffs’ claims against Donald J. Trump are barred, either in whole or in part, by Presidential absolute immunity.
[…] WAAAAAA?
Did that sorry POS just argue with a straight face that the president is free to steal copyrighted material and no one can do anything about it? There is no such thing as “Presidential absolute immunity” to do crimes. The only people on earth who had the nerve to make such a ridiculous argument got their asses handed to them by the Supreme Court last year in Trump v. Vance. And this wet fart of a man and his shameless lawyers have the nerve to come into a federal court and try this shit again?
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s sharpest critic and the country’s most prominent political prisoner, opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was awarded a prestigious European prize on Wednesday that recognizes his work in defense of human rights.
Navalny, 45, rose to international prominence when he was poisoned in Russia on Aug. 20, 2020, making a recovery in Germany before returning to Russia, where he was immediately detained and later imprisoned. At the time, Washington condemned “Russia’s attempted assassination” of Navalny “with a chemical weapon” and imposed sanctions on top Russian officials and state agencies.
The European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought — named after Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov — was launched in 1988 to “honor exceptional individuals and organizations defending human rights and fundamental freedoms,” according to the European Parliament. Previous winners have included Belarusian opposition figures, Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai.
“He has fought tirelessly against the corruption of Vladimir Putin’s regime. This cost him his liberty and nearly his life,” European Parliament President David Sassoli said in announcing the award to Navalny. “Today’s prize recognizes his immense bravery and we reiterate our call for his immediate release.” […]
Six decades ago, a husband-and-wife team of archaeologists discovered the remains of a settlement on the windswept northern tip of Newfoundland. The site’s eight timber-framed structures resemble Viking buildings in Greenland, and archaeological artifacts found there — including a bronze cloak pin — are decidedly Norse in style.
Scientists now believe that this site, known as L’Anse aux Meadows, was inhabited by Vikings who came from Greenland. To this day, it remains the only conclusively identified Viking site in the Americas outside of Greenland.
[…] Pinning down the settlement’s age has been a challenge — radiocarbon measurements of artifacts from L’Anse aux Meadows span the entire Viking Age, from the late eighth through the 11th centuries.
[…] scientists presented what they think are new answers to this mystery. By analyzing the imprint of a rare solar storm in tree rings from wood found at the Canadian site, scientists have decisively pinned down when Norse explorers were in Newfoundland: the year A.D. 1021, or exactly 1,000 years ago.
[…] To determine when the site was occupied with greater precision, Dr. Dee and his colleagues analyzed three pieces of wood collected from L’Anse aux Meadows in the 1970s. Each piece, originating from a different tree and still bearing its outer bark, had been cleanly cut with a metal tool, perhaps an ax. That’s a giveaway this wood was cleaved by Vikings, said Margot Kuitems, an archaeologist at the University of Groningen, and a member of the team.
“The local people didn’t use metal tools,” she said.
Back in the laboratory, Dr. Kuitems cut a tiny amount of wood from each tree ring of each piece. It was like splitting hairs, she said. “I used a scalpel, but sometimes that was even too thick.” [microscopic images are available at the link]
[…] All that carbon originally came from Earth’s atmosphere. “It’s taken up with photosynthesis,” Dr. Dee said.
The vast majority of the carbon in the atmosphere is carbon 12, a stable atom with six protons and six neutrons. Only a fleeting fraction is radioactive carbon 14, also called radiocarbon. That isotope of carbon is produced when cosmic rays — high-energy particles from the sun or beyond the solar system — interact with atoms in Earth’s atmosphere.
Scientists who study cosmic rays used to think that these particles arrived in a relatively constant barrage, meaning that the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 in the atmosphere has largely remained steady over time. But then in 2012, researchers found two cedar trees in Japan that recorded inexplicably high levels of radiocarbon in their rings dating A.D. 774 to 775. That spike is now known as a Miyake event for its discoverer, Fusa Miyake, a cosmic ray physicist at Nagoya University in Japan. Other Miyake events have since been spotted in tree ring records, but they remain exceedingly rare.
“At the moment we only have three or four in all of the last 10,000 years,” Dr. Dee said.
But it just so happened that another Miyake event occurred during the Viking Age, in A.D. 992 to 993. Trees found worldwide record an uptick in carbon 14 around that time, and wood found at L’Anse aux Meadows should be no exception. In the hopes of pinning down the age of the Americas’ only confirmed Viking settlement, Dr. Dee and his colleagues turned to the unlikely marriage of dendrochronology — the study of tree rings — and astrophysics.
[…] The researchers found that their three pieces of wood all exhibited a pronounced increase in radiocarbon that began 28 rings before their outer bark. Ring 28 must correspond to the year A.D. 993, the team concluded. They ruled out earlier and later Miyake events based on the carbon 14 to carbon 12 ratios measured in the wood, which vary in known ways over centuries.
With a date now pinned to an inner tree ring, “all you need to do is count to when you get to the cutting edge,” Dr. Dee said. The three pieces of wood the team analyzed were all felled in 1021, the researchers calculated.
Until now, estimates of when L’Anse aux Meadows was occupied have very much been “guesstimates,” said Sturt Manning, an archaeologist at Cornell University and the director of the Cornell Tree Ring Laboratory, who was not involved in the research. “Here’s hard, specific evidence that ties to one year.” […]
quotetheunquotesays
“All anti-vaxxers are bastards”, Ontario edition.
This is a truly brilliant demonstration of how to be a disgusting prick: Here in Ontario, Canada, a member of provincial parliment has been using the name and image of a recently deceased woman, without permission (of course), to shore up his fake anti-vaccine theories. The woman’s family has strongly objected, but their opinions (of course) are not important compared to the promotion of the Holy Cause.
A Cambridge, Ont., woman is outraged after her late sister’s photo and personal information were used without permission in anti-vaccination social media posts by an Ontario member of provincial parliament (MPP).
Farisa Navab, 20, died on Sept. 11 from a rare autoimmune disease.
On Tuesday, images of Navab and 10 other people appeared on the social media of Randy Hillier, an Independent MPP for Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston. The posts suggested they died after having a “permanent adverse reaction shortly after receiving their first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“It’s straight up lies,” said Ammarah Navab, noting her sister died of a genetic disorder.
The MPP in question, Randy Hillier, is a long-time anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist; I don’t know if he thinks fluoride in our drinking water is contaminating his Precious Bodily Fluids, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he did.
More, including a screen of Hillier’s social media post, at the CBC.
quotetheunquotesays
Oh, BTW, @136: Also brilliant, but in an entirely different way! I’ve been to L’anse aux Meadows – the reconstruction of the village is well worth seeing (as are the original mounds upon which it is all based, of course).
I could not help but think, though, just how unfortunate it was that the Greenlander settlers stopped just there, though – I was visting in August and already dreary and rather cold!
The trouble surrounding the Trump National Golf Club Westchester may become the latest in a long line of legal headaches for the former president.
Donald Trump was already facing a criminal inquiry, multiple civil suits, and criminal charges against his private business when things took a turn for the worse yesterday.
The New York Times reported that the district attorney’s office in suburban Westchester County, N.Y., recently subpoenaed records from his local golf course, Trump National Golf Club Westchester, and the town of Ossining, which sets property taxes on the course. […] the district court appeared to be interested in whether the Trump Organization “misled local officials about the property’s value to reduce its taxes.”
If you saw Rachel’s report on this last night, you know these suspicions of wrongdoing aren’t coming out of nowhere. [video is available at the link]
[Trump] owns a large golf course about an hour north of New York City, and like other property owners in the community, the Trump National Golf Club Westchester has to pay property taxes. […] tax assessors visit properties, make assessments about their value, and property owners are expected to pay taxes accordingly. As the Washington Post noted, the process with the Trump National Golf Club Westchester has not gone smoothly.
The Trump Organization had challenged the property valuation for its Westchester club for every year since 2015. That process — used by many real estate companies — typically requires a company to submit data about its property’s financial performance, as evidence that it is worth less than the initial assessment.
[…] The Trump Organization tried to dramatically reduce its tax bill by arguing that the golf club was worth far less than tax assessors claimed. In fact, when local officials assessed the property’s value, they assigned it a $15 million assessment.
The Trump Organization appealed, arguing that the real value was $1.4 million.
There was, however, a separate claim that contradicted the business’ self-assessment. In 2016, then-candidate Trump had to file a financial disclosure statement about his assets — and at the time, he said his Westchester club was valued at over $50 million.
In other words, he told the federal government his club was worth over $50 million, while at the same time telling the local government his club was worth $1.4 million.
Why would he do that? Largely to lower the property tax bill he was supposed to pay, but didn’t want to.
[…] deliberately misvaluing property, in order to evade taxes, is illegal. Looking for ways to reduce tax burdens is fine, criminal misconduct is not.
[…] no charges have been filed against the Trump Organization […] District attorneys’ offices examine potential wrongdoing all the time without filing charges, and this investigation may quietly fade away. [I doubt that.]
But given the available details, no one should be surprised if this becomes the latest in a long line of legal headaches for [Trump].
North Carolina state representative Mike Clampitt swore an oath to uphold the Constitution after his election in 2016 and again in 2020. But there’s another pledge that Clampitt said he’s upholding: to the Oath Keepers, a right-wing militant organization.
Dozens of Oath Keepers have been arrested in connection to the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, some of them looking like a paramilitary group, wearing camo helmets and flak vests. But a list of more than 35,000 members of the Oath Keepers — obtained by an anonymous hacker and shared with ProPublica by the whistleblower group Distributed Denial of Secrets — underscores how the organization is evolving into a force within the Republican Party.
ProPublica identified Clampitt and 47 more state and local government officials on the list, all Republicans: 10 sitting state lawmakers; two former state representatives; one current state assembly candidate; a state legislative aide; a city council assistant; county commissioners in Indiana, Arizona and North Carolina; two town aldermen; sheriffs or constables in Montana, Texas and Kentucky; state investigators in Texas and Louisiana; and a New Jersey town’s public works director.
ProPublica’s analysis also found more than 400 people who signed up for membership or newsletters using government, military or political campaign email addresses, including candidates for Congress and sheriff […]
“Five or six years ago, politicians wouldn’t be caught dead hanging out with Oath Keepers, you’d have to go pretty fringe,” said Jared Holt, who monitors the group for the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. “When groups like that become emboldened, it makes them significantly more dangerous.”
The hacked list marks participants as annual ($50) or lifetime ($1,000) members, so not everyone on the list is currently active, though some said they viewed it as a lifelong commitment even if they only paid for one year. Many members said they had little contact with the group after sending in their dues but still supported the cause. Others drifted away and disavowed the group, even before Jan. 6.
[…] According to experts who monitor violent extremism, the Oath Keepers’ broadening membership provides the group with two crucial resources: money and, particularly when government officials get involved, legitimacy.
[…] the amount of Black Americans incarcerated in state prisons is nearly five times that of white Americans and one in 81 Black adults per 100,000 nationwide is incarcerated in state prison.
No states come off looking good in this report but there are certainly some states that stand out more than others. For example, Wisconsin has the highest rate of incarceration of Black adults in state prison.
Just 6% of the population in Wisconsin is Black. Yet 42% of adults incarcerated in Wisconsin state prisons are Black. The rate of imprisonment is staggering: Black adults are imprisoned in state facilities nearly 12 times the rate of white Wisconsinites.
[…] Problems with data extend to four states in particular that don’t account for their Latinx state prison population: Alabama, Maine, Michigan, and Vermont.
Already, the report has raised concerns about incarceration in states like Kansas. On Wednesday, the Kansas City Star issued a staff editorial condemning the high rate in which Black Kansans find themselves imprisoned in state facilities. The rate of Black adults incarcerated in state prisons in Kansas is six times higher than for White adults.
“Kansas officials must take steps to reduce the state’s minority prison population,” the editorial notes. “For starters, minor infractions that send substance abusers and others to prison must be decriminalized.”
The report calls for similar reforms, along with enacting proportional sentencing and implementing racial impact statements, which allow for lawmakers to seek alternatives to harsh punitive legislation and consider their outcomes. This could all be achieved with the passage of bills like the First Step Implementation Act and the drafting of new legislation that explicitly focuses on racial impact statements.
On Wednesday evening, Donald Trump’s get-around-the-ban surrogate on Twitter, Liz Harrington, issued a statement announcing the formation of the “Trump Media and Technology Group” (TMTG). Most of the attention focused on this missive has been centered around the announcement of something called “TRUTH Social”—also known as yet-another-Trump-focused-Twitter-clone. But that’s not the real point of TMTG. The real point is that this is a scheme through which Trump can collect several hundred million dollars, even if his new social platform never posts a tweet, or a toot, or a fart, or whatever they end up being called.
The truth behind TRUTH Social is right there in the first paragraph of the announcement, which is not focused on the technology behind the platform, or anything that Trump is bringing to the table. Instead, that paragraph is dedicated to explaining how the project has been given “an initial enterprise value of $875 million” and “a cumulative valuation up to $1.7 billion.” Which is amazing, because what it seems to have is nothing more than a credit line and some highly generic code that was hacked within minutes of the beta address becoming known.
No sooner had the first test invites been handed out than someone spoofed Trump’s account and posted, well, as Daily Beast contributor Steven Monacelli accurately puts it, “a photo of a pig defecating on its own scrotum.” Two hours after it first went up, the whole site came down.
However, it doesn’t matter if the site ever sticks its head above the waste pool again. Because that’s not the point. Donald Trump is potentially walking about with $340 million, even if it fails completely. That’s the point.
What Trump is attempting here is something called a SPAC, or Special Purpose Acquisition Companies. It’s also known as a “reverse merger” or a “blank check company.” It’s a scheme in which some low-value shell company that’s already listed on a stock market “buys” a private company, then relists itself under the name of that new company. In almost all cases, what’s really going on is that the private company is just taking over the empty husk of that shell company—a company that may have existed for no other purpose than to serve as a placeholder for some future SPAC.
Why go through these steps? Because getting listed on a stock exchange generally requires clearing a number of hurdles, including meeting requirements from the Securities and Exchange Commission. SPACS can just pop into existence, taking a fast track to a stock listing while dodging almost every qualifying step.
The whole idea of the SPAC is relatively new, and in the last year they’ve really taken off. In some cases, these schemes have allowed start ups to jump immediately to market, capitalizing on interest in new technology or rising industries. Among others, several small electric car companies made a sudden appearance on NASDAQ last year after taking over the corpses of fading corporations.
But there’s one particular kind of SPAC that’s described in this article from Mergers and Acquisitions. A kind known as the “celebrity SPAC.”
First, a “celebrity” or another notable person (the “Sponsor”) raises capital by taking an empty holding company (the SPAC) public in an IPO. This SPAC then uses the cash proceeds from the IPO and a large stock issuance to acquire a private company, making it public.
That’s exactly what’s happening with TMTG. Teenage Mutant Turtle Gropers—sorry, that’s Trump Media and Technology Group—doesn’t have to rival Twitter. It doesn’t even have to threaten whatever “conservative social media platforms” are still limping along out there. It just has to collect investors. Because this:
Unlike IPOs, however, the Sponsor gets a 20% stake, called a “Promote,” and there’s much less regulatory scrutiny. Oh, and this “Sponsor” invests almost nothing in exchange for this 20% stake.
Remember the numbers on how this was being “valued” in Trump’s announcement? That’s right. This is an attempt by Trump to scam between $175 million and $340 million with essentially no investment and no effort. As the article explains, the “sponsor” can walk away with a bundle, “even if the SPAC performs horribly and the share price plummets, while normal investors will lose everything.”
Trump already has a good idea how this works, because, as CNBC noted in 2020, former Trump adviser Gary Cohn put together a SPAC worth a potential $600 million (and $120 million directly to Cohn) when it formed a “blank check” holding company whose entire purpose seems to be simply to get people to buy into shares. A SPAC of this variety is nothing more than a exchange-based Ponzi scheme in which the original Ponzi is guaranteed to walk away with a mountain of cash.
TMTG isn’t a social media platform. It’s a scam. Trump does need another social media platform. He needs suckers willing to buy stock. And Trump has always been very, very good at locating suckers.
So while it’s fun to point out that TRUTH Social has some of the most restrictive rules of any platform, including rules that prohibit criticizing TRUTH Social, it doesn’t really matter. The whole platform can be sh#t pigs all the way down. It can collapse under its own incompetence. None of that means a thing. What matters to Trump is that he gets to walk away with a bundle.
Not every SPAC is a scam. […] But of the $82 billion raised through SPACS in 2020, a large amount is either super speculative investment or an outright scam. Which lead the Harvard Business Review to note last February that the SPAC bubble was looking very fragile. Once it became clear that this was a way to drub investors for ready cash, everyone wanted in.
Trump isn’t being innovative in his technology. He’s not even being innovative in his scam. […]
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) on Thursday compared a 2016 congressional sit-in led by the late civil rights hero Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
It was just the latest in Republican attempts to minimize the mob attack on Congress earlier this year. But it was an especially extreme example: Lewis led the day-long sit-in in the House chamber, joined by several other lawmakers, to build pressure for gun control legislation.
“Where is the heart of this body?” Lewis said in a speech at the start of the sit-in, which came a few days after the Orlando nightclub mass shooting that left 49 people dead. “Where is our soul? Where is our moral leadership? Where is our courage?”
The members of Congress who participated in the sit-in, Gohmert told Attorney General Merrick Garland in a hearing, actually committed the crime of which so many Capitol attackers now stand accused: Obstructing an official proceeding.
“On June 22 of 2016, judge, most of the Democrat members of Congress took over the House floor, and, for the first time in American history, members of Congress obstructed official proceedings,” Gohmert said.
“Not for 4 to 6 hours, but for virtually 26 hours,” he continued. “Not just violating over a dozen House rules, but actually committing the felony that some of the Jan. 6 people are charged with.”
Gohmert noted that “nobody has been charged” for the sit-in, despite Jan. 6 defendants being “viciously” prosecuted for the same thing.
“Those kinds of things — where you let Democrat members of Congress off for the very thing that you’re viciously going after people that were protesting on Jan. 6 — gives people the indication that there is a two-tiered justice system here in America,” the congressman said.
Later in the hearing of the House Judiciary Committee Thursday, Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) called Gohmert’s comparison “disgraceful.” […]
Comments from readers of the article:
Hey, remember when Rep. Lewis savagely beat Capitol police with fire extinguishers and Trump flags?
Yah, me neither.
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To be fair, here he [Lewis] is violently smashing an innocent police baton with his head. [Photo of John Lewis being beaten by a cop with a baton.]
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It’s easy to dismiss this coming from crackpot Gohmert, but by the end of the day this will be a mainstream Republican talking point, it will be all over Fox News, and will start to be repeated by right wing leaning prosecutors and judges.
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They were talking about GOP attempts to sanitize the insurrection this morning on Morning Joe. Everyone on the panel agreed that you can whitewash a thing people didn’t see or hear, you can whitewash history, but what you can’t do is convince people that a thing they watched unfold didn’t happen. Sure, their voters will lie and tell pollsters or whomever that it was no big deal, but they’re lying. Same with Gohmert and all the other GOPers trying to convince people they didn’t see what they saw. I’d wager that we’re gonna see lots and lots of Dem ads next year with footage of the insurrection raging in the background while some GOPer compares the insurrectionists to Rosa Parks.
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Whitewashing the insurrection would be saying it didn’t happen or nothing really all that bad happened. The position they’re settling on, however, is that J6 was righteous and awesome. They’re going to make it a national holiday.
[…] Camembert [is] a national symbol that French people are very proud of, but recently Italian mozzarella outsold camembert in France. Has there been a major change in the hearts and minds of the French? Meanwhile, small and industrial-scale producers of camembert have been waging a war over the brand. What’s the traditional recipe, and how do you choose a good camembert?
I’ve not only never squeezed a Camembert, I’ve never seen anyone do that. Albeit when I buy cheeses, it’s usually from a specialist professional cheesemonger (fromager·ère), who typically offer samples. The mildly deranged penguin, when she simply doesn’t just run through the fromagerie collecting the cheeses, prefers to go to the source and hunts them down wherever they roam. She’s also confused by that Almost as important introduction, and is looking at me very darkly…
The House of Representatives voted to refer Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice for contempt of Congress. (Bannon refused to comply with subpoena.)
Nine (9!) Republicans voted with Democrats for the contempt referral. These days, nine is a big number of Republicans who are reasonable. That’s kinda of sad. It means the rest of the Republicans voted that, essentially, anyone subpoenaed by Congress can just ignore that call to testify.
Congress is trying to get answers about an attack on our democracy. House Republicans suggested today that they’re largely indifferent to those answers.
On the surface, this seemed like a straightforward dispute. Steve Bannon has important insights to share about the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol; he was subpoenaed to cooperate with a bipartisan investigation; and he refused. In fact, the former White House strategist said he couldn’t comply with the subpoena because Donald Trump didn’t want him to.
For the committee investigating the insurrectionist riot, this wasn’t acceptable. Congressional subpoenas are not supposed to be optional. They are not casual invitations. The more people feel they can ignore these legal commands from federal lawmakers — at the behest of a former president who is now a private citizen — the more difficult it is for Congress to do its job.
Earlier this week, the House select committee voted unanimously to hold Bannon in contempt. This afternoon […] the full House voted to do the same.
[…] The matter will now be referred to the U.S. attorney’s office in the nation’s capital for possible prosecution. Whether Bannon will actually be charged is not at all clear, and such cases are quite rare.
[…] Bannon is a Republican; he’s shielding information at the behest of a former Republican president; that same former Republican president bears responsibility for the attack on the Capitol; and so it stood to reason that Republican House members, the vast majority of whom want to stay on Donald Trump’s good side, would vote “no” today.
[…] as historian Kevin Kruse noted this week, “During Watergate, most Republicans — whatever their politics, whatever they thought of the president — supported efforts to secure evidence and witness testimony. They believed defending their branch of government was more important than defending their party’s leader.”
Those days are long gone. GOP politics has changed spectacularly since those earlier controversies.
Indeed, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy suggested yesterday that he doesn’t even consider the Jan. 6 committee that issued the subpoena to be a “real” committee. Soon after, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise formally urged GOP members to oppose the resolution. [Dunderheads]
All but nine followed the Republican leadership’s directive:
Liz Cheney of Wyoming
Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
Peter Meijer of Michigan
Fred Upton of Michigan
Nancy Mace of South Carolina
John Katko of New York
Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania
Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington
On the one hand, nine is an embarrassingly low number. On the other hand, given the state of Republican politics in 2021, nine is also a larger number than I expected. […]
The last time layoff totals were this low, the pandemic hadn’t even started in earnest. The numbers are starting to look … normal.
The week before President Joe Biden’s inauguration, weekly unemployment claims were still a painfully high 886,000. CNBC reported this morning on the newest data from the Labor Department, which offers the best news on layoffs we’ve seen in quite a while.
Weekly jobless claims hit another pandemic-era low last week as the elimination of enhanced benefits sent fewer people to the unemployment line. First-time filings for unemployment insurance totaled 290,000 for the week ended Oct. 16, down 6,000 from the previous period, the Labor Department reported Thursday. This was the second week in a row that claims ran below 300,000.
[…] it was in March 2020 when jobless claims first spiked in response to the Covid-19 crisis, climbing to over 3 million. That weekly total soon after reached nearly 7 million as the economy cratered. For 55 consecutive weeks, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits was worse than at any time during the Great Recession.
[…] And now, finally, we’ve seen two weeks in a row in which jobless claims have dipped below 300,000.
Indeed, what we’re approaching is something resembling normalcy. […]
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio loves few things more than a bombastic interrogation, so long as he’s doing the interrogating. But when it came to answering a few meaningful questions while on the witness stand at a congressional hearing Wednesday, Jordan folded like an amateur in Vegas.
Nearly three months ago, Jordan admitted in an interview with Spectrum News that he had spoken with Donald Trump on Jan. 6, but he also maintained he couldn’t recall exactly when. Jordan has had 84 days since that interview to go back and check the record for specifics, as House Rules Committee Chair Jim McGovern of Massachusetts noted during Wednesday’s hearing on whether the House should take up Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s contempt charge.
“Did you talk to the former president before, during, or after the attack on the Capitol—or was it all three?” McGovern asked Jordan, who was testifying against sending the contempt resolution to the House floor.
Jordan dodged. “Of course I talked to the president—I’ve been clear about that. I talk to him all the time,” he offered. “This is not about me, Mr. Chairman.”
Au contraire, Congressman. In fact, Jordan may have dodged his way right into a subpoena, a prospect that Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania called a “very serious possibility” on MSNBC following the Rules Committee hearing.
Dean doesn’t sit on the Jan. 6 committee, but she noted, “What we see from somebody like a Jim Jordan is an inability to string together a sentence because he would have to be trying to tell the truth or hiding the truth.”
Well said. When you’re under oath, flat-out lying about the truth becomes perilous, which is why Jordan declined to directly answer the question.
[…] Because virtually no House Republicans want Bannon spilling the beans about the planning of the Jan. 6 attack. No [Republican] wants Bannon talking about the Jan. 5 Willard Hotel war room, where Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, coup architect John Eastman, and others worked the phones to convince congressional Republicans to vote against certifying the election results the following day. Ultimately, roughly two-thirds of the House GOP caucus opposed certification without a shred of verifiable evidence to support their objections.
Let’s just note here that right outside the Willard Hotel on January 5 were members of various extremist militia groups who, on January 6, started their march toward the Capitol before Trump was even finished speaking. Why were those guys standing around outside the Willard Hotel?
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, vice chair of the select committee on Jan. 6, has also been absolutely sticking it to her GOP colleagues. Before the Jan. 6 panel voted to hold Bannon in contempt Tuesday, Cheney posited that Trump and Bannon may have been “personally involved” in organizing the Capitol attack and urged her GOP colleagues to do their “duty to prevent the dismantling of the rule of law.”
On Wednesday, Cheney came straight back at House Republicans as she testified before the Rules Committee in favor of sending the contempt resolution to the House floor.
“As you think about how you will answer when history asks, What did you do when Congress was attacked, when a mob, provoked by a president, tried to use violence to stop us from carrying out our constitutional duty to count electoral votes—when a mob, provoked by a president, tried to overturn the results of an election?” Cheney said, in remarks aired on MSNBC. “Will you be able to say you did everything possible to ensure Americans got the truth about those events? Or did you look away? Did you make partisan excuses and accept the unacceptable?”
Cheney also revealed that GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy has been putting the squeeze on House Republicans to help cover up details about the Capitol siege.
[…] On Thursday, Cheney was back on the House floor making sure Americans know that Bannon forecasted the mayhem of Jan. 6 even before it happened.
“I urge all Americans to watch what Mr. Bannon said on his podcast on Jan. 5 and 6. It is shocking and indefensible,” Cheney said, during debate before the House vote on Bannon’s contempt charge. “He said, ‘All hell is going to break loose.’ He said, ‘We are coming in right over the target. This is the point of attack we have always wanted.'”
[…] Trump himself will only make things worse, as he continues to demand unequivocal fealty from congressional Republicans. Amid an already tense week in the probe for Republicans, Trump poured more gas on the fire.
“The insurrection took place on November 3, Election Day,” Trump said Thursday in a statement. “January 6 was the Protest!”
That puts the Republican Party squarely in the anti-democracy camp. Exercising one’s peaceful right to vote against Republicans is now treasonous, according to Trump and his lock-step GOP allies. And the “protest,” as Trump put it, will include a trip to the gallows for anyone who falls afoul.
blf @144, I too have never squeezed a camembert. I think I might like to squeeze one. We’ll see.
I don’t have access to a professional cheesemonger (fromager·ère), but I wish I did. Also, samples sound like a very good idea.
Alas, these days I order online. Someone else puts the cheese I order in a bag and brings that out for curbside pickup. The camembert story made me miss shopping in person.
Many female city employees in Kabul were told by the Taliban not to return to work, bolstering fears that the gains made by women in Afghanistan over the last two decades may be stripped away under the new regime, The Washington Post reported.
The female employees told not to return included many working in education and health, as well as other areas, said Neamatullah Barakzai, the Kabul head of public awareness, according to the Post. The government will reportedly continue to pay their wages as officials determine a work policy for women.
Last month, the interim mayor for the city said that only women who had jobs that could not be replaced by men could return to work.
The comments are a far cry from what the Taliban had originally promised earlier this year, claiming that women could pursue career paths and education, things that were previously out of reach when the military group controlled the country in the 1990s. The Taliban have also pledged to recognize the rights of women under their Islamic framework.
Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told NBC News in late August, amid the final days of the United States’ withdrawal, that women could be “doctors, teachers, be educated and can work to benefit society.”
“They are our sisters, we must show them respect. They should not be frightened. The Taliban are humans and from this country. They fought for our country. Women should be proud of us, not scared,” he added.
Taliban acting Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Salam Hanafi said on Wednesday as Moscow hosted talks with the Taliban and other nations that passport offices and police stations would continue to employ women, according to The Post.
Oh shitfuckdamn, the geopolitical crisis starts NOW, and we hate to say it, but it’s the drag queens’ fault. Which ones? All of them, obviously, but specifically some drag queens in Vermont at a football game. Pantshitting Christian Right weirdos are upset about it, that much is to be expected, but we didn’t realize there was going to be maybe World War 3, but HERE WE ARE.
Charlie Kirk explains, in one of those white cisgender male rants that he imagines comes off far tougher than it does in reality, that the drag queens in Vermont are but one way “transgender garbage” is taking over America and will somehow lead to the Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
Don’t say it doesn’t make sense, it’s not supposed to make sense […] [Video available at the link.]
CHARLIE KIRK: At a high school in Vermont, just to kind of show the state of the nation, what are they doing during a high school football game? Oh, they’re having a drag show. […] This is a report of a local news outlet that a high school, a public high school, has a – this is in Burlington, Vermont, the godless, soulless, Burlington, Vermont – they have a drag show.
They did! It was homecoming, and it was cute and faculty even participated and Charlie Kirk is having a pantshit about that.
So Charlie played the clip of fun people in Vermont having fun and nobody being hurt by it, then came back MAD because he was MAD.
KIRK: Kids on TikTok are saying that they are using “demon” as a pronoun. No joke. It’s a new thing, that — and of course, it’s not a spiritual war, everybody, nothing to see here …
Hahahahaha, kids these days. We have no idea what the TikTok trend is. All we can tell you is that if you google “demon” and “TikTok” you will find such notable luminaries as Kirk and also Steven Crowder having a pantshit about it, and literally nobody else. So we are sure it’s a very serious issue in American society.
KIRK: Dave Chapelle is now being potentially cancelled for being hilarious.
No it’s because he’s an asshole. And spoiler, but he’s not very funny anymore. There was a time. That time is not now.
KIRK: And it all ties together, all of this. The hyper-sensitivity, the inactivity, the anarcho-tyranny
Charlie knows words.
KIRK: But don’t worry everybody, according to the US State Department it is International Pronoun Day. Everything’s great. It is international pronoun day.
We had not heard! But apparently it is and the State Department tweeted about it and you know who’s mad about that? Only the worst, most useless people this country ever produced.
Here is where China sees a drag show in Vermont and has such a conniption it bombs Taiwan:
KIRK: Meanwhile, China is testing scientific — no, hypersonic missiles. If I was Xi Jinping and I saw that Netflix employees are walking out over saying gender is a fact, if I were Xi Jinping and I saw drag queen halftime show, I would take Taiwan over lunch.
Good thing Xi Jinping is not dealing with whatever psychosexual issues seem to haunt poor Charlie Kirk!
KIRK: And the State Department says it’s International Pronoun Day. This is a real thing — and, oh, Media Matters will love this — the transgender garbage is making America a dangerous place. It allows our enemies an opportunity to take us over.
Hahahahaha OK. You bet. But how, though? How does this give our enemies an opportunity? Is the State Department so busy watching fabulous drag shows and tweeting about pronouns that it has no idea China is doin’ missile stuff? Is that the job of the social media person at State, to monitor Chinese missile activity?
How, Charlie? Show your work.
As for Kirk saying “transgender garbage,” oh boy, he sure is fishing for a reaction to that one, isn’t he? Some outrage? Some evidence he has just owned the libs? What a very big man with very tough words he is!
If you watch the video, you can see how ragey he gets when he’s about to say it, but also kind of excited. We imagine his heart-rate accelerated just a bit. And then you can see him kinda gulp and take a breath afterward, like he’s telling himself yeah, he just stood up to transgender people who have done nothing to harm him, and yet obviously make him so uncomfortable.
The point is, Charlie Kirk can go fuck himself.
Hey remember that time Tucker Carlson had a personal masculinity crisis over pregnant troops and Black women troops’ hairstyles, because he thought the Chinese military was so manly and he wanted us to be just like the big strong masculine hairy Chinese military?
Our point is that these white conservative men get shrinkage over the strangest things, but they are always the same things.
We’d ask a psychologist what they thought about this but it doesn’t seem necessary.
Worsening conflict within and between nations. Increased dislocation and migration as people flee climate-fueled instability. Heightened military tension and uncertainty. Financial hazards.
The Biden administration released several reports Thursday about climate change and national security, laying out in stark terms the ways in which the warming world is beginning to significantly challenge stability worldwide.
The documents, issued by the departments of Homeland Security and Defense as well as the National Security Council and director of national intelligence, mark the first time that the nation’s security agencies collectively communicated the climate risks they face.
The reports include warnings from the intelligence community about how climate change can work on numerous levels to sap the strength of a nation. For example, Middle Eastern countries like Iraq and Algeria could be hit by lost revenue from fossil fuels, even as the region faces worsening heat and drought. The Pentagon warned that food shortages could lead to unrest, along with fights between countries over water. […]
A battle is raging at the heart of the European Union over accusations that its two most right-wing governments are subverting democratic principles and offering inspiration to populist parties across Europe. The E.U. accuses Poland of undermining the entire 27-nation union by asserting that its domestic laws take precedence over shared European law. Poland is the first member state to do so, and E.U. leaders say the move threatens the very foundations of the bloc. […]
A Pennsylvania prosecutor on Thursday said it’s “simply not true” that Philadelphia riders “callously” did nothing to stop a woman from being sexually assaulted on a commuter train.
The attack last week on a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) train made for national headlines with commuters being painted as cold-hearted travelers who not only failed to intervene, but stopped to record the rape with their phones.
However, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer insisted that version events is not accurate.
“There is a narrative out there people sat on the El train and watched this transpire and took videos of it for their own gratification,” Stollsteimer said, using local nickname for SEPTA’s Market-Frankford line.
“That is simply not true. It did not happen. We have the security video from SEPTA that shows that was not the true narrative,” he said.
Stollsteimer blamed SEPTA for painting an inaccurate picture.
“I think it really came from SEPTA officials,” Stollsteimer told reporters. “I saw the video where they talked about ‘these people,’ acting like there was a group of people just callously recording this incident.”
Fiston Ngoy, 35, was arrested and accused of the Oct. 13 assault in Upper Darby, officials said.
Upper Darby Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt and SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch on Monday both squarely blamed riders for not coming to the woman’s aid during the attack.
Stollsteimer conceded that some riders might have caught a glimpse of the assault, but didn’t realize what they were seeing.
“It was not very crowded at all, sparsely crowded, and it’s moving,” he said. “So this is an incident that’s happening over time. So people are getting in and out of the car. They may not all have been aware at any time of what would happen previously.”
[…] So, 1.) the economy is improving from where it was when Donald Trump was in the White House, thankyouverymuch. And 2.) Dude, supply chains need infrastructure. Democrats are trying to pass infrastructure. Republicans are blocking the way.
Again, it’s sort of pointless to try to pick apart what McCarthy is arguing in this letter [House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s letter to President Biden] because coherence or consistency is not the point. The point is being seen to always oppose everything Democrats do, and to convince people who aren’t paying much attention that what Democrats are doing is exacerbating supply chain problems without even beginning to sketch out a theory of how that is true. He’s taking two big complicated things—the global supply chain and Democratic efforts to pass hard infrastructure and social infrastructure bills—and trying to mash them up together without explanation, or even the acknowledgement that the Democratic legislation he’s fussing about has yet to pass.
[…] In a long letter addressed to President Joe Biden but really intended to be quoted on Fox News and OAN, McCarthy repeatedly tried to link supply chain problems—which are a complicated result of pandemic shutdowns, pandemic shifts in demand, and decades of just-in-time manufacturing and supply, among other things—to legislation that Democrats haven’t even passed yet. Maybe his most hilariously dishonest move comes in the letter’s very first paragraph, where he claimed that “Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to work on bipartisan solutions to improve our infrastructure.” This after House Republican leaders—of whom he is No. 1—whipped against passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill that had drawn 19 Republican votes in the Senate. […]
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Declaring “no more government handouts,” millions of America’s children are demanding that all future salary payments to Senator Joe Manchin be tied to a work requirement.
Tracy Klugian, who is nine years old, said that Manchin’s current arrangement, in which he is paid for no work whatsoever, amounts to “an obscene ripoff of the American taxpayer.”
“Our message to Senator Manchin is clear,” she said. “Your years of feeding at the socialist trough are over.”
But Jake Pearlgon, who is eleven, believes that a work requirement for Manchin might be the wrong approach. “Actually, it would be better if he worked less,” he said.
I like Sabine Hossenfelder’s science videos, they are brief without dumbing down the subject.
“don’t fall for quamtum hype” https://youtu.be/b-aGIvUomTA
I am forwarding this because it pertains to blatantly immoral religious scriptures, and the need for religious people to have the courage to acknowledge the reality of such repugnant passages.
This example is from islam, but the old testament also comes to mind.
“Covardience or courage?” https://youtu.be/_uWzagN2jW0
birgerjohanssonsays
Horror films or horrible films.
”Vijayendra Varma: Power of an Indian” review by Diamanda Hagan.
This is the Indian/Hindu answer to the islamic “International Guerrillas” and it is excruciatingly bad. So bad it’s good? https://youtu.be/4ymyVBiSBtk
Thanks to Harris Sultan, I learned someone named Sabboor had been dissing evolution on muslim social media. It was assumed he was a biologist, maybe even an evolutionary biologist but it now turns out his field is “the philosophy of biology”.
Does biology even have a philosophy, beyond “if it replicates, it works” ?
[…] the Heritage Foundation hosted a notable event last night. The Washington Post reported:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell lauded Justice Clarence Thomas on Thursday night as a “legal titan” whose independence and courage are illustrated through his “jurisprudence on unborn life.”
[…] it’s difficult to defend these circumstances. A conservative political group hosted an event for a conservative Supreme Court justice, who was in attendance for the celebration of himself. Congress’ most powerful Republican official — a man who has personally spearheaded a years-long campaign to politicize the federal judiciary — not only delivered a keynote address, he also specifically praised the justice’s work on a controversial issue that the Supreme Court will be considering in its next term.
Every time the high court considers abortion cases, McConnell said, “Justice Thomas writes a separate, concise opinion to cut through the 50-year tangle of made-up tests and shifting standards and calmly reminds everybody that the whole house of cards lacks a constitutional foundation.” The audience at the Heritage Foundation applauded in approval.
Is it any wonder why public confidence in the high court’s impartiality has waned?
Last fall, a Republican lawyer helped take the lead in Trump’s gambit to have the results of an election thrown out. Now he’ll oversee Texas elections.
For proponents of democracy, recent developments in Texas have been heartbreaking. Republican policymakers not only approved sweeping voting restrictions, they soon after drew a heavily gerrymandered district map and launched a wildly unnecessary “audit” of 2020 election results. […]
Yesterday, as this NBC News report made clear, the problems in the Lone Star State got a little worse.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appointed a lawyer who briefly represented former President Donald Trump in challenging the 2020 election results to be Texas’ next secretary of state. The lawyer, John Scott, will oversee next year’s contests, including Abbott’s own re-election battle, as well as a recently announced review of 2020 election results in four counties.
As a Texas Tribune report added, it was just days after Joe Biden was declared the president-elect when Scott “signed on as counsel to a lawsuit filed by Trump attempting to block the certification of Pennsylvania’s election.”
As Rachel explained on last night’s show, the lawyer later dropped out of the case, but that doesn’t change the fact that Scott literally helped take the lead in Trump’s absurd gambit to have the results of an election thrown out. Less than a year later, Abbott decided to put him in charge of administering all elections in the nation’s second largest state — including the re-election bid of the Republican governor who chose him for the job.
As my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones put it, “Abbott’s appointment of Scott as secretary of state places unmatched authority over Texas’ elections in the hands of a Trump loyalist who has endorsed the former president’s baseless lies about election fraud.”
What could possibly go wrong?
This comes on the heels of related news that the sham “audit” launched by Wisconsin Republicans will be led in part by a different Republican lawyer from the Trump administration who’s touted the Big Lie.
[…] Texas’ GOP governor [Abbott] said in a written statement yesterday, “John understands the importance of protecting the integrity of our elections” […]
Florida’s new surgeon general Dr. Joseph Ladapo during a press conference Thursday questioned the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines, denounced all mandates in workplaces and argued people would face more health repercussions by losing their jobs because they refused to comply with requirements…. Ladapo invoked anecdotal examples and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories to argue against the vaccines […]
“I mean, you hear these stories, people telling you what’s been happening in their lives — nurses, pregnant women who are being forced to sort of put something in their bodies that we don’t know all there is to know about yet,” the state surgeon general said. “No matter what people on TV tell you, it’s not true. We’re going to learn more about the safety of these vaccines.”
After needlessly questioning the safety of the vaccines, Ladapo went on to needlessly question the efficacy of the vaccines.
He added that Floridians should “stick with their intuition,” as opposed to following the guidance of public health officials who actually know what they’re talking about. Why the public at large is supposed to rely on what they intuitively believe might be true, despite not having any background in epidemiology, is unclear.
Ladapo said all of this during an event with DeSantis — the governor who thought it’d be a good idea to make him the surgeon general of the state.
As unsettling as Ladapo’s weird rhetoric was, none of this came as a surprise. As we discussed last month, before taking office, the doctor spent much of the pandemic questioning the value of vaccines and the efficacy of masks, while simultaneously touting ineffective treatments such as hydroxychloroquine.
The editorial board of The Orlando Sentinel recently described Ladapo as a “COVID crank” who’s been “associated with a right-wing group of physicians whose members include a physician who believes infertility and miscarriages are the result of having sex with demons and witches during dreams.”
And as The Tallahassee Democrat reported two weeks ago, Ladapo’s “first act as surgeon general came a day after his appointment, when he issued an emergency rule that took away school authority to quarantine students exposed to those who tested positive” for Covid-19.
Florida has seen more than 3.6 million Covid-19 cases. The virus has claimed the lives of nearly 59,000 Floridians. The Sunshine State would benefit from having a leading public health official who believes in vaccines, masks, and sensible protections during a pandemic.
Instead, Floridians have DeSantis’ handpicked surgeon general, whose judgment appears to be getting worse, not better.
After months of largely avoiding calls to reform the filibuster while GOP senators were gleefully weaponizing it to obstruct his agenda, the President said during a TV town hall event last night that he’s had enough: It’s time to “fundamentally alter the filibuster.”
Biden suggested he might be open to eliminating the filibuster entirely.
Meanwhile, he proposed bringing back the “talking filibuster,” where senators would actually have to go up to the floor and speak.
Biden isn’t necessarily limiting his call for filibuster reforms to a carveout for voting rights or the debt limit either. He said potential changes to the filibuster could be extended to “maybe more” of his policy proposals.
[…] Jim Banks [Republican House member from Indiana], is apparently now trying to play dress up — pretending to be a member of the panel probing the insurrection.
And Liz Cheney made Banks’ bizarre maneuverings public on Thursday during a House floor speech. The remarks were made just before the full House voted 229-202 (with a surprising number of Republicans joining) to hold Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress. According to Cheney, Banks apparently has sent letters to various government agencies, claiming to be a ranking member of the Jan. 6 committee. He is most definitely not even a member of the committee, let alone a ranking one. […]
“I would like to introduce for the record a number of letters the gentlemen from Indiana has been sending to federal agencies, dated September 16, 2021, for example, signing his name as the ranking member of the committee [that] he’s just informed the House that he’s not on,” Cheney said during her House floor remarks today.
Here’s a video of her remarks […] [video is available at the link]
Both CNN and Politico obtained copies of one of Banks’ letters, sent to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. In that letter, Banks claimed to be a ranking member of the Jan. 6 committee and asserted that the “minority party” in Congress should be privy to the same information provided to the majority. He requested that any information Haaland shares with the select committee also be sent to him directly. You can read the short, weird letter here, courtesy of Politico reporter Olivia Beavers.
[…] Republicans had plenty of opportunities to get a commission or committee [January 6th investigative committee] in which they not only had complete control over who served on the Republican side but veto power over any significant action the body took. They refused that and after stonewalling for months ended up with one that gave the final say on membership to Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi accepted some McCarthy nominations but put her foot down in the case of two reps who are such consistent supporters of the Big Lie and the insurrection that it was absurd to place them on the committee investigating either. Now Jim Banks is sending letters to executive departments claiming that he is in fact that rightful ranking member (i.e., top Republican) on the committee.
The most generous read of this is that it’s yet more Trumper theater. It seems unlikely that any Biden appointee at any relevant department is going to get confused about who’s on the committee. They watch TV too. But it is of a piece with the larger story. We get to try to overthrow the Republic and equal billing on the committee charged with investigating what we did. We also get to stonewall and block the investigation from starting for months. But if you decide to do it without us – because we refused to participate – well, we still get to participate.
[…] We’ve spoken a lot about Trumpism as the grievance politics par excellence. Every political movement has grievances of some sort. There’s nothing wrong with that. Indeed, petitioning for the “redress of grievances” is literally written into the constitution. But Trumpism is basically all grievances and grievances in a way that is the flip side of accountability. Rules aren’t fair – when they’re applied to us. The law is “very unfair,” as Trump often puts it – when it’s applied to us. Elections are fair – as long as we win.
Is this privilege or lack of accountability or is it really simply a politics of power? It is really no different from the authoritarian impulse and hyper-masculinity politics that pervades Trumpism. We should have the power. Because we should. And anything that stands in the way of that is by definition unfair. Because we should have power.
[…] If the only legitimate power is yours then everything in a democracy turns out to be unfair. This kind of grievance politics masquerades as defensive when it is in fact purely aggressive.
When Mother Jones reported on Wednesday that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) had told associates he was considering quitting the Democratic Party and had a specific plan on how to do so, he told Capitol Hill reporters the article was “bullshit.” He was wrong. The sourcing was impeccable. Now he has shifted his stance and come up with a cover story—and that, too, is inaccurate.
In an interview with The Hill‘s Steve Clemons, who is a personal friend of Manchin (and of mine, too), Manchin said of the Mother Jones article, “What he reported is simply untrue… I’m not threatening to leave. Why would I? I’m very secure in my positions and honestly, I’m not the one stressed out.” Clemons writes:
“What is true,” Manchin told The Hill, “is that I have told the president, Chuck Schumer, and even the whole Caucus that if it is ‘embarrassing’ to them to have a moderate, centrist Democrat in the mix and if it would help them publicly, I could become an Independent—like Bernie—and then they could explain some of this to the public saying it’s complicated to corral these two independents, Bernie and me.”
Manchin characterized his offer as an effort that would help Biden and Schumer better explain the different perspectives in their caucus to Democrats
Manchin made a similar statement to Fox reporter Kelly Phares on Thursday morning. [available at the link]
Manchin’s spin has moved from a complete denial on Wednesday to a yes-but on Thursday, with an explanation that depicts Manchin as a senator generously considering a departure from the Democratic Party only to help Schumer and the other Democrats.
But that’s not what Manchin privately told associates in recent days. According to people who heard Manchin discuss a possible exit from the party, he described it as a move that would have happened if negotiations between himself and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and other Democrats over President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion social infrastructure bill broke down. Manchin has privately stated that he will not accept a Build Back Better package larger than $1.75 billion, and he has opposed key provisions, including Medicare and Medicaid expansion, an expanded child tax care credit, and measures to address climate change. The negotiations are still under way.
Explaining the farewell from the Democratic Party he was contemplating, Manchin recently told associates the first step would be for him to resign from his Democratic leadership position. (He is vice chair of the Senate Democrats’ policy and communications committee.) Then he would wait a week or so before taking the final step of changing his voter registration from Democrat to independent. He did not refer to this plan as a move to assist Schumer and the Democrats. He described it as a way to send a signal.
Manchin tells Clemons and Phares that if he were to leave the Democratic Party, he would not switch to the Republicans and would continue to caucus with the Democrats, which would allow them to retain control of the Senate. That is not inconsistent with how he talked to his associates about a departure from the Democratic Party. He told them that he would call himself an “American Independent.”
Manchin clearly was stung by the Mother Jones report. And in damage control mode, Manchin called BS on himself. Yet whether or not he was serious about leaving the party to influence the ongoing negotiations, he now is on the record saying that is not an option.
Yeah, he has been enjoying his power … obviously. And he was looking for a way to exert even more leverage over the Build Back Better negotiations. It was a pure power play, without any sense of how much he might be hurting his own constituents in West Virginia.
He comes across as an asshole, a liar and a flip-flopper.
One person died by suicide in Texas every two hours in 2019, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).
The Texas Health and Human Services Commission(HSSC), “which oversees suicide prevention in the state, found that since 2000, Texas has seen an overall increase in suicide mortality of 36%,” according to a February 2021 report from The Center Square, a self-described conservative news website.
“The rate of suicide mortality in women increased by 50% from 2000 to 2020, HHSC reports, and the rate of high school males who attempted suicide more than doubled. Suicide is now the second leading cause of death for individuals between ages 15 and 34 years old in Texas,” according to The Center Square.
[…]
The American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported in February 2019 that lesbian, gay and bisexual young people are five times more likely to attempt suicide than straight youths, indicating “a need to conduct suicide prevention activities across age groups, including youth.”
[…]
More than twice as many people died by suicide in Texas in 2017 than in alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents, according to the AFSP.
And how did Texas Gov. Greg Abbott respond to this? Two weeks ago he took offline a state website that offered help to homosexual young people who were contemplating suicide.
Why would Abbott do such a thing?
He did it because another ignorant and vicious right-wing politician — Abbott’s primary challenger — accused Hizzoner of “promoting transgender sexual policies to Texas youth.” That is: a state-sponsored suicide hotline was pandering to homosexuals. And youth.
“These are not Texas values, these are not Republican Party values, but these are obviously Greg Abbott’s values,” real estate developer Don Huffines said in a video that quickly went viral on Twitter. “That’s why we need a change. That’s what my campaign is about,” said Huffines, who represented the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the state Senate from 2015 to 2019.
The Houston Chronicle subsequently reported: “The webpage published by the Department of Family and Protective Services linked to a suicide prevention hotline and other resources ‘dedicated to helping empower and celebrate’ young LGBTQ people.
“Within hours, the webpage was gone.
“So was the entire website for the Texas Youth Connection, a division of Family and Protective Services that steers young people to various resources, including education, housing and those on its LGBTQ page as they prepare for life after foster care.”
Orphans, and children who have been in foster care, are even more likely to kill themselves, or try to, numerous studies have shown.
So now we know where Abbott’s sympathies lie, if he even knows what sympathy means, or ever felt it for anyone other than himself, or is capable of it:
Not with Texas, or children, or young people, orphans, but solely with Greg Abbott’s chances in the next election, running on what I call the “Go ahead and kill yourself, gay guys” platform.
That’s “cancel culture” with a vengeance.
Abbott did not reply to The New York Times’ request for comment, so I didn’t bother to call him.
I did try to contact Huffines, though.
No one answered calls to his real estate development company in Dallas.
His “Huffines for Governor” website (“Husband. Father. Patriot.”) does not include a phone number, which seems unusual in someone running for office……
His campaign website states, … “The blue wave election of 2018 resulted in Democrats taking virtually all of Dallas County, including Don’s seat in the Texas Senate. Nevertheless, Don remained determined to intensify the fight against harmful left-wing policies statewide and in the governor’s office.”
Left-wing policies in Greg Abbott’s office?
The governor who offers a $10,000 bounty for anyone who informs on any woman who seeks an abortion in Texas? And her doctor?
Abbott? Whose party has introduced more anti-gay legislation in the past year — particularly targeting young people and school boards — than any other three states combined? (I stopped counting after 27.)…..
So, Abbott, unhinged, and his no-hinges-at all primary challenger think the way to office today in big, strong, brave Texas is to pick on children, gay teenagers and orphans. Anything to propel them into the next rung on their greasy, pathetic ladders.
Wonkette: “Even Republicans Not Sure Why Democrats Keep Hoping Republicans Will Have Some Moral Epiphany”
When Republicans blocked the latest effort to pass a Stop Republicans From Cheating bill, Democrats gave some compelling speeches about democracy and our ongoing constitutional crisis. Meanwhile, former Republican Tom Nichols couldn’t understand why Democrats were acting like chumps incapable of rising to the seriousness of the moment.
He tweeted Wednesday:
I have long defended the filibuster because I think there are things that should not be decided 51/49, that should require a greater show of comity. But Barrett’s confirmation, in particular, made a mockery of that idea. This is hardball. Mitch plays it. Dems must play it too.
This is no longer a civic competition between two political parties. This is a direct competition between a coalition in favor of the rule of law and liberal democracy vs a party that has become Trump’s weird cult of personality and an authoritarian political movement.
The GOP is using a Senate rule to forestall legislative action against state-level authoritarian measures from a GOP base that is enraged at losing a fair election. So if it comes down to that one Senate rule or democracy itself, dump the rule and pass the bill. Mitch would.
Whenever it’s suggested that Democrats should go gangster on Republicans, the predictable response is that this would alienate independent voters, whom Democrats need in order to win in 2022 and 2024. We shouldn’t make former Republicans feel too bad about themselves, so let’s politely lie to them about “bipartisanship.” […]
What’s weird about this argument is that actual former Republicans are usually the most vocal about telling us that the current GOP is hot garbage. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has asked that “good” Republicans take back their party, but Nichols has repeatedly stated that the party is irredeemable. He worked for Republicans and voted Republican for 40 years, but he declared in a Washington Post op-ed prior to the 2018 midterms that the only way to truly cleanse the GOP was to vote against Republicans “in every race, at every level.”
The tough medicine Nichols prescribed was prescient. The GOP didn’t just blink in the face of Donald Trump’s moral abyss. Republicans who share his contempt for democracy have infiltrated school boards and state legislatures. All the while Democrats made the quixotic choice to treat Trump as an outlier. In 2019, candidate Joe Biden claimed that Republicans would have an “epiphany” after Trump was gone and magically become the decent people they never were in the first place.
“I just think there is a way, and the thing that will fundamentally change things is with Donald Trump out of the White House. Not a joke. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends,” Biden said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “It’s already beginning in the House now … If we can’t change, we’re in trouble.”
And if we can’t accept reality, we’re in trouble.
Even worse Republicans took office in 2021 — Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Tommy Tuberville. And supposed “good” Republicans such as Nancy Mace and Elise Stefanik doubled-down on MAGA because it was politically convenient.
Nicolle Wallace, once George W. Bush’s White House communications director, noted on her MSNBC show Wednesday that Democrats are deluding themselves if they believe there are any Republicans who might support voting rights legislation, in any form. [video available at the link]
Michael Steele, former Republican National Committee chair, agreed. He doesn’t understand why Democrats dither over the filibuster while Mitch McConnell kicks their asses on the regular. Shouldn’t they act like they won an election or three?
STEELE: This is raw power. That’s what this is … So the reality for Democrat is how do you want to play the power? What are you waiting for? … When it comes down to power and getting your agenda through … Mitch McConnell wouldn’t take a second breath about jettisoning the filibuster if it meant the GOP agenda would get done. I don’t see why the Democrats don’t see this. I get the niceties but baby I don’t get it, because you’re losing. You’re losing.
Pro-filibuster Democrats Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are a lost cause. We get that, but the clock is nonetheless ticking. Maybe it was never Republicans who needed to have a political epiphany. They saw reality quite clearly.
So, Abbott, unhinged, and his no-hinges-at all primary challenger think the way to office today in big, strong, brave Texas is to pick on children, gay teenagers and orphans. Anything to propel them into the next rung on their greasy, pathetic ladders.
That’s a good summary.
In other news about dunderheaded Republican politicians:
Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s an actual member of Congress, has said and done so many awful things that it’s impossible to catalog them all. She’s compared vaccine passports to the yellow Stars of David that Nazis forced Jews to wear before killing them. She’s stalked and bullied her Democratic colleagues. She promotes violence and insurrection as a personal brand.
Although she seems utterly shameless, she is apparently slightly embarrassed about that whole Jewish space lasers thing. She doesn’t like when people bring it up.
Thursday, Greene confronted Reps. Jamie Raskin and Liz Cheney as the House voted to hold walking Dorian Gray portrait Steve Bannon in contempt. Greene has confused Congress with professional wrestling so she just yelled nonsense at Raskin and Cheney like she was Big Bad Mama from “GLOW.”
CNN reports:
“This is a joke,” Greene said in a raised voice to Raskin and Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, engaging in an altercation with the pair in the middle of the House floor.
Then Greene walked closer and said directly to Raskin, “Why don’t you care about the American people?”
Obviously, they do, which is why they’re investigating a deadly attack on the US Capitol.
Greene demanded that Raskin and Cheney investigate “murders over the summer and BLM,” because she’s a gross racist. Congress is probably focusing on the January 6 insurrection because Congress was the target. This isn’t complicated.
Cheney called Greene a “joke,” which is fact check “true.” When Cheney alluded to the infamous “space lasers,” Greene shouted, “I never said that!” which is fact check “false.”
Back in 2018, Greene posted a Tolstoy-length diatribe on Facebook suggesting that the latest California wildfires weren’t the obvious result of climate change but in fact part of a larger globalist conspiracy involving lasers from outer space … “space lasers,” if you will.
Here’s just some of what this loon wrote:
I find it very interesting that Roger Kimmel on the board of directors of PG&E is also Vice Chairman of Rothschild Inc, international investment banking firm. I also find it interesting the long history of financial contributions that PG&E has made to Jerry Brown over the years and millions spent in lobbying. What a coincidence it must be that Gov. Brown signed a bill in Sept 2018 protecting PG&E and allowing PG&E to pass off its cost of fire responsibility to its customers in rate hikes and through bonds. It also must be just a coincidence that the fires are burning in the same projected areas that the 77 billion Dollar High Speed Rail Project is to be built, which also happens to be Gov Brown’s pet project. And what are the odds that Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum is the contractor to the rail project. Geez, with that much money, we could build 3 US southern border walls. Then oddly there are all these people who have said they saw what looked like lasers or blue beams of light causing the fires […]
Space solar generators collect the suns energy and then beam it back to Earth to a transmitter to convert to electricity. The idea is clean energy to replace coal and oil, if they are beaming the suns energy back to Earth, I’m sure they wouldn’t ever miss a transmitter receiving station right??!! I mean mistakes are never made when anything new is invented. What would that look like anyway? A laser beam or light beam coming down to Earth I guess. Could that cause a fire? Hmmm, I don’t know.
And two months later Greene was elected to Congress […]
Anti-semitic conspiracy theories involving the Rothschild family have a long, repulsive history. Greene even found a way to implicate Senator Dianne Feinstein and her third (and we assume final) husband, Richard Blum, who are both Jewish.
Greene might argue that she never said she believed there were space lasers. She was just asking (stupid) questions, but that’s just as bad, if not worse. People just “speculating” on social media and spreading deranged conspiracy theories have resulted in actual deaths from people refusing to get vaccinated. The joke isn’t funny anymore.
According to Raskin, Greene blamed the “mainstream media” for making people believe the space laser story. She should probably reserve her ire for Facebook, which posted her garbage in the first place.
Tens of millions of Americans can sign up to get Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters beginning Friday after the nation’s top public health official endorsed recommendations from expert advisers that the shots are safe and effective at bolstering protection against the coronavirus.
The green light from Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, means that eligible Americans at risk of severe disease can choose any of the three boosters now authorized in the United States regardless of their original shot.
“The evidence shows that all three COVID-19 vaccines authorized in the United States are safe — as demonstrated by the over 400 million vaccine doses already given,” Walensky said in a statement Thursday night, several hours after receiving unanimous recommendations from the expert panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. “And, they are all highly effective in reducing the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, and death, even in the midst of the widely circulating delta variant.”
[…] The availability of boosters will be particularly welcome to the 15 million recipients of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, many of whom have been particularly fearful of breakthrough infections given that shot’s lower level of protection compared with the messenger RNA vaccines.
“I agree that those who received a [Johnson & Johnson] vaccine should receive a second dose — I would prefer that those individuals get an mRNA vaccine” rather than a second Johnson & Johnson shot, said advisory panel member Pablo J. Sanchez, a pediatrician at Ohio State University.
Interchangeability of shots is also likely to speed booster vaccination in nursing homes and other institutional settings where residents received different shots during the early rollout. The Pfizer-BioNTech booster is already in use since it was authorized and recommended last month.
“I think the opportunity for these [mix and match] boosts [is] priceless,” said Helen Keipp Talbot, an infectious-disease doctor at Vanderbilt University and panel member.
[…] The FDA has authorized a third shot of Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech for anyone 65 and older, or any adults at high risk of severe illness because of underlying conditions, job exposure or because they are in institutional settings, and who have gone at least six months since their second dose.
It broadened eligibility much further for those who received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine to anyone 18 and older who has gone at least two months since getting the shot — criteria reflecting the lower protection afforded by that vaccine compared with the others. […]
When Kristina W. received her first dose of the coronavirus vaccine earlier this year, she was terrified. Until recently, she said, she believed that vaccines were so dangerous she was willing to “go into an all-out war” to protect her children from receiving any immunizations.
“I had this deep-rooted fear that they could, and possibly even would, kill my children,” said Kristina, 26, a mother of two who lives in New Mexico and spoke on the condition that her full name not be used out of concern for her safety.
Now, although she considers herself “pro-vax” and understands that vaccines are safe and necessary, that knowledge doesn’t always quell her anxiety. These lingering concerns, she believes, are a testament to the power of the anti-vaccination narratives she was exposed to in natural parenting and alternative health groups on Facebook, some of which had convinced her that routine childhood immunizations had nearly killed her eldest son.
“If you’ve never been anti-vax and back to vaccinating, you don’t quite understand the level of anxiety” that can come with resuming vaccinations, Kristina said. “You have that logical knowledge that vaccines are just fine. They’re this great thing. But emotions aren’t logical.”
Experts say the content shared in some wellness communities has powerful emotional and psychological foundations that can cause even science-minded people to question the public health consensus on the ability of vaccines to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Some voices within the wellness space are adept at building connection, gaining trust and sowing doubt — all while appealing to widely held beliefs about healthy living.
“This is what makes some in the wellness community so dangerous,” said Stephanie Alice Baker, a sociologist at City, University of London, who is careful to add that not everyone in the wellness space is trying to cast doubt on vaccines. “It’s not that the wellness community per se is conspiratorial, or that everyone has these kinds of nefarious interests where they intend to manipulate and deceive,” she said. “It’s that once you trust leaders and influencers in this space, then when they become more conspiratorial and extreme, you are susceptible to go down that path with them because you already trust them.”
[…] there are certain approaches, experts said, that especially key in on the interests and vulnerabilities of people who are invested in wellness culture.
Recognizing these strategies is “essential in helping social media users develop resilience to harmful content and allowing them to report this type of content to platforms,” Cécile Simmons, a researcher with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, wrote […]
Kristina, the former anti-vaccine mother, recalled seeing comments casting doubt on the motives of public health agencies in the Facebook groups she visited.
For example, she said, she became “suspicious” after reading a misleading claim about the CDC holding patents for a number of vaccines, and “that seemed to scream a financial motive.” While the CDC does license vaccine technology developed within the agency, some of which is patented, it does not sell vaccines.
Promoting distrust can be especially effective when it plays into a person’s existing doubts about traditional institutions — doubts that often stem from legitimate concerns about health and safety or poor experiences with the health care system.
[…] Experts said it’s important to recognize potential financial motives behind the truth-seeker framing: It can help influencers promote and sell alternative therapies, such as herbal tinctures and essential oils, which undergo far less regulation than vaccines and drugs approved by the FDA.
[…] Another tactic is cherry-picking data. For example, some will point to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as VAERS, as evidence of widespread deaths and injuries from vaccines, while ignoring the broadly acknowledged limitation of its data. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, which co-sponsors the database with the CDC and FDA, a report alone cannot be used to determine if a vaccine caused or contributed to an adverse event. Furthermore, anyone can file a report to the database with “incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental and unverified information.”
Gigi Winters, who runs the Instagram account “informed_mothers” and uses hashtags such as “#conservativememes” and “#conservativewomen,” encouraged her 49,500 followers to “Research everything!” in a short video referencing the coronavirus vaccines on Instagram Reels that has been viewed more than 86,000 times. In the video, Winters cites a misleading statistic about the coronavirus survival rate, writing, “I’ll take my 99.9% chance and trust my immune system instead…”
That often-cited statistic, which has been circulating for more than a year, has been identified by fact-checkers as an apparent misuse of modeling data from the CDC, which noted that the parameters it was using in its scenarios “are not predictions of the expected effects of COVID-19” […] This statistic also doesn’t take into account the long-term health impacts and cost of treatment many covid-19 survivors may face. […]
In some Instagram accounts featuring natural and holistic living content, vaccine misinformation is slipped in between general posts about well-being and designed to blend in with a profile’s overall visually pleasing aesthetics: vibrant photographs of food, flowers and landscapes as well as serene palettes and attractive fonts.
[…] Vaccine-hesitant voices within wellness communities also post frequently about impure, man-made products — and put the vaccines in that category, sometimes calling them “poison.”
[…] That sense of community helped draw moms Greene and Kristina into the anti-vaccine movement. “After a while, you have this online family where you can post a paragraph and then five minutes later you’ve got all these replies and all this advice and all this support,” Greene said. “You come to value their opinion and their thoughts and their approval even. It gets deep really quickly.”
[…] Both women acknowledge that one of the more difficult aspects of changing their stance on vaccination was coming to terms with the fact that they had been so mistaken.
“It was extremely psychologically difficult to really face what I was wrong on,” Kristina said. “When you have deep-rooted beliefs, anything that goes against that can feel like a personal attack.”
Greene now likens the fear of being wrong to a prison. “It keeps you in this box and it doesn’t allow for growth,” she said. […]
Three days after the 2020 presidential election was called for Joe Biden — and as President Donald Trump took to Twitter and falsely claimed that tens of thousands of votes were cast illegally — Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said he would reward a minimum of $25,000 to tipsters who uncovered credible instances of voter fraud.
“I support President Trump’s efforts to identify voter fraud in the presidential election and his commitment to making sure that every legal vote is counted and every illegal vote is disqualified,” Patrick said in a Nov. 10 news release.
Now, nearly a year later, Patrick has given out his first reward — but not to a member of his party, the Dallas Morning News reported this week. Patrick’s campaign sent a $25,000 check to Eric Frank, a Democratic poll worker from Pennsylvania whose tip led to the recent conviction of a 72-year-old registered Republican who cast a second vote in his son’s name last November, the Morning News reported.
Having deposited his check, Frank told the Morning News that Patrick’s plan may have backfired.
“It’s my belief that they were trying to get cases of Democrats doing voter fraud. And that just wasn’t the case,” Frank said. “This kind of blew up in their face.”
birgerjohanssonsays
The horrible thing is , when looking at Britain it seems like lying scum can make the public quite numb to scandals if they just stay in power long enough.
So if the Merican version of totally unhinged, corrupt and proud of it crazies get hold on power again they might keep it.
And don’t tell me demographic changes makes it impossible. They will just cheat harder.
blfsays
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, and the rest of the international Mars fleet (orbiters, landers, rovers, and secret bases) are now back-in-action after a few weeks out-of-communication with Earth due to Solar conjunction (the Sun being in-between Earth and Mars). During conjunction the fleet talked to themselves, each other, and negotiated with the Martians. No monoliths or Ice Warriors were found. Nor were the secret bases.
Ingenuity has successfully passed its post-conjunction tests and will again attempt the higher-RPM test flight, its 14th, which was self-aborted prior to conjunction due to an anomaly being detected just prior to take-off. The flight attempt may occur as soon as today (October 23rd); it’s unclear to what extent the anomaly is understood (it hasn’t occurred again during tests post the aborted flight attempt). The 14th flight is similar to the first, and intended to flight-test spinning the rotors faster to accommodate the seasonal thinning of the Martian atmosphere. The rotors have never been spun as fast as intended during flight, not even here on Earth; the tips will spinning at about 0,8 Mach (Mars), or about 2800 RPM.
Ingenuity is waaaaay beyond its design lifetime (at most five flights during 30 Martian days (Sols)), and being built mostly of off-the-shelf parts (the rotors, albeit not the motor, are perhaps the most complex of the few-ish custom-designed parts), its continuing ability to support the main rover mission (and even do some science) is impressive. Current best guess is the mechanical parts involved in spinning the rotors and adjusting their angle-of-attack are wearing out, presumably affected by the very cold night-time temperatures on Mars (as well as the heavier / longer use than anticipated).
blfsays
I can boil water again! I’ve one of those electric kettles which speaks French where you can program the temperature (and how long the tea should be submersed) — this one a replacement for an older model which went completely inert some yonks ago — and over the weekend it decided that any cold water was around 80℃ and hence didn’t heat up the water much. Most annoying.
Close inspection found a surprising amount of gunk all over… the usual sorts of things, bits of penguin feathers, small chunks of moldy cheese, garlic, snails, and a very uncooperative ninja prawn. Evicting the residents, followed by a very through cleaning inside and out, upside and down, and it’s now boiling water just fine again. I presume it will also again heat water to sub-boiling temperatures (the real point of this sort of kit, as it allows for proper temperatures for cafe, tea, etc.), but I’m waiting for all the parts to dry out before a final series of rinses and tests.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program was a Trumpian mess: “A $6 billion federal program created to provide fresh produce to families affected by the pandemic was mismanaged and used by the Trump administration for political gain, a new congressional report has found.”
The Food to Families program, touted by Ivanka Trump, gave tens of millions of dollars to unqualified firms and was also used to promote then-President Trump.
[…] As a ProPublica investigation revealed last spring and as the new report further details, the Farmers to Families Food Box program gave contracts to companies that had no relevant experience and often lacked necessary licenses. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, which released its report last week, found that former President Donald Trump’s administration did not adequately screen contractor applications or identify red flags in bid proposals.
One company that received a $39 million contract was CRE8AD8 LLC (pronounced “Create a Date”), a wedding and event planning firm. The owner compared the contract to his usual work of “putting tchotchkes in a bag.” […]
[…] The Food to Families program was created by the Department of Agriculture in the early days of the pandemic to give away produce that might have otherwise gone to waste as a result of disruptions in distribution chains. The boxes included produce, milk, dairy and cooked meats — and many also included a signed letter from then-President Trump.
The program was unveiled in May 2020 by Ivanka Trump. “I’m not shy about asking people to step up to the plate,” the president’s older daughter said in an interview to promote the initiative.
According to congressional investigators, Ivanka Trump was involved in getting the letter from her father added to the boxes. The USDA told contractors that including the letter was mandatory. Food bank operators told the investigators the letter concerned them because it didn’t appear to be politically neutral.
On the first day of the Republican National Convention in August 2020, President Trump and his daughter headlined a nearby event to announce an additional $1 billion for the food box program. Then-Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue also spoke at the event and encouraged attendees to reelect the president.
A federal ethics office later found that Perdue’s speech violated a federal law that prohibits officials from using their office for campaign purposes. The USDA at the time disputed the notion that Perdue was electioneering, saying that Perdue’s comments merely “predicted future behavior based on the president’s focus on helping ‘forgotten people.’”
The yearlong congressional investigation also identified problems with the deliveries themselves, including food safety issues, failed deliveries and uneven food distribution. Some contractors also forced recipient organizations to accept more food than they could distribute or store.
Committee chair Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., said in a statement that the mismanagement of the program is another example of the previous administration’s failures.
“The Program was marred by a structure that prioritized industry over families, by contracting practices that prioritized cutting corners over competence, and by decisions that prioritized politics over the public good,” he said.
ProPublica also found that the Trump administration hired a lobbyist to counter the criticism that contracts were going to unqualified contractors.
This is the moment the conservative legal movement has been building toward for decades: The solidly conservative Supreme Court is about to hear two major abortion cases within a month of each other.
All of this is likely to end with significant new restrictions on abortion and a clear path for Republican-led states to win the next big abortion cases, too — the culmination of a long and bitter fight for control of the judiciary.
The court on Friday agreed to hear part of a challenge to Texas’ highly unusual abortion ban. Oral arguments will be Nov. 1 — a dramatically accelerated timeline that compresses into just a few days a process that normally takes months.
One month later, on Dec. 1, the court is set to hear arguments in a separate case, challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after the 15th week of a pregnancy.
Mississippi’s law and Texas’ law are structured quite differently, and the two cases raise different legal questions. But between them, they present the court with a whole lot of ways to rule in favor of tighter abortion restrictions.
And with such a staunch conservative majority, the court seems virtually certain to take at least one of those options……
That moment has arrived largely because conservative state legislatures kept passing new anti-abortion bills year after year, even when they were mostly being struck down in the courts, to keep the controversy alive — while Republicans in Washington maintained a laser focus, especially during the Trump administration, on taking control of the judiciary.
“The court that we have now is the result of the long-game political strategy of the pro-life movement,” said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion advocacy group.
Roe v. Wade and subsequent Supreme Court precedents say that states cannot ban abortion before the point at which a fetus is considered “viable,” typically around 22 weeks. Mississippi, however, banned abortion after 15 weeks.
The state has asked the court to uphold that ban, and also to go further and overturn Roe.
Texas banned abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, which typically happens at around six weeks — before some women even know they’re pregnant.
While Mississippi’s law is a straightforward government regulation, Texas allows any private citizen to sue any other private citizen who helps facilitate an abortion.
Even many conservative legal experts believe the court will ultimately strike down Texas’ ban simply because of its vigilante enforcement structure…..
The high court has twice refused to stop Texas’ law from taking effect while it works its way through the courts.
[…]
What might now look like the mildest option on the table — upholding Mississippi’s 15-week ban, but declining to overturn Roe, and ruling against Texas — would be an enormous loss for abortion-rights advocates, because it would open the door for states to start proposing earlier and earlier bans, ultimately making them extremely hard to obtain in most GOP-led states.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan said on Saturday he had ordered the foreign ministry to declare 10 ambassadors from Western countries ‘persona non grata’ for calling for the release of philanthropist Osman Kavala.
Osman Kavala has been in prison for four years, charged with financing nationwide protests in 2013 and with involvement in a failed coup in 2016. He denies the charges.
In a joint statement on October 18, the ambassadors of Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand and the United States called for a just and speedy resolution to Kavala’s case, and for his “urgent release”. They were summoned by the foreign ministry, which called the statement irresponsible.
[…]
Kavala was acquitted last year of charges related to the 2013 protests, but the ruling was overturned this year and combined with charges in another case related to the coup attempt.
Rights groups say his case is emblematic of a crackdown on dissent under Erdoğan.
Kavala said on Friday that it would be “meaningless” for him to attend his trial as a fair hearing was impossible given recent comments by Erdoğan.
Erdoğan was cited on Thursday as saying the ambassadors in question would not release bandits, murderers and terrorists in their own countries.
“Since there is no possibility of a fair trial under these circumstances, I believe participating in hearings and delivering my defence will be meaningless from now on,” Kavala said in a written statement.
The European Court of Human Rights called for Kavala’s immediate release in late 2019, saying there was no reasonable suspicion that he had committed an offence, and finding that his detention had been intended to silence him.
It issued a similar ruling this year in the case of Selahattin Demirtas, former head of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), who has been held in jail for nearly five years.
The Council of Europe, which oversees the implementation of ECHR decisions, has said it will begin infringement proceedings against Turkey if Kavala is not released.
The next hearing in the case against Kavala and others is due on November 26.
The high court has twice refused to stop Texas’ law from taking effect while it works its way through the courts.
At the very least, they could have issued a stay so that the Texas law was not allowed to be in effect while the lawsuits were working their way through the court.
It’s like the conservative members of the court have zero empathy for women who need abortion care now.
When rooting out corruption, it’s best to follow the money. That is precisely what the Jan. 6 Committee is now doing according to reports out Friday detailing lawmakers’ highly organized effort to sniff out potential criminality in funding for pro-Trump rallies coordinated ahead of the assault on the Capitol.
First reported by CNN, the committee is digging into financial details around Stop the Steal rally organizers and other similar vendors on their radar. In particular, they are rooting out possible campaign finance or election law violations, as well as other financial crimes.
Two weeks ago, the investigatory body issued subpoenas to far-right activist and leader of the Stop the Steal movement, Ali Alexander, and Shelby County, Ohio, city councilman Nathan Martin.
According to the committee, Martin was listed as the point of contact on a permit application submitted to the U.S. Capitol Police for a “One Nation Under God” event last December protesting the 2020 election results.
An unnamed source cited in the CNN report suggested the committee is breaking up its work into teams. Some of the committee’s teams track funds specifically tied to rally organizers and other groups connected to former President Donald Trump. […]
Fox News’ Neil Cavuto announced that he has tested positive for a break-through case of COVID-19. Cavuto released a statement saying that as he has a series of underlying conditions, including multiple sclerosis, the fact that he was vaccinated probably saved his life. “While I’m somewhat stunned by this news, doctors tell me I’m lucky, as well. Had I not been vaccinated, and with all my medical issues, this would be a far more dire situation. It’s not, because I did [get vaccinated], and I’m surviving this because I did.”
The fact that a Fox News anchor is vaccinated, considering all of the misinformation the fake news outlet promotes concerning vaccines and public health policies, is unsurprising. A memo of Fox News’ on-site vaccine requirements leaked to the press in September, and the conditions were stringent, “requiring all unvaccinated employees to be tested each day—not just once a week—in order to work in company facilities.” Fox News’ misinformation and viewership have been tied directly to lower vaccination rates in our country.
Cavuto’s statement included a plea to the public, something that his statement would likely only be read and reported on in media outlets not called Fox News, saying, “I hope anyone and everyone gets that message loud and clear. Get vaccinated, for yourself and everyone around you. […]
To be fair, Cavuto, unlike most Fox News personalities, has had moments of integrity, even on the rare occasion attacking Donald Trump. Cavuto, like many conservatives, knew (despite the benefits of the tax cuts) Trump’s incompetence as a leader was not good for business. Most of the time, Cavuto’s job is to run out billionaires in front of his audience who want to tell Americans that food stamps are bad and Donald Trump is the greatest president ever. Before that, Cavuto’s job was to attack labor in service of big business interests.
Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson has spent the past few weeks and months passing around every grand conspiracy theory ever in service of scaring Fox News viewers from getting the COVID-19 vaccine. He’s said things like mandates for the vaccine are a way for the Biden administration to identify “sincere Christians in the ranks, the freethinkers, the men with high testosterone levels, and anyone else who does not love Joe Biden, and make them leave immediately. It’s a takeover of the U.S. military.”
Recently it was reported that Fox News programming almost never goes a single day without trashing the COVID-19 vaccines in some way or another. And in undermining the science behind the vaccines and the purpose of public health policies for the past six months, Fox has helped lead to a completely politicized response to getting life-saving vaccinations. […]
All that said, good on Cavuto for getting vaccinated and for putting out a statement that says, in no uncertain terms, that the vaccination helped save his life.
A Nevada man cried to the cameras about voter fraud. He wasn’t wrong, but he was the fraudster.
And, of course, he was a Republican and a Trump supporter.
Last November, Donald “Kirk” Hartle told everyone he could that there had been a “sickening” case of voter fraud involving his wife, who passed away from breast cancer in 2017. Hartle claimed that he never received Rosemarie Hartle’s mail-in ballot at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the 2020 election, though she was inexplicably still on the active voter list. Rosemarie’s ballot was nonetheless somehow counted by Clark County officials, who even claimed her signature matched their records.
Not really “inexplicable” that some voters who have died are still on the voter rolls. It takes time and effort to keep voter rolls up to date. Sometimes the corrections lag at bit. The important part of the story is that this single instance of voter fraud was caught; that it was used to extrapolate to claims of massive voter fraud that were not true; and that is was fraud on the part of Republican.
Both Hartles are registered Republicans. Naturally, the Nevada Republican Party took up the 55-year-old’s cause and even tweeted about the incident the same day that the Associated Press called Nevada for Joe Biden. They boosted his case days later, posting an interview between Hartle and Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS to their Facebook page.
The secretary of state’s office believes it may have solved this mystery and filed a criminal complaint earlier this month against—you probably guessed it—Donald “Kirk” Hartle. [Video available at the link.]
Hartle has been charged with felony counts of voting more than once in the same election and voting using another person’s name. He faces a fine of up to $5,000 and up to four years in prison per charge.
The Nevada GOP has remained silent about Hartle since the charges against him came to light. Hartle’s lawyer told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that his client will respond to the allegations in court on Nov. 18.
Ha! Of course the Nevada GOP was not silent when they were using Hartle’s false claims for propaganda, over and over and over again. Tucker Carlson pontificated about this supposed voter fraud many times on Fox News. He did not issue a correction. Tucker performed his “sincere” and “objective” schtick when covering the story.
Hartle is well-known in the business community in Clark County: He’s the chief financial officer at Ahern Rentals, an organization whose parent company faced state fines for violating COVID protocols when hosting two Trump events. That same company is hosting the For God & Country Patriot Double Down conference this weekend at the Ahern Hotel in Vegas. [Yep, fucking bonkers politics from top to bottom.]
The conference is blatant QAnon propaganda and even features Ron Watkins—the man many believe is behind Q—as well as his father, Jim, who runs 8kun. The message board is a favorite of Q’s and responsible for hosting the manifestos of multiple mass shooters.
According to Clark County officials, five people voted twice during the 2020 presidential election. All instances are currently under investigation. Clark County has 1,316,573 registered voters, of which 974,185 cast their ballots in the 2020 presidential election. The amount of people who voted twice account for a little over 0.00051% of voter turnout. Once again, voter fraud is not the issue, even if whistleblowing against it can earn you money from Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s weird voter fraud bounty fund.
On one of the now unwatchable Sunday “news” shows, Meet the Press host Chuck Todd introduced a segment on the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by—I’m just kidding. It wasn’t about the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a segment about the most favorite of all Sunday show segments, and indeed largely the only segment any of the Sunday shows ever do: How will This Thing, the major news of the day, Affect Mah Politics?
“The economy’s inability to fully recover from the shock of COVID-19 is both an economic story and a political one,” intoned Todd.
The economy’s inability to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic is in large part due to anti-distancing, anti-mask, vaccine-skeptical, pro-virus-spreading policies from Republican politicians who have been using conservative frustration with safety measures as a rallying cry for their own careers, resulting in a new wave of overwhelmed hospitals and dead victims that was entirely preventable if sociopathic politicos had not turned pandemic crisis protocols into the latest spite-riddled “culture war.”
“All those economic problems add up to a big political problem for the president. Is all of this his fault? Of course not, but it is now his responsibility. And he and fellow Democrats are in real danger of suffering some serious political consequences. Mr. Biden ran on a promise of a basic return to normal—or at least a path to normalcy. But with the midterm elections just over a year away—”
Stop. Just stop. Fine, we get it. We’re doing this again. Republicans continue to get their constituents killed at elevated rates; let’s now turn to our panel of experts to determine what the political implications of Republicans killing off their constituents will be for the Democrats who, uh, failed to convince them not to die to own the libs.
[…] Another of the Todd segments scraped up another entry in the “obsessively arch-right fascist Trump supporters still like Trump” press compulsion. Hey, the guy may have attempted to end our democracy through hoaxes and violence, but a bunch of Jesus-punchers think, if anything, that just makes him even more awesome. [Matt Negrin tweet with accompanying video is available at the link.]
We’ve been here before. This ain’t new, and Matt Negrin, in particular, has brought all the necessary receipts and then some to show that Chuck Todd’s Meet the Press, in particular, is a relentless promoter of Republican frames, one that uses the “panel” format to mix hard-right Republican strategists and figures in with neutral journalists while studiously avoiding Democratic guests. Most insipidly, Todd has been a prime rehabilitator for the Republican supporters of an election hoax that led to a violent insurrection.
Yep. That’s what I’ve noticed about Chuck Todd’s “reporting” for some time.
Why? Is that “neutrality”? Is it “news”?
[…] It’s lazy. It’s cheap, hackish, phone-it-in programming cobbled together because doing journalism is hard but talking about the “political implications” of any news story is easy. Ask how the ongoing mostly Republican-state COVID-19 crisis is affecting social programs and you’ll have to do research to find out. Ask whether the stance of anti-mask politicians like Ron DeSantis is morally defensible and you’ll have to expose your own moral convictions.
Ask how the widespread death and economic chaos will affect the political winds when whatever-the-next-election-is rolls around, though, and you don’t need to know a damn thing. It’s easy. It’s trivial. Pick out whichever guests will most reliably say something “exciting” and you’ve got yourself a show.
[…] On television, where nobody in front of or behind the cameras gives a particular damn whether or not a guest just lies outright to the nation because they’ll already be three lies beyond that one before anyone else can get a word in edgewise, there is absolutely no penalty for being wrong. Or lying. Or undermining democracy. Or egging on violence. Or anything else.
[…] Would it be economically wise to avoid a worldwide climate catastrophe that sinks Florida, burns much of the West to a cinder, causes widespread crop failures, and renders certain parts of the globe literally uninhabitable if the air conditioners fail? There’s not even a question! Set aside every moral and environmental question, and you’re still left with the unambiguous case that moving national energy policy toward less-polluting alternatives will save the country from unfathomable economic costs in the decades to come.
We’re not going to get that conversation on Meet the Press, ever […]
We will get an unending parade of professional know-nothings to discuss how Joe Manchin’s posturing or Bernie Sanders’ gruffness might bump off-year poll numbers in the span between now and the future crisis, because that’s the sort of talk that allows charlatans who don’t believe in anything to have opinions on everything.
[…] These shows are astonishingly tired, shambling along like brainless zombies wandering past thickets of political violence, environmental cataclysm, mass disease, widespread government failure, and the alteration of the nation’s democratic discourse into, literally, an arena of professional hoax-promotion. […]
Those are not the formats in which a nation can grapple with a pandemic that will likely kill a million of its citizens. […] Nobody on these shows gives a damn if the nation falls or the atmosphere burns. It was only meant to be a club for idle banter […]
Meet the Press found itself confronting an actual insurrection—and folded. It couldn’t cope. It had no tools for the job. So Chuck Todd invited the insurrectionists onto the program and helped redeem even election hoaxes, party-backed propaganda and candidate-organized insurrection as a reasonable political choice to be made. Not because he or anyone else involved gave a particular damn either way, and not because they did not, but because there is no Sunday morning format that can handle violent insurrection except as fodder for the professional know-nothings to banter aimlessly about. […]
Months after Democratic leaders in Congress backed away from providing billions of badly needed dollars to support local election improvements, we now learn that the Senate plans to add the very same amount of money to the Defense Department’s $715 billion budget — even though the Pentagon didn’t ask for it.
…Congress gave an extra $10 billion to the Pentagon but zero to elections, ignoring multiple warnings and research the past three years emphasizing that America’s crumbling, underfunded election infrastructure presents a national security risk.
It’s not as if the threats to elections are subtle. The last six years have brought us stunning misinformation circulated by hostile foreign nations; direct attacks by those countries on our election infrastructure; a violent insurrection at the Capitol spurred by a former president convinced he is the rightful leader of the country; and continued violent threats to election administrators.
Meanwhile, election administrators have been screaming into the wind, trying to convince Congress that Windows 7 is not a sustainable operating system for elections. Anemic election budgets are also to blame for the paperless voting machine problem. Despite a recent push for paper-backed voting, several counties are stuck with paperless systems. That makes them frequent targets of election skeptics, especially amid the intense new attention on audits and claims of hacked machines.
[…]
Thousands of counties rely on Windows 7 to run their voting systems — a deeply outdated operating system no longer getting regular security updates. At least 13 states use voting machines purchased before the invention of the iPhone. Thousands of counties relied on privately funded grants distributed by two nonprofits — the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation & Research — for protective equipment during the pandemic and to make long-needed upgrades to their systems.
As Democrats in Congress often remind us, the pandemic is not over. And as they’d like to forget, next year is an election year. These needs are not diminishing—they are quickly growing. And if Congress wants to prove it’s concerned about national security, even a modest investment in local election administration would protect us against vulnerabilities that an overfunded Pentagon can’t shore up.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 185
Yeeeeah… it almost as if the majority of SCOTUS are stinking Catholics.
Akira MacKenziesays
Addendum: Not that any other variety of theist is any better, but still…
In this 9:15 minute video, Chris Hayes compares budgets for military spending to budgets for spending that is proposed in non-military Democratic spending bills (Build Back Better, for example). Hayes also includes Trump’s tax cuts for comparison.
Hayes played a clip of Mitt Romney speaking as an example of how Republicans are responding to the Biden administration’s plans to spend money on everything from basic infrastructure to child care to addressing climate change (etc.). Money to improve the lives of regular people in the country. Quoting Mitt Romney:
So you may be hearing about the President’s social spending bill in Washington. The amount of money he wants to spend is really an astronomical amount of money. Just to give you some perspective, a million seconds ago, a million seconds ago was just earlier this month. A billion seconds ago, George Herbert Walker Bush was president. A trillion seconds ago neanderthals were on the earth. A trillion seconds ago. A trillion is an extraordinarily large number. So whatever number the Democrats come up with, ($1, $2 or $3.5 trillion), it’s a heck of a lot of money on social spending.
Chris Hayes replies to Romney:
[laughing] Terrific! Listen, communicating large numbers is hard. I know this first hand. But telling someone how long a trillion seconds is, or expecting them to know or care exactly how long ago neanderthals walked the earth, I mean … What if I told you that if you go back one second for every dollar in the military budget you’d arrive at the year the cave bear went extinct, over 700 billion seconds ago. […] You’d say, “What the hell are you talking about?” See how useless that is for a tool explaining government spending.
First of all, the money being proposed here will be spent over the next ten years, not all at once. Romney leaves that out of his Jurassic Park math because really that’s in line with and often less than what he and fellow Republicans are happy to spend on other things. Let’s break it down for you: say one dinosaur equals $1 trillion […]
Hayes uses a lovely graphic showing one dinosaur icon per $1 trillion spent.
[A pared down] Democrat spending bill would be $1.5 trillion spent over ten years. That would be less than the $1.9 trillion cost of the Trump tax cuts for the same period of time. And every single senate Republican supported those tax breaks primarily for the rich and for corporations […] And that $1.5 trillion price tag from the Democrats that senators seem so worried about is equal to what we are about to spend on national defense in just two years. In just two years! Just the Pentagon budget!
NAACP President Derrick Johnson is set to meet with AT&T leadership at the company’s Washington, D.C. headquarters [October 21 meeting] to discuss AT&T’s relationship with One America News (OAN). Johnson condemned AT&T after a Reuters investigation published earlier this month found that a lucrative contract with AT&T-owned platforms was responsible for 90% of OAN parent company Herring Networks, Inc.’s funding, and that AT&T even had a hand in creating OAN when it launched in 2013.
“We are outraged to learn that AT&T has been funneling tens of millions of dollars into OAN since the network’s inception,” Johnson said. “AT&T has as a result caused irreparable damage to our democracy.”
[…] Herring hasn’t been shy about the editorial freedom and support AT&T has given his far-right network since then. During an interview on OAN last week, Herring showered AT&T with praise and even called on viewers to thank the company. [video available at the link]
A full video of the interview also shows Herring outright lying about the controversy surrounding the Reuters report. When pressed by correspondent Pearson Sharp, Herring said that “all of our funding comes from the Herring Networks.” Technically true, but much of the funding Herring Networks received appears to come from that AT&T contract.
OAN began airing […] on DirecTV in 2017 after parent company Herring Networks settled a case with AT&T over AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV in 2015. Herring Networks claimed that AT&T had gone back on an oral agreement that would allow OAN to be broadcast on DirecTV once the acquisition went through.
AT&T cited the settlement as the only reason DirecTV even broadcasts OAN. “When we acquired DIRECTV, Herring pressured us for months to carry OAN. We rejected their offer and in response, Herring Networks sued us, claiming we deliberately intended to injure Herring,” the company said in a statement. “Only as part of the settlement of that lawsuit did DIRECTV consent to a commercial carriage agreement with OAN four years ago.”
OAN is available on other providers, including Verizon FiOS, GCI, and CenturyLink Prism. Those companies appear to be facing minimal backlash compared with AT&T. One source told media consultant Timothy Burke that 20% of the DirecTV cancellations they’d received were because of AT&T’s support for OAN. […]
AT&T really has been hit in the pocketbook lately. The company’s stocks have been on a steep downturn since the Reuters report was published Oct. 6, though investors have been wary to hold onto it since the company announced a merger with Discovery Inc. in May. Last week, MarketWatch reported that AT&T was headed for an 11-year low. AT&T’s Q3 earnings call today didn’t exactly give it the boost the company was expecting, either. […]
Last month, CEO John Stankey said the company would focus on a “multi-year effort” to rehabilitate its image. Sticking with OAN doesn’t exactly help with that. It remains to be seen what AT&T will do about Herring Networks following the meeting with Johnson. For now, many customers are more than happy to pull the plug on DirecTV and other AT&T-owned ventures instead of waiting for an answer to come.
Amid an exceptional drought that has wrought havoc on California for years, a Level 5 out of 5 atmospheric river is soaking the region, dumping double-digit rainfall totals and up to six feet of mountain snow. This heavy precipitation will help ease the drought but produce dangerous mudslides and debris flows in areas recently devastated by fires.
Atmospheric rivers are long, narrow swaths of exceptionally moist air, sometimes sourced from the tropics, that can produce excessive amounts of precipitation.
“It will be a wild 24 to 36 hours across northern California as we will see an extreme and possible historic atmospheric river push through the region,” wrote the National Weather Service in Sacramento, calling it a “dangerous, high-impact weather system.”
Flash flood watches are up for most of Central and Northern California, blanketing some of the same areas that went upward of six months without a stitch of measurable rain. Sacramento recorded its first 0.01 inches of rain last week since March 19, capping off a record-setting 222 days without precipitation. Now it is bracing for more than half a foot of rain and flooding.
Through midmorning local time Sunday, more than 3.5 inches of rain had fallen in Santa Rosa, Calif […]
A rare “high risk” of excessive rainfall has been hoisted for parts of Northern California. The National Weather Service is referring to the potential for “life-threatening flash floods and mudslides.”
[…] Along the coast of the Pacific Northwest and as far south as Northern California, winds may gust up to 60 mph while waves along the shoreline top 20 feet.
The offshore storm system instigating the deluge is also challenging records as an exceptionally intense “bomb cyclone,” with minimum central air pressures that could rival those of Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
[…] Atmospheric rivers are rated on their integrated water vapor transport, or a measure of how much moisture they are transporting over a given distance. Nearly a ton and a half of water is moving over every one-meter cross section of the atmospheric river each second, which makes this event a Level 5 on the scale devised by the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes in La Jolla, Calif.
Atmospheric rivers carry most of their moisture at the mid-levels of the atmosphere, meaning the greatest rain and snow totals will be in the higher terrain. Rainfall rates could top an inch per hour, with snow falling at nearly six inches per hour above the freezing line. […]
Former President Barack Obama made a trip to Newark, New Jersey on Saturday to urge New Jersey residents to re-elect Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy mainly because the Republican challenger, Jack Ciattarelli, is a joke. “When you’ve got a candidate who spoke at a ‘Stop the Steal’ rally, you can bet he’s not going to be a champion of Democracy,” Obama said, chuckling before a crowd of more than 700 people at Weequahic Park. “Apparently Phil’s opponent says, well he didn’t know it was a rally to overturn the results of the last election, didn’t know it.
“Brother, come on! When you’re standing in front of a sign that says, ‘Stop the Steal’ and there’s a guy in the crowd waving a Confederate flag, you know this isn’t a neighborhood barbecue,” the former president added. “You know it’s not a League of Women Voters rally. Come on! Come on, man! That’s not what New Jersey needs.”
[…] Obama said Murphy has been a supporter of his since “back when people could not pronounce my name,” and he’s “been busy” restoring funding cut for Planned Parenthood and increasing taxes on the wealthy. His opponent wants to implement a school funding formula that takes money “away from Black and brown communities” and cuts taxes on the wealthy, Obama said.
“He wants to go backwards,” the former president added.
Every time a storm lashes the Carolina coast, the power lines on Tonye Gray’s street go down, cutting her lights and air conditioning. After Hurricane Florence in 2018, Gray went three days with no way to refrigerate medicine for her multiple sclerosis or pump the floodwater out of her basement.
“Florence was hell,” said Gray, 61, a marketing account manager and Wilmington native who finds herself increasingly frustrated by the city’s vulnerability.
“We’ve had storms long enough in Wilmington and this particular area that all power lines should have been underground by now. We know we’re going to get hit.”
Across the nation, severe weather fueled by climate change is pushing aging electrical systems past their limits, often with deadly results. Last year, the average American home endured more than eight hours without power, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration — more than double the outage time five years ago. [charts and graphic displays of data are available at the link]
This year alone, a wave of abnormally severe winter storms caused a disastrous power failure in Texas, leaving millions of homes in the dark, sometimes for days, and at least 200 dead. Power outages caused by Hurricane Ida contributed to at least 14 deaths in Louisiana, as some of the poorest parts of the state suffered through weeks of 90-degree heat without air conditioning.
[…] A major impediment is the failure by state regulators and the utility industry to consider the consequences of a more volatile climate — and to come up with better tools to prepare for it. For example, a Berkeley Lab study last year of outages caused by major weather events in six states found that neither state officials nor utility executives attempted to calculate the social and economic costs of longer and more frequent outages, such as food spoilage, business closures, supply chain disruptions and medical problems.
“There is no question that climatic changes are happening that directly affect the operation of the power grid,” said Justin Gundlach, a senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity, a think tank at New York University Law School. “What you still haven’t seen … is a [state] commission saying: ‘Isn’t climate the through line in all of this? Let’s examine it in an open-ended way. Let’s figure out where the information takes us and make some decisions.’ ” […]
Civic boosters in central Montana hoped for some federal money to promote tourism. A disinformation campaign got in the way.
In the summer of 2020, as pandemic shutdowns closed businesses […] Rae Grulkowski, a 56-year-old businesswoman who had never been involved in politics but was alarmed about what was happening to the country, found a way to make a difference.
[…] Ms. Grulkowski had just heard about a years-in-the-making effort to designate her corner of central Montana a national heritage area, celebrating its role in the story of the American West. A small pot of federal matching money was there for the taking, to help draw more visitors and preserve underfunded local tourist attractions.
Ms. Grulkowski set about blowing up that effort with everything she had.
She collected addresses from a list of voters and spent $1,300 sending a packet denouncing the proposed heritage area to 1,498 farmers and ranchers. She told them the designation would forbid landowners to build sheds, drill wells or use fertilizers and pesticides. It would alter water rights, give tourists access to private property, create a new taxation district and prohibit new septic systems and burials on private land, she said.
None of this was true.
Yet it soon became accepted as truth by enough people to persuade Montana’s leading Republican figures and conservative organizations, including the farm bureau, Gov. Greg Gianforte and Senator Steve Daines, to oppose the proposal and enact a state law forbidding the federal government to create any heritage area in Montana. It is a ban that the state has no authority to enforce.
Which is how a humble bid for a small serving of Washington pork by a group of local civic boosters became yet another nasty skirmish in the bitter nationwide struggle between the forces of fact and fantasy.
[…] From the vantage point of informed democratic decision making, it’s a haunting tale about how a sustained political campaign can succeed despite — or perhaps as a result of — being divorced from reality.
[…] The dispute has split communities, become a wedge issue in this fall’s political campaigns and left proponents of the heritage area flummoxed at their collective inability to refute falsehoods once they have become accepted wisdom.
“We’ve run into the uneducable,” Ellen Sievert, a retired historic preservation officer for Great Falls and surrounding Cascade County, said. “I don’t know how we get through that.”
[…] Steve Taylor, a former mayor of Neihart (pop. 43) whose family owns a car dealership in Great Falls, is a conservative who voted for Donald J. Trump twice, though he said he has regretted those votes since the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Fellow Republicans, he said, have painted the heritage area as a liberal plot.
“They make it a political thing because if you have a Democrat involved, then they are all against it,” he said. “It’s so hard to build something and so easy to tear it down. It’s maddening. It’s so easy to destroy something with untruths.”
Congress and President Ronald Reagan created National Heritage Areas in the 1980s as a partnership between the National Park Service and local boosters, who are required to match federal investment with funds raised locally. The 55 existing heritage areas, in 34 states […] collectively receive about $21 million annually — a pittance in the park service’s $3.5 billion budget — and have no impact on private property rights, a finding confirmed in a 2004 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office.
The proposal for the Big Sky Country National Heritage Area, encompassing most of two central Montana counties that are together roughly the size of Connecticut, was the brainchild of Jane Weber, a U.S. Forest Service retiree who spent a decade on the Cascade County Commission.
Beginning in 2013, Ms. Weber teamed up with local preservationists, formed a nonprofit, enlisted local businesses and raised $50,000 for a required feasibility study. In 2014, the Great Falls City Commission included the heritage area as part of its official growth policy.
The proposal would take in four National Historic Landmarks: Lewis and Clark’s portage route around Great Falls; Fort Benton, a pioneer town along the Missouri River that was the last stop for steamships heading west from St. Louis in the 1800s; the First Peoples Buffalo Jump, a steep cliff over which Blackfoot hunters herded buffalo to their deaths; and the home and studio of C.M. Russell, the turn-of-the-century “cowboy artist” whose paintings of the American West shaped the popular image of frontier life.
The park service requires demonstrations of public support, which Ms. Weber and her allies solicited. For six years, the process went on largely undisturbed. […]
Then the 2020 political season arrived. [photo of right wing dunderheads is available at the link]
[…] Ms. Grulkowski’s interest was piqued.
At the time, she was becoming engrossed in the online world of far-right media. From her home on 34 acres in Stockett, a farming community of 157 people south of Great Falls, she watched videos from outlets like His Glory TV, where hosts refer to President Biden as “the so-called president.” She subscribed to the Telegram messaging channel of Seth Keshel, a prolific disinformation spreader.
And she came across a vein of conspiratorial accusations that national heritage areas were a kind of Trojan horse that could open the door to future federal land grabs.
When Ms. Grulkowski, who owns a septic cleaning company, tried using Ms. Dodd’s group to push the idea that Montanans’ property rights were at risk, Ms. Dodd kicked her out for promoting lies.
“I’m not happy with people saying it will seize your property, because that is disingenuous,” Ms. Dodd said. “I said to her, ‘I think you need to be careful about the message. It isn’t actually the way that it works, what you’re saying.’”
But Ms. Grulkowski plowed ahead.
One of her letters reached Ed Bandel, the local board member for the Montana Farm Bureau Federation, a powerful lobbying force. Mr. Bandel, who grows wheat and peas for energy bars on 3,000 acres, persuaded the farm bureau to oppose the heritage area and enlisted other agriculture groups to follow suit.
[…] By May, their campaign had reached the state capital, where Mr. Gianforte signed the bill barring any national heritage area in Montana after it passed on a near-party-line vote. A heritage area, the bill’s text asserted, would “interfere with state and private property rights.”
In two hours of talking at his farm, Mr. Bandel could offer no evidence to back up that claim. He said he distrusted assurances that there were no such designs. “They say, ‘Don’t worry, we’re going to do it right. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of you. I think Adolf Hitler said that, too, didn’t he?” Mr. Bandel said. “The fear of the unknown is a huge fear.”
Mr. Bandel said he trusted Ms. Grulkowski with the details.
No. NO. NO. Do not trust rightwing dunderheads with the details.
But when pressed, Ms. Grulkowski, too, was unable to identify a single instance of a property owner’s being adversely affected by a heritage area. “It’s not that there are a lot of specific instances,” she said. “There’s a lot of very wide open things that could happen.”
That somewhat amorphous fear was more the point.
Outside of a poultry coop, as her chickens and ducks squawked, Ms. Grulkowski ticked through the falsehoods she had read online and accepted as truths in the past year: The Covid vaccine is more dangerous than the coronavirus. Global child-trafficking rings control the political system. Black Lives Matter was responsible for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. The United Nations is plotting to control world population and seize private land. Mr. Trump was the rightful winner of last year’s election. Even in Cascade County, where Mr. Trump won 59 percent of the vote, Ms. Grulkowski argued that 3,000 illegal votes were cast.
“We didn’t believe in any of that stuff until last July,” Ms. Grulkowski said. “Then we stumbled on something on the internet, and we watched it, and it took us two days to get over that. And it had to do with the child trafficking that leads to everything. It just didn’t seem right, and that was just over the top. And then we started seeing things that are lining up with that everywhere.”
[…] “It’s very easy to take fear and mistrust and make it work for you. It’s very hard to fight back against all of that,” Ms. Weber said. “It’s kind of like trying to convince someone to get vaccinated.” […]
Rightwing dunderheads had a negative effect on the local economy.
Rolling Stone separately confirmed a third person involved in the main Jan. 6 rally in D.C. has communicated with the committee. This is the first report that the committee is hearing major new allegations from potential cooperating witnesses. While there have been prior indications that members of Congress were involved, this is also the first account detailing their purported role and its scope. The two sources also claim they interacted with members of Trump’s team, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who they describe as having had an opportunity to prevent the violence.
[…]
The two sources, both of whom have been granted anonymity due to the ongoing investigation, describe participating in “dozens” of planning briefings ahead of that day when Trump supporters broke into the Capitol as his election loss to President Joe Biden was being certified.
“I remember Marjorie Taylor Greene specifically,” the organizer says. “I remember talking to probably close to a dozen other members at one point or another or their staffs.”
For the sake of clarity, we will refer to one of the sources as a rally organizer and the other as a planner. Rolling Stone has confirmed that both sources were involved in organizing the main event aimed at objecting to the electoral certification, which took place at the White House Ellipse on Jan. 6. Trump spoke at that rally and encouraged his supporters to march to the Capitol. Some members of the audience at the Ellipse began walking the mile and a half to the Capitol as Trump gave his speech. The barricades were stormed minutes before the former president concluded his remarks.
These two sources also helped plan a series of demonstrations that took place in multiple states around the country in the weeks between the election and the storming of the Capitol. According to these sources, multiple people associated with the March for Trump and Stop the Steal events that took place during this period communicated with members of Congress throughout this process.
Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer.
And Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.
[…]
Gosar’s office did not respond to requests for comment on this story. Rolling Stone has separately obtained documentary evidence that both sources were in contact with Gosar and Boebert on Jan. 6.
[…..]
While it was already clear members of Congress played some role in the Jan. 6 events and similar rallies that occurred in the lead-up to that day, the two sources say they can provide new details about the members’ specific roles in these efforts. The sources plan to share that information with congressional investigators right away. While both sources say their communications with the House’s Jan. 6 committee thus far have been informal, they are expecting to testify publicly.
[…More at the link]
Surging tax revenues as the U.S. economy rebounded from the coronavirus-driven downturn helped reduce the budget deficit for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Treasury Department and White House budget office announced Friday. The fiscal 2021 deficit clocked in at a still-massive $2.8 trillion, although that’s down $360 billion from the previous year’s shortfall and it’s $897 billion less than the Biden administration predicted in February.
Commentary:
[…] This isn’t quite the picture Donald Trump had in mind. […] in February 2016, the future president appeared on Fox News and assured viewers that, if he were president, he could start paying off the national debt “so easily.” [He] argued at the time that it would simply be a matter of looking at the country as “a profit-making corporation” instead of “a losing corporation.”
A month later, in March 2016, Trump declared at a debate that he could cut trillions of dollars in spending by eliminating “waste, fraud, and abuse.” Asked for a specific example, he said, “We’re cutting Common Core.” (Common Core is an education curriculum. It costs the federal government almost nothing.)
[…] By July 2016, he boasted that once his economic agenda was in place, “we’ll start paying off that debt like water.”
As The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell explained before the Covid-19 crisis, “Federal deficits have widened immensely under Trump’s leadership. This is striking not only because he promised fiscal responsibility — at one time even pledging to eliminate the national debt within eight years — but also because it’s a historical anomaly. Deficits usually narrow when the economy is good and we’re not engaged in a major war…. Trump’s own policies are to blame for this aberration.”
That was plainly true. The White House and congressional Republicans swore up and down in late 2017 that they could slash taxes for the wealthy and big corporations without increasing the deficit because, as they repeatedly insisted, “tax cuts pay for themselves.” We didn’t need additional evidence that their ridiculous belief was, and is, wrong, but the evidence soon followed anyway.
And then, of course, the pandemic hit, at which point the deficit reached record levels.
The latest data shows the deficit shrinking once more, just in time for GOP officials and candidates to start pretending to care about the issue again.
Several House Republicans—exactly the ones you would guess—were involved in planning meetings for protests on Jan. 6 as Trump supporters tried to block the certification of the 2020 election and with it, Donald Trump’s loss, two sources have detailed to Rolling Stone. Both sources are in contact with the House select committee investigating the attack on the U.S. Capitol, and both, let’s be clear, are motivated to paint their own involvement in the most innocent and patriotic light possible. But they can still have valuable testimony, whatever the motivations.
The sources, identified as an organizer and a planner, say they participated in “dozens” of planning meetings, including some with the personal participation of or top staffers from the offices of Reps. Paul Gosar, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Andy Biggs, Lauren Boebert, Madison Cawthorn, Mo Brooks, and Louie Gohmert. (See, I told you you could guess.) “We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” the organizer told Rolling Stone. Both were in contact with Boebert and Gosar on Jan. 6 itself.
The meetings weren’t purely informational: At least one member of Congress was urging them to put on a protest. The two sources are subjects of an unrelated investigation that Gosar used as incentive to get them to plan the Ellipse protest, telling them that Trump would give them “blanket pardons.”
“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer said, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”
The sources insist that they were involved only in planning the rally at the Ellipse, with the intention of pressuring Congress from that relatively safe distance to overturn the election. They wanted to overturn the election—they just insist they didn’t think it would be violent.
”The breaking point for me [on Jan. 6 was when] Trump starts talking about walking to the Capitol,” said the organizer. “I was like, ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’”
The planner, too, pointed a finger at Trump, saying, “I do kind of feel abandoned by Trump.”
And both pointed to the role of Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander, who previously bragged about planning Jan. 6 events with the help of Biggs, Brooks, and Gosar. Alexander, the sources told Rolling Stone, had agreed to not hold his “Wild Protest” at the Capitol, leaving the Ellipse event as the major draw of the day. But then he went ahead with it anyway. “We ended up escalating that to everybody we could, including [then White House chief of staff Mark] Meadows,” the organizer said. But Meadows—who they say was more broadly involved in planning Jan. 6 events—apparently didn’t intervene to stop Alexander’s event.
A spokesman for Greene said her involvement was only in planning to object to the electoral certification in Congress, despite the fact that she was billed as a speaker at Alexander’s Wild Protest, as were Gosar and Boebert. Presumably all of the congressional Republicans will claim that they were only expecting a peaceful if spirited protest while they tried to overturn the results of a presidential election based entirely on conspiracy theories and sore loserdom. But despite the refusal of some on Team Trump, like Steve Bannon, to respond to the House select committee’s subpoenas, it sounds like the committee will be getting some valuable information about the planning process and the involvement of key Republicans.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s new surgeon general Joseph Ladapo isn’t just a weapon of mass disinformation about COVID-19. He’s also a creep who’s seemingly incapable of basic human courtesy.
Ladapo requires confirmation from Florida’s state Senate and was making the rounds last week when he reportedly stopped by Democratic Sen. Tina Polsky’s office. Polsky was diagnosed with Stage One breast cancer in August, so had good reason to request Ladapo put on a mask and not shower her with his breath droplets. […] but Ladapo refused, because he’s an asshole. That’s our theory, at least.
Florida Politics reports:
“I told him I had a serious medical condition,” said Polsky, who will begin radiation therapy treatment for cancer next week.
She has fucking cancer! Ladapo couldn’t act like a decent human for five minutes. Instead, he suggested they take it outside. Polsky, who we’ve mentioned has cancer, didn’t want to go outside. Sometimes, you prefer to remain comfortably seated in your climate-controlled office, like when you have cancer. There was a brief back-and-forth, and Polsky asked Ladapo why he wouldn’t just wear a mask for their meeting.
“He just smiles and doesn’t answer. He’s very smug,” Polsky recalled. “And I told him several times, `I have this very serious medical condition.’ And he said, ‘That’s OK,’ like it basically has nothing to do with what we are talking about.”
[…] Florida’s surgeon general should appreciate that cancer is bad. […]. A positive COVID-19 test would mean a delay in her treatment, which could jeopardize her survival.
She eventually asked Ladapo to leave, but said that on his way out the door, Ladapo remarked, “Sometimes I try to reason with unreasonable people for fun.”
I know I keep belaboring this point, but Polsky has cancer and therefore may be immunocompromised. Ladapo, meanwhile, seems to us like a straight-up sociopath. He demonstrates how cruelty has become the modern GOP’s governing philosophy. Ladapo’s spokesperson confirmed the meeting in a statement, but denied the taunting comments. The spokesperson also failed to spell Polsky’s name correctly, because apparently even that’s too much to ask.
When my aunt met my infant son, she was just getting over a cold, so she wore a surgical mask. She didn’t want to get him sick. She’s a former nurse, not a fancy surgeon general, but she also cares about other people. Ladapo is opposed to the vaccine and mask mandates. However, he can freely choose to wear a mask to cover his reportedly unvaccinated face. He doesn’t […] This is an affirmatively anti-life equation: No masks or vaccines, ever. Legitimate medical science doesn’t support this position. […]
The Florida Senate is GOP-controlled, so Ladapo had a glide path to confirmation. Polsky was probably a “no” regardless, but Ladapo behaving like a schoolyard bully put Republicans on the defensive. Republican Senate President Wilton Simpson sent a memo to all Senate staff that criticized Ladapo’s actions but avoided mentioning his name. Such bold, moral clarity! Like a common Susan Collins, Simpson said the incident was “disappointing.”
“What occurred in Senator Polsky’s office was unprofessional and will not be tolerated in the Senate,” the Republican leader wrote. “While there is no mask mandate in the Senate, Senators and staff can request social distancing and masking within their own offices. If visitors to the Senate fail to respect these requests, they will be asked to leave.”
[…]
Republicans, including Simpson, have spent this pandemic enabling the willfully ignorant. Simpson opposed mask mandates in schools. […] Anti-maskers can hide behind large numbers of impacted people while shouting “Freedom!” But when this is broken down to an encounter between a woman sick with cancer and a preening asshole, Republicans like Simpson can’t escape the shame.
Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay tweeted that she appreciated Simpson’s gesture, but challenged him to show true leadership and reject Ladapo’s nomination. It’s not hard to do on the merits: Ladapo publicly spreads anti-vax lies and disinformation, and he’s aligned with extremist groups such as America’s Frontline Doctors, which includes that demon semen person (we won’t use the word “doctor”).
The Orlando Sentinel has also declared Ladapo unfit for his position. However, we expect DeSantis to double down on his decision. He’s copied Donald Trump’s body language in speeches, so the obvious next step is to mimic Trump’s devotion to the worst people on Earth.
Wonkette: “GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis Offers Unvaccinated Cops $5K To Come Infect And Serve Floridians”
Florida’s COVID-19 cases are trending downward since their August peak. Hospitalizations have decreased by 38 percent over the past two weeks, and deaths have declined by 31 percent. Hooray! Sure, COVID-19 might’ve killed 58,000 Floridians, but GOP Governor Ron DeSantis is real proud of himself for standing firm against medical tyranny. […]
However, DeSantis does need to staff up on account of all the deaths, we guess, so he’s actively recruiting folks who share his apparently casual disregard for human life. During a segment on Fox’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” he told host Maria Bartiromo that he’s prepared to offer a relocation bonus of $5,000 to out-of-state cops who lost their jobs because they won’t get vaccinated. He’s making a dedicated push toward herd stupidity. […]
He said:
In Florida, not only are we going to want to protect the law enforcement and all the jobs, we are actively working to recruit out-of-state law enforcement because we do have needs in our police and sheriff’s departments.
COVID-19 was the number one cop killer in 2020 and 2021 (so far). […] At least 37 cops have died from COVID-19 in Florida since the pandemic started, and the number continues to rise.
DeSantis plans to throw open Florida’s doors to insubordinate, unvaccinated cops from New York, Minneapolis, Seattle […]
Cities with vaccine mandates are treating cops well. They’d prefer police don’t die from a preventable illness. This is like offering cops $5,000 to come to work without a bulletproof vest, and there are often far more viral bullets to dodge in Florida. The state’s vaccination rate is lagging, and its new surgeon general Joseph Ladapo is an anti-science kook. […]
Vaccination remains the best protection from contracting the disease. In the event of breakthrough infections, vaccines are effective at preventing serious illness that would hospitalize or kill you. This is according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, John Hopkins, and a recent study in the the New England Journal of Medicine.
[…] “Your right to earn a living should not be contingent on getting shots,” DeSantis said, demonstrating that he doesn’t understand how “rights” work. No one is holding anyone down and forcing a needle into their arm. However, private and public entities are under no obligation to make it easy for willingly unvaccinated people to function in society. There is no constitutional right to work in law enforcement or in healthcare, especially if you refuse to protect yourself and others from a highly contagious and deadly disease.
Officer Anthony Testa from West Palm Beach died from COVID-19 last month. He was 36 and unvaccinated. COVID-19 then exercised its freedom to devastate his body. He was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator before eventually succumbing to the virus. He leaves behind a wife and four-year-old son. His story would be all over Fox News if his killer was an undocumented immigrant or a homeless person. Instead, he is an inconvenient death for the right wing’s anti-vax narrative. […]
Sudan’s military on Monday detained the prime minister, dissolved the government and declared a state of emergency, in what could be the end of a democratic transition propelled by the millions of Sudanese who marched in the streets for the overthrow of longtime dictator Omar Hassan al-Bashir more than two years ago.
The coup comes just days after the U.S. envoy to the region met with Sudan’s military leaders and warned them that American support for Sudan was conditional on sticking to an agreement that would see power put squarely in civilian hands this year.
Sudan’s top military commander and head of state, Lt. Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, appeared on state television about noon local time to announce the new measures, but he did not specifically address the arrests of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other members of the government. He also did not mention a target date for a transition to full civilian control of the government. He said the military was still committed to democratic elections by mid-2023.
As news of the military’s action spread around Khartoum, crowds gathered in the streets in protest — just days after the capital witnessed the biggest pro-democracy demonstrations since 2019, when Bashir was toppled by a wave of popular discontent. Locals described security forces out in droves using batons and live ammunition to scatter protesters, who uploaded videos of the chaos despite Internet services being disrupted.
[…] Local news channels reported the closing of roads and bridges connecting Khartoum with the rest of Sudan by large contingents of security forces, as well as the suspension of flights at the airport. A prominent doctors association said in a statement posted to Twitter that two people had died of gunshot wounds and more than 80 were injured.
Since Bashir’s ousting, the country has been governed by a civilian-military transitional council, and tensions over power-sharing have repeatedly threatened to boil over into outright confrontation. […]
The United States, European Union and United Nations all issued statements calling for the immediate release of civilian leaders and their restoration in the government, and the African Union suspended Sudan’s membership. Saudi Arabia, a close ally, expressed concern in a statement but did not call Monday’s events a coup or military takeover.
[…] “The US is deeply alarmed at reports of a military take-over of the transitional government. This would contravene the Constitutional Declaration and the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people and is utterly unacceptable. As we have said repeatedly, any changes to the transitional government by force puts at risk U.S. assistance.” […]
[…] Politico reported last week that Arizona Republicans are filling up their 2022 midterm ballot with “a roster of conspiracy theorists and extremists,” including a celebrity from the QAnon conspiracy world. Under a headline that said the Arizona GOP has gone “full fringe,” the article added that entire Republican ticket in the state is embracing the Big Lie as if it were true.
Reading the piece, I was reminded of a Republican lawyer in Tucson named Robert Gonzalez, who wrote an op-ed for The Arizona Republic in February, urging voters not to give up on the GOP just yet. Against a backdrop in which the state party had just censured their own party’s governor for taking the pandemic at least somewhat seriously, Gonzalez argued that his party was not a “lost cause” and could still be salvaged.
“We aren’t all election-result-denying, insurrection-endorsing, Trump-supporting extremists,” he wrote in February. In an appeal to voters repulsed by the party’s direction, the Republican lawyer concluded, “Don’t go just yet. We still need you.”
Eight months later, Gonzales has changed his mind. In a follow-up op-ed for the state’s largest newspaper, he wrote that he was wrong; reforming the GOP from within isn’t going to work; and he’s leaving the party altogether.
I had hope back in February that we could correct course. Especially after Jan. 6, a return to sanity seemed necessary, maybe inevitable. But after months of meeting with folks on the ground, watching the news and seeing the 2022 GOP primaries unfold, I’m less optimistic. One of the few remaining tools to influence the Republican Party is to sever ties. So I urge remaining Republicans who stand for truth and democracy to vote with their feet, and leave.
[…] it’d be a mistake to assume he represents a much larger constituency.
[…] The Washington Post’s Max Boot wrote in a column, “I’m a single-issue voter. My issue is the fate of democracy in the United States. Simply put, I have no faith that we will remain a democracy if Republicans win power. Thus, although I’m not a Democrat, I will continue to vote exclusively for Democrats — as I have done in every election since 2016 — until the GOP ceases to pose an existential threat to our freedom.”
Boot, who earned a reputation as a relatively conservative political observer, added, “To prevent a successful coup in 2024, it is imperative to elect Democrats at every level of government in 2021 and 2022 — to state legislatures and governorships, as well as the House and Senate.”
The same day, The New York Times published a similar piece from former Republican Gov. Christine Todd Whitman and Miles Taylor, a veteran of the Trump administration’s Department of Homeland Security, who wrote that political extremists “maintain a viselike grip” on the GOP at the state national and state levels. They added:
Rational Republicans are losing the party civil war. And the only near-term way to battle pro-Trump extremists is for all of us to team up on key races and overarching political goals with our longtime political opponents: the Democrats.
[…] “the rational remnants of the Republican Party” should partner with Democrats “to defend American institutions, defeat far-right candidates, and elect honorable representatives next year.”
[…] the louder disaffected Republicans become as they walk away from the party, the more GOP leaders have cause for concern.
The wheels at Crown Finish Caves, in Crown Heights, have spent months quarantined indoors, growing mold. Sound familiar?
A lot of people think that they want to work in a cheese cave,” Caroline Hesse, the head of sales at Crown Finish Caves, a cheese-aging company in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, said, standing by a door marked “Employees Only.” “Then, when they realize that you’re in a tunnel that’s thirty feet underground for eight hours a day, a lot of them are, like, ‘Oh, maybe not.’ ” Hesse opened the door to let in a visitor.
Crown Finish’s cheese cave is situated below one of the old Nassau Brewery buildings, on Bergen Street. The company’s owners, Benton Brown and Susan Boyle, bought the building in 2001 and converted the four stories aboveground into art studios. Then they had an idea for what to do with the vaulted brick tunnels beneath the building, where the brewery once aged lager. Brown had been learning about affinage, or cheese aging. Affineurs buy “green” wheels of cheese from cheesemakers who don’t have the time or the space to minister to the cheeses for the months or years needed before they’re ready to be sliced into wedges and sold to consumers. “Cheeses that don’t need to cave are like ricotta, mozzarella—things that don’t have a rind on them,” Hesse said. “Everything else—Brie, blue cheese—needs to be put in a cave.” The Nassau Brewery tunnels, which hadn’t been used since the brewery closed, in 1916, and where the ambient temperature has stayed a cool fifty-five degrees for more than a century, are an affineur’s dream.
Hesse put on a red hairnet, a blue lab coat, and a pair of white plastic clogs—mandatory cavewear—and made her way down a spiral staircase. […]
Opening a sliding door, she revealed the cave: a space the size of a decent studio apartment, with white brick walls and three banks of wooden shelves holding twenty-four thousand pounds of cheese-in-progress. A hygrometer—which measures humidity—read just below ninety per cent. The smell was more barnyard than locker room. In the back, two affineurs, Liana Kindler and Ethan Partyka, moved around, affinaging. Hesse made for a shelf of Mixed Signal, a clothbound Cheddar-style cheese from Vermont. “This went into the cave last week,” she said, pointing to a waxy orange cylinder a foot tall and two feet across. “And this went in last month,” she said, pointing to a Mixed Signal cylinder covered in green-gray mold. In a few more months, the mold would develop into a proper rind. Until then, the cylinders would be flipped regularly, to keep the moisture in the cheese from sinking to the bottom, and brushed, to maintain an even distribution of mold.
Cheese aging is a craft of active patience. You can’t age cheese remotely. Crown Finish Caves kept operations going through the pandemic. At the start, the company sold whole wheels direct to consumers for the first time. “Everyone was hunkering down,” Hesse said, looking over a row of Carpenter’s Wheel, a goat’s-milk cheese from Maryland, which had been molded into smooth disks intended to look like river stones. “We made videos explaining how to store a whole wheel of cheese.” At the back of the cave, globes of Mimolette, an orangey French cheese, hung from the ceiling. “We like to keep a couple wheels of Mimolette, because there’s this great mold that grows on them—these nice red spots,” Hesse said. “The air has all these molds and microbes and things that pass over all the cheeses.” […]
Private individuals and community groups will now be able to sponsor Afghan refugees under a new program announced by the Biden administration on Monday. Under the Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans, groups of vetted individuals would form “sponsor circles” that will be responsible for securing housing and financial support for families, and help situate them in their new communities.
“Americans of all walks of life have expressed strong interest in helping to welcome these individuals,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. “The Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans harnesses this outpouring of support and enables individuals to become directly involved in the welcome and integration of our new neighbors.”
The Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans, an initiative of the Department of State and the Community Sponsorship Hub, requires interested applicants to first pass a background check, complete mandatory training, and pledge that they can support newly arrived individuals or families for three months. “Once sponsor circles are certified, CSH will work to match them with arriving Afghans who choose to participate in the program,” Blinken said. Per the application website, “sponsor circles” must consist of at least five adults.
[…] “As of earlier this week, roughly 68,000 Afghan evacuees had arrived in the U.S. since August 17, according to Department of Homeland Security data,” CBS News reports. And because thousands of Afghans were quickly evacuated through a process called humanitarian parole, they’ll be unable to access services typically available to other refugees […]
The Biden administration outlined on Monday very narrow exemptions that will permit unvaccinated international travelers to enter the United States.
Anyone who is under the age of 18 traveling from overseas will need to show a negative COVID-19 test before boarding a flight, but are exempted from vaccination requirements, the White House said.
Even though there are vaccines available in the U.S. to children as young as 12, administration officials said they are sensitive to the global variability regarding access to vaccination for older children who are otherwise eligible to be vaccinated.
Similarly, the White House said people who are traveling on non-tourist visas from countries that have vaccinated less than 10 percent of their population are also exempt from the vaccine requirement. There are more than 50 countries that meet that threshold, including much of Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
A senior administration official said those individuals would need to show a “compelling reason” for traveling to the U.S.
“They need to have a specific, compelling reason. So, tourist visas will not qualify for that,” the official said. If they qualify, they need to show proof of a negative test taken within 24 hours prior to departure.
Other exemptions include those with certain medical conditions, clinical trial participants and those traveling on short notice for emergency or humanitarian reasons, the official said.
Most non-U.S. citizens and nonimmigrants arriving into the country by air will need to show both proof of vaccination and proof of a negative coronavirus test taken at least three days before departure. […]
When the kind of parents who would send their kids to Jerry Fallwell’s Liberty University send their daughters to Liberty University, they probably imagine they’ll be safer there than at some heathen secular institute. After all, Liberty University is filled with Good Christians and has strict rules and an honor code with rules like “Sexual relations outside of a biblically-ordained marriage between a natural-born man and a natural-born woman are not permissible at Liberty University.”
They would be wrong.
An extremely disturbing report from ProPublica alleges that the university has been using that same honor code, “The Liberty Way,” to intimidate and punish students who are victims of sexual assault. Specifically, the school seems to have made a habit out of requiring students who report their sexual assaults to sign documents admitting to breaking the school’s honor code by drinking, being alone with a member of the opposite sex, going to an off-campus party, etc., before even looking into their cases. And, when they finally do, after several months, they reportedly tell the victims their assailants have been found innocent due to a “preponderance of evidence.”
In at least one case, this may have been because they got rid of the evidence, claiming it was too explicit.
[Elizabeth] Axley went in and looked through the materials. The photos with her injuries, she recalled, were no longer there. Axley said that when she asked what had happened, Bucci told her the photos had been removed because they were too “explicit.”
“I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach,” Axley recalled. “I had been relying on them all these months to take my evidence into account when considering my case, and it wasn’t even in my file.”
Violations of The Liberty Way are not handled, by the way, with a slap on the wrist. They can result in various punishments, including fines. While victims who self-report violations as part of reporting a sexual or physical assault are not supposed to be punished, according to the Liberty Way Honor Code, they have been discouraged from reporting by faculty who told them that they very well could be.
The RA, Axley said, told her not to report it, saying Axley could be found to have violated the school’s prohibition against drinking and fraternizing with the opposite sex.
Instead, the RA offered to pray with Axley.
“I was really confused,” recalled Axley. “They were making it seem like I had done something wrong.” […]
In the fall of 2013, Diane Stargel sought the help of the university’s mental health counselors, telling the counselor she met with that she’d been raped by another student at a party off-campus. Stargel recalled that the counselor listened and then asked her to sign a “victim notice” that warned she could be found to have broken the Liberty Way if she chose to move forward. Terrified of losing her scholarship, Stargel signed the paper and did not formally report being assaulted. “I feel like Liberty bullied me into silence after what happened to me,” said Stargel. “I’ve always regretted that I never got my day in court. But at least now I can stand up and say, ‘Yeah, that happened to me.'”
Amanda Stevens also remembers being warned she could be fined for having violated the Liberty Way. After she reported being raped to the school’s Title IX office in April 2015, Stevens recalled that a school official listed her potential infractions: drinking (though she had not been drinking at the time of the assault), having premarital sex and being alone with a man on campus.
Some students interviewed said they were also discouraged from going to the police, and if not that, simply not informed they had the option (which the law requires the school to do). In one case a victim was told that if she reported her case to the police, the Title IX office wouldn’t be able to investigate her claim, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Even after criticism of the school’s handling of sexual assault started blowing up online this year, the school maintained a policy of both ignoring it and trying to suppress it, according to a former faculty member who says he was fired for trying to push them to do something about it.
While Liberty University’s alleged conduct is appalling, it’s not even remotely surprising in a patriarchal culture like that, where it is frequently considered a woman’s job to keep men from sinning. To the kind of people who believe that crap, sexual assault is simply the end result of a woman failing to do that. That is why they are more concerned about making the female students sign papers acknowledging that they broke the school’s honor code than they are with doing something about the fact that they were sexually assaulted. […]
“Historically, and based on the cases you presented to me, I do not believe Liberty has a conception of sexual assault that is consistent with criminal law, and certainly not with federal civil rights and campus safety,” said S. Daniel Carter, who helped write a law governing how universities that receive federal funding handle sexual assault cases.
Unfortunately for Liberty, they don’t get to have their own conception of sexual assault, just like no one gets to have their own conception of murder or insider trading. Sexual assault is a crime whether they think it is or not. While no criminal charges are being pressed, over a dozen former students have brought a lawsuit against the school for not doing anything about their sexual assaults, making it “difficult or impossible” for students to report, and alleging that the “public and repeated retaliation against women who did report their victimization” made the school a hostile environment for anyone who did choose to report.
[…] Until they figure something out, female students might want to get the hell out of there.
[…] Facebook is a Doomsday Machine that will kill us all.
Okay, that’s not really news in the year 2021. But seriously, why haven’t you deleted that filthy hell app yet?
In case you’re still swimming in the blue sewer, every major news outlet in the country got its hands on another tranche of leaked Facebook documents this weekend, and, spoiler alert, it’s really, really bad. (The papers came from whistleblower Frances Haugen, of course.) Turns out, the company consistently prioritized its own profits over the safety of its users and was delighted to monetize content that it knew was harmful to them. All while touting the world-spanning benefits of its “community” and publicly disclaiming responsibility for the poison it was pumping out into the world.
[…] “This is a dark moment in our nation’s history,” Mark Zuckerberg wrote [on January 6], “and I know many of you are frightened and concerned about what’s happening in Washington, DC. I’m personally saddened by this mob violence.”
Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer echoed his boss’s brow-furrowing, asking employees to “hang in there.”
“We have been ‘hanging in there’ for years,” one staffer shot back.
“All due respect, but haven’t we had enough time to figure out how to manage discourse without enabling violence?” said another. “We’ve been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn’t be surprised it’s now out of control.”
“I’m tired of platitudes; I want action items,” another responded. “We’re not a neutral entity.”
Another put it even more bluntly: “History will not judge us kindly.”
Facebook’s staff was absolutely furious because they’d been screaming bloody murder about the ways the site was optimized to monetize outrage and radicalize users, and plastering upper management with policy memos with solutions to prevent the platform leading vulnerable people down the rabbit hole to meet up with like-minded maniacs. But nothing ever changed.
Watching in horror on November 5 as the “Stop the Steal” page grew to 330,000 people in its first 24 hours, one Facebook employee wrote, “Not only do we not do something about combustible election misinformation in comments, we amplify and give them broader distribution. Why?”
[…] Here’s the Washington Post’s summary of how Facebook’s algorithms got rejiggered to prioritize incendiary content over things you might actually want to see:
Zuckerberg has long been obsessed with metrics, growth and neutralizing competitive threats, according to numerous people who have worked with him. The company’s use of “growth-hacking” tactics, such as tagging people in photos and buying lists of email addresses, was key to achieving its remarkable size — 3.51 billion monthly users, nearly half the planet. In Facebook’s early years, Zuckerberg set annual targets for the number of users the company wanted to gain. In 2014, he ordered teams at Facebook to grow “time spent,” or each user’s minutes spent on the service, by 10 percent a year, according to the documents and interviews.
In 2018, Zuckerberg defined a new metric that became his “north star,” according to a former executive. That metric was MSI — “meaningful social interactions” — named because the company wanted to emphasize the idea that engagement was more valuable than time spent passively scrolling through videos or other content. For example, the company’s algorithm would now weight posts that got a large number of comments as more “meaningful” than likes, and would use that information to inject the comment-filled posts into the news feeds of many more people who were not friends with the original poster, the documents said.
MSI was the reason the site was initially reluctant to clamp down on COVID misinformation, even as it was infecting the entire platform: “Mark doesn’t think we could go broad,” read notes of one meeting. “We wouldn’t launch if there was a material trade-off with MSI.”
As NBC’s Brandy Zadrozny writes, the consequences were stark, pushing users toward ever more radical content. An internal report titled “Carol’s Journey to QAnon” documented the time it took for Facebook’s algorithm to start recommending QAnon pages to a dummy profile that claimed to be a mother from North Carolina whose interests included politics, Christianity, and Donald Trump. Forty-eight hours, from Trump to Q.
[snipped Zuckerberg’s cowardly actions in Vietnam] in America, Zuckerberg cited the paramount importance of free speech — and the danger of pissing off Republicans — as a reason to leave dangerous misinformation on the platform. […]
The Wall Street Journal notes that the CEO took a similarly laissez-faire approach to posts that promote racial violence against Muslims in India. […] In a report entitled “Adversarial Harmful Networks: India Case Study,” researchers documented hate speech and misinformation flowing from pages associated with the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh group, or RSS, promoting the idea of a “Love Jihad,” whereby Muslim men would seduce Hindu women to convert them, or that “Muslim clerics spit on food to either ‘make it halal,’ or spread Covid-19, as a larger war against Hindus.” […]
CNN got an internal memo from Vice President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, bucking up the troops:
Social media turns traditional top-down control of information on its head. In the past, public discourse was largely curated by established gatekeepers in the media who decided what people could read, see and digest. Social media has enabled people to decide for themselves – posting and sharing content directly. This is both empowering for individuals – and disruptive to those who hanker after the top-down controls of the past, especially if they are finding the transition to the online world a struggle for their own businesses.
Riiiiiight.
Why the hell haven’t you deleted that goddamn app yet?
Strange as this may seem, I’ve never seen Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Earlier today, whilst idly browsing, I stumbled across a German band(? singer?), Berge, and found this, LET US ALL UNITE — Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator Spreech) (video). I do not know who the voice artist is — it could be Mr Chaplin but I doubt it, and is not Berge(‘s singer), a woman — this seems to be an atypical Berge performance — but is well-done… and the speech itself is from 80 years ago but still, unfortunately, applicable.
The U.S. military said it killed a senior al-Qaida leader in an airstrike Friday in northwest Syria. Army Maj. John Rigsbee, a spokesperson for U.S. Central Command, said in a statement that Abdul Hamid al-Matar was killed by a drone strike.
If U.S. democracy falls this century, it will likely be at the hands of a stubby-fingered sack of extra-piquant donkey farts who likely never bothered to read the Constitution he swore to uphold—and certainly didn’t understand it if he did bother. […]
Donald Trump is a buffoon, but he’s an evil buffoon, and it doesn’t actually take a smart man to demagogue against democracy. You simply need zero shame, a preternatural instinct for bullying, and a party full of Q-besotted quislings to go along with your rotten plans.
On Friday’s episode of The Beat With Ari Melber, Yale history professor Timothy Snyder didn’t mince words when it came to the ominous, anti-democratic forces that are currently gathering to storm the gates of our venerable republic.
After Melber noted that several Big Lie proponents are running (with the backing of the ocher abomination) for secretary of state positions in several U.S. states—which would give them a great deal of control over the 2024 election in some key swing states—he had an unsettling talk with Snyder, an expert on authoritarianism and author of the book On Tyranny. […]
Video is available at the link.
Excerpts:
ARI MELBER: “When you see this effort to put this much pressure on installing partisan officials who’ve embraced lies and tried to overturn elections in these official positions for next election, how concerned should we be? What, if any, foreign analogs do you see?”
TIMOTHY SNYDER: “Well, as someone who follows contemporary Russia, there is a Russian phrase that comes to mind, which is ‘the administrative resource.’ What the administrative resource means in Russian is that, sure, you have an election, but the people who are running the election are going to determine how the election turns out. What the Republicans are going for is precisely that thing—the administrative resource.
Historically speaking, what we know about a big lie is that, because of its very scale, it’s not about truth or not-truth, it’s about living in a kind of alternative reality. And what we’re looking at is people who believe in or pretend to believe in this Big Lie actually carrying out our elections. And the problem with this, or one of them, is that, since these people have already claimed that the other side cheated, that basically legitimates their cheating. In other words, if you talk about the Big Lie now, you’re basically promising to cheat the next time around, and that’s very concerning.”
MELBER: “How worried are you that the United States could face a situation where coordinated efforts by these kind of officials could actually swing an election?”
SNYDER: “Oh, we don’t need the ‘could’ … I mean, I would say we should be thinking of this as what is happening, and then ask ourselves what we can do to prevent it. I mean, it’s very clear that some combination of people who talk about the Big Lie being in important administrative posts, along with nonlegal or extralegal reviews of the election, perhaps along with states claiming for themselves the right to allocate electoral votes against the wishes of their own people. Some combination of that is clearly in the works, alongside voter suppression, which has a long and dark history in our country.
The scenario for 2024, for most influential people around Donald Trump, which unfortunately means one of the political parties, is precisely to be installed without winning the election. That’s very consistent with everything Mr. Trump has ever said—in 2016, 2020, and now. So I don’t think it’s something that could happen; I think it’s something that’s underway, and the question is, can we accept this reality in time to take the measures we need to take to prevent it?”
idontknowwhyibothersays
Ob #211, that is Chaplin.
Here is the speech from The Great Dictator:
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) on Monday disputed a report that he had a role in organizing the rally on Jan. 6 that immediately preceded the riot at the U.S. Capitol. But his denial came with a note: Brooks said he would be “proud” if any of his staff had a role in planning the rally held moments before a riot that caused five deaths and hundreds of people being injured.
Brooks responded to a Rolling Stone report that found the GOP congressman or his staff to have been in contact with two unnamed organizers of the Jan. 6 rally and similar gatherings following the 2020 presidential election.
He told AL.com that the “beginning” of his involvement in the rally was when the White House asked him to speak the day before, saying he “had no intentions of going to that rally until Jan. 5.” While the congressman could not say whether any of his staff worked on the Jan. 6 rally, he acknowledged that he would be happy if they had helped organize it.
“Quite frankly, I’d be proud of them if they did help organize a First Amendment rally to protest voter fraud and election theft,” Brooks said of his staff to the outlet.
[…]
Texas Governor Greg Abbott approved his party’s gerrymandered district maps yesterday. As the Texas Tribune summarized, “The maps were drawn to keep Texas Republicans in power for the next decade. They simultaneously diminish the power of voters of color — despite new census numbers pointing to Texans of color as the main force behind the state’s population growth.”
tomh @215, Mo Brooks wore a bullet-proof vest when he spoke at events preceding the January 6th insurrection. So, yeah, I think he knew that crowd harbored the potential for violence.
Brooks claiming that he had nothing to do with organizing the attack on the capital is disingenuous.
[…] after Joe Biden was named the president-elect, Brooks’ support for Donald Trump reached a new level. The far-right Alabaman not only spent weeks insisting the election had been stolen, reality be damned, Brooks also vowed to spearhead the effort in Congress to contest the results.
He even appeared at the Jan. 6 rally near the White House and did his part to rouse the pro-Trump mob, telling the audience it was time to start “kicking ass” and asking those in attendance what they were prepared to sacrifice for the good of their country.
By his own admission, Brooks was wearing a bulletproof vest at the time.
The attack on the U.S. Capitol soon followed. Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell ultimately filed a civil suit, naming Brooks among the defendants. […]
This is the same Brooks who expressed tacit sympathy for extremists’ motives in August, and who urged telecommunications companies not to cooperate with a bipartisan congressional investigation into the Jan. 6 attack in September.
If you’re thinking the House select committee investigating the attack will probably want to have an under-oath chat with Brooks, you’re not alone.
I think Brooks is just parsing words carefully when he claims he “had no role in organizing,” and that he would be proud if his staff did have a role in organizing the lead up to the insurrection.
Another Republican got caught committing nefarious deeds … so he is blaming others in order to muddy the waters.
[…] The state senator [Tennessee Sen. Brian Kelsey] has been accused of conspiring with others to violate federal campaign finance laws. Kelsey has been charged with conspiracy, illegally transferring “soft money,” and both making and accepting excessive contributions to a federal campaign.
The state senator insisted yesterday that he’s innocent — but that’s not all he said.
“This is nothing but a political witch hunt,” Kelsey wrote on Twitter. “The Biden Administration is trying to take me out because I’m conservative, and I’m the #1 target of the Tennessee Democratic Party.”
[cough] Ummm, it was you, Senator Kelsey, that violated campaign finance laws, not the Biden Administration.
In other words, the Tennessee legislator wants the public to believe that federal law enforcement is conspiring against him. Sure, it may look like a federal grand jury in Nashville returned a five-count indictment charging Kelsey with a variety of crimes, but he’d like voters to see this as an example of the Biden administration politicizing the Justice Department as part of an electoral scheme.
To the extent that reality matters, the claim is foolish. The grand jury probe began in 2019 — two years before the Biden administration existed. Unless Kelsey is prepared to argue that Democratic prosecutors had access to a time machine, we know that the conspiracy theory isn’t true.
But it’s entirely possible that some of Kelsey’s supporters will believe the line anyway — and therein lies a problem.
Indeed, the Tennessean isn’t the only politician with legal troubles pushing this line. Before U.S. Rep. Jeff Fortenberry was charged last week with lying to the FBI, the Nebraska Republican created a legal expense fund. It’s online fundraising page said Fortenberry was facing “the Deep State’s bottomless pockets,” and went so far as to claim that President Joe Biden’s FBI “is using its unlimited power to prosecute me on a bogus charge.”
Like the Tennessee story, the investigation into the Nebraska congressman pre-dates Biden’s presidency. The conspiracy theory is difficult to take seriously.
What matters more, however, than the rhetoric being wrong is the fact that it’s also inherently unhealthy. These Republicans have effectively argued that federal charges brought against GOP officials during a Democratic presidency should be seen as suspect, as if federal law enforcement is necessarily an extension of the White House’s political agenda.
Donald Trump may have tragically adopted such a worldview, but it’s important for the Justice Department as an institution to be seen in a more independent light, and no one benefits from bogus conspiratorial thinking.
The White House on Monday rejected another executive privilege request by former President Donald Trump over documents sought by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. In a letter obtained by NBC News, White House counsel Dana Remus told the National Archives that President Joe Biden has determined that Trump’s effort to keep a new batch of Jan. 6 records out of Congress’ hands “is not in the best interests of the United States.”
Commentary:
[…] This latest decision refers to a second batch of materials, which follow up on the first batch from a few weeks ago.
[…] as far as the Biden White House is concerned, this is not a normal dispute over congressional oversight and document production.
“These are unique and extraordinary circumstances,” Remus recently explained in correspondence with the National Archives. “Congress is examining an assault on our Constitution and democratic institutions provoked and fanned by those sworn to protect them, and the conduct under investigation extends far beyond typical deliberations concerning the proper discharge of the President’s constitutional responsibilities. The constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield, from Congress or the public, information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the Constitution itself.”
She added that the materials in question “shed light on events within the White House on and about January 6 and bear on the Select Committee’s need to understand the facts underlying the most serious attack on the operations of the Federal government since the Civil War.”
As a practical matter, these decisions mean the White House has given the National Archives the green light to release materials — phone records, visitor logs, internal communications, etc. — to the congressional panel investigating the insurrectionist attack. It’s difficult to speculate about what those documents may contain, but we know Trump did not want to give lawmakers this access.
Indeed, the former president’s lawyers filed suit last week — against the National Archives and the congressional committee — in the hopes of blocking disclosures.
The litigation is not expected to succeed. As a recent NBC News report added, we may very well see “a legal showdown between the current and former president over executive privilege,” though the Republican “faces long legal odds” since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the incumbent president “is in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch.”
(Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Monday voted to confirm Myrna Perez to serve on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, clearing the way for the voting rights expert to join the New York-based appellate court despite Republican objections to her past advocacy.
The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 48-43 to approve Perez amid a push by the White House to install more civil rights lawyers to the federal bench and calls by progressives for greater protections for voting rights.
Perez, who has been the director of the voting rights and election program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, was the seventh of President Joe Biden’s 13 appellate nominees to win Senate confirmation so far.
[…]
At the Brennan Center, Perez advocated against Republican-backed voting restrictions enacted in Georgia and Texas this year that she said “rest on the Big Lie, the disproven notion that there was mass voter fraud in 2020.”
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee largely opposed her nomination, with Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa calling her “the most outspoken liberal judicial nominee we’ve seen in this administration.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in August called her “dangerous” and “radical” as he criticized her advocacy against voter ID laws and other Republican-backed measures.
[…]
Biden has nominated two other judges to the 2nd Circuit. The Senate in August confirmed former public defender Eunice Lee to sit on the court, and the Senate Judiciary Committee last week advanced the nomination of Vermont Supreme Court Justice Beth Robinson.
Two 2nd Circuit judges, U.S. Circuit Judges Jose Cabranes and Rosemary Pooler, recently announced they planned to take senior status, giving Biden a chance to install five of the court’s 13 active judges. Six are Republican appointees.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro found himself in social media time-out Monday after his video warning of a supposed link between Covid-19 vaccines and AIDS triggered action by Facebook and YouTube.
Facebook removed the offending video, while YouTube went further, suspending the far-right leader for one week in addition to blocking the clip.
[…]
Bolsonaro […] cited purported official reports from the British government — since debunked — in his weekly live address on Facebook last Thursday.
He claimed the reports suggest that people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 are developing Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome much faster than expected.
I recommend you read the article, he added, without saying where the information came from.
I’m not going to read it here, because I don’t want to lose my Facebook live video.
[…]
The British government denied any such “reports” cited by Bolsonaro, in response to an AFP fact-checking team.
The Brazilian Society of Infectious Disease Specialists said in a statement there was no evidence of any relationship between Covid-19 vaccines and AIDS.
[…]
Frustratingly, France24 does not provide a link to the apparent debunking, and some admittedly quick searching has not located any debunking (not even at the AFP’s fact-checking site).
Cold-causing adenovirus used in four experimental COVID-19 vaccines increased risk of HIV infection when used in AIDS vaccine trials
Certain COVID-19 vaccine candidates could increase susceptibility to HIV, warns a group of researchers who in 2007 learned that an experimental HIV vaccine had raised in some people the risk for infection with the AIDS virus. These concerns have percolated in the background of the race for a vaccine to stem the coronavirus pandemic, but now the researchers have gone public with a “cautionary tale,” in part because trials of those candidates may soon begin in locales that have pronounced HIV epidemics, such as South Africa.
Some approved and experimental vaccines have as a backbone a variety of adenoviruses, which can cause the common cold but are often harmless. The ill-fated HIV vaccine trial used an engineered strain known as adenovirus 5 (Ad5) to shuttle into the body the gene for the surface protein of the AIDS virus. In four candidate COVID-19 vaccines now in clinical trials in several countries, including the United States, Ad5 similarly serves as the “vector” to carry in the surface protein gene of SARS-CoV-2, the viral cause of the pandemic; two of these have advanced to large-scale, phase III efficacy studies in Russia and Pakistan.
In today’s issue of The Lancet, four veteran researchers raise a warning flag about those COVID-19 vaccine candidates by recounting their experience running a placebo-controlled AIDS vaccine trial dubbed STEP. An interim analysis of STEP found that uncircumcised men who had been naturally infected with Ad5 before receiving the vaccine became especially vulnerable to the AIDS virus. The vaccine, made by Merck, had been the leading hope for what was then a 20-year search for a shot that could thwart HIV. But after the STEP results appeared, the field went into a tailspin. […]
In addition to the Ad5 COVID-19 vaccine candidates, several other leading vaccines, including ones made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca / the University of Oxford, use different adenoviruses as vectors. There’s no evidence that any of those adenoviruses increases the risks of an HIV infection.
No-one other than kooks — which certainly includes Bolsonaro — is claiming that any Covid-19 vaccine causes HIV / AIDS, or even is a known risk. At the moment, the Ad5 concern is a prudent warning of a bad result in the past.
I understand, of course, that a thrown-together piece of crap like Sex: Unzipped is not the place to find nuanced takes on issues such as sexual exploitation, sex workers rights or anything else suffused with such complexity. In which case, they should be off the table completely, not presented in a way that blithely assumes consensus.
Zip it back up.
I’ve been unable to determine how many zero-stars reviews the Grauniad has awarded.
Apparently, Roger Ebert has awarded only c.60 out of c.10,000 reviews (Roger Ebert’s Zero-Star Movies).
President Joe Biden will be representing the U.S. at the global climate summit in Glasgow beginning Sunday, where he will have to explain to all the world leaders that while the majority of American people want to take action to eliminate carbon emissions, one member of his own party is thwarting his—and the whole country’s—will. Around 60% of Americans think the pace of global warming is accelerating, and 55% want Congress to pass legislation to transition electricity generation to clean processes, away from gas and coal-fired plants, according to a new survey […]
While Biden is preparing for the summit, Sen. Joe Manchin is moving more goalposts for the big social, climate, and economic agenda Biden and the Democrats in Congress are trying to complete. Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, had already succeeded in stripping the most effective climate provision in the package. The Clean Electricity Performance Program (CEPP) would have rewarded utilities for making the transition and penalize those that don’t. That’s out. Then on Monday, news broke that Manchin was also demanding that the proposal to impose a methane fee on U.S. oil and gas producers has to be stripped. That would be penalizing the industry for pumping the planet-warming gas into the atmosphere and Manchin is opposed. His colleagues are now scrambling to find a compromise, which will probably involve giving the industry money: “providing $700 million in funding that would be rebated to oil and gas producers to help them comply with the fee,” according to a Washington Post source.
While Manchin is intent on giving more money to the climate-destroying fossil fuel industry, he also came out Monday telling the press that he will not agree to spending money to make life and health better for his—or anyone else’s—constituents. Right out of the gate Monday, Manchin contradicted reports from the White House and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that talks with Biden, Schumer, and Manchin on Sunday were productive and that Manchin was moving off of this $1.5 trillion cap for the package and they were considering as much as $2 trillion. Nope, he said. It’s $1.5, and by the way, that shouldn’t include Medicare and Medicaid expansion. [Oh, FFS.]
“I’m concerned about an awful lot of things,” Manchin told reporters. Those things aren’t how much carbon the industry that funds him is pouring into the atmosphere, or how much he wants to reward them for doing so. No, he’s concerned about pinching social services pennies—he doesn’t want any of those undeserving people feeling like they should have health care or something.[…]
the fight will be making sure that the two bills are voted on together and that Manchin and Sinema don’t pull the rug out from under them [out from under all the other Democrats, including the progressives], because they’re prepared to get whatever they can get out of the larger bill.
Wonkette: “Fox News Apparently Pro-Riot Now So Long As It’s About Spreading COVID-19”
Anti-vax protesters swarmed New York City’s Barclay Center Sunday in support of Brooklyn Nets player Kyrie Irving, who they seem to believe has a constitutional right to play professional basketball while unvaccinated. Muhammad Ali was a courageous conscientious objector to an unjust war, and Irving is, well, a goofball who objects to needles.
According to the New York Post’s Brian Lewis, the protesters chanted “Stand with Kyrie” (I hope not too closely). I’d love to know how those anti-vax protesters felt about the NFL blackballing Colin Kaepernick because he knelt during the National Anthem. […]
Fox News host Brian Kilmeade opposed Kaepernick’s peaceful protest and wasn’t even sure what he was so upset about. After all, hadn’t America bestowed upon him two white parents? However, Kilmeade expressed his support Monday for Irving’s childish refusal to protect himself and his teammates from a deadly virus. He even thanked the rally organizer John Matland:
There’s so many great people who feel the same way about the vaccine, on all different education, all different backgrounds; they just are not being listened to. John, thanks for standing up, appreciate what you’re doing.
Kilmeade admitted that the anti-vaccine mob that tried to storm the Barclay Center like it was the Capitol in January “got a little overzealous,” which he doesn’t support. Amazingly, he’s able to distinguish between the lawful protesters and the violent mob. They aren’t all collectively terrorists. Of course, last September, Kilmeade wanted to round up police violence protesters and treat them like al-Qaeda. […]
Matland told Kilmeade unprompted that his protest this weekend was in partnership with Black Lives Matter of Greater New York, a designer imposter fringe group with no official connection with the Black Lives Matter Global Network. Last summer, Fox News promoted controversial statements from BLM New York leader Walter “Hawk” Newsome in ongoing efforts to smear the entire movement. Donald Trump denounced a quote from Newsome as “Treason, Sedition, Insurrection!” (The answer to this “Jeopardy!” question is “What are three things that Trump himself would attempt in a few months?”)
During the love-fest interview, Kilmeade never mentioned that Matland had teamed up with a group that his own network had claimed wanted all cops dead. That should tell you all you need to know about Fox News. […]
Monday, former professional boxer Floyd Mayweather tweeted his support for Irving in a video where he declared that “America is the land of the free. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and supposedly, freedom to choose.”
Yeah, if you’ve raised a teenager, you can guess where this goes.
Choice is defined as an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. America gave us the choice to take the vaccine or not take the vaccine. As time moves on, that choice is gradually being stripped from us.
This definition of choice is incredibly juvenile and thus very American. If your choices have consequences, they argue, you’re not free at all. This is the core of the problem with anti-vaxxers. They want to make choices that impact others but they protest most bitterly if anyone freely responds to that choice. As the great American rapper Thomas Jefferson said, “Every action has an equal opposite reaction.”
Anti-vaxxers have freely made their choice. They must accept the consequences […] Their willful ignorance is quite simply a deadly choice.
Wonkette: “MyPillow Guy Has Very Exciting Thanksgiving Prophecy To Share!”
Steve Bannon, he is this guy who is made of matted rodent hair, and he’s been referred to the Justice Department for contempt of Congress for failing to cooperate with the January 6 committee.
But he’s got time to have the MyPillow guy on his show to talk about overturning the election their favorite loser lost. Yes, still, even after all Mike Lindell’s prophecies have failed to come true, these people are still working their grift, and now Lindell says the Supreme Court is going to do the thing with the election on Thanksgiving week.
But listen, because it’s even more than that. On a recent episode of the Steve Bannon podcast, Lindell announced that on his weird Frank website, he will be doing a MANY DAY Thanksgiving telecast, of all the proof the election was stolen from Dear Leader Trump. And Steve Bannon says for this Lindell is a “genius” and that there are going to be “fistfights” at all the dinner tables, because of the wonders the MyPillow guy has revealed.
You betcha. […]
Let them explain:
LINDELL: This is absolutely the biggest cover-up for the biggest crime in history. And it’s really sad. I cannot wait to drop this Supreme Court case the Tuesday at 9 a.m. before Thanksgiving and the whole world is going to be watching all this unfold over Thanksgiving.
The whole world.
LINDELL: And we’re actually gonna do a marathon, Steve, from Wednesday night of Thanksgiving all the way through to Sunday on FrankSpeech dot com.
In case you were wondering if anybody had actually invited Mike Lindell to share a Thanksgiving meal. Looks like he may have gone ahead and made some plans for himself.
At this point Bannon told Lindell to “slow down” — with a smirk on his face, it should be noted, not that we are suggesting he doesn’t actually believe Lindell’s conspiracy theories in his heart — and clarified that Lindell was saying that on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, he was going to drop a lawsuit that will have “some sort of sponsorship or somebody who’s got standing that’s not Mike Lindell.” Was Mike Lindell really saying a state’s attorney general was going to sign on to this? Yes, he said! And why would anybody doubt him? His prophecies have always come true before. And it’s going to be “9-0,” Lindell said, that the Supreme Court would at least want to look at his very good lawsuit.
AND THEN:
LINDELL: And you’re going to be sitting around the table — this is very important to our country and the world — everyone can be sitting around the table and going, ‘Hey, what do you think of that? You think the Supreme Court is going to accept it and protect our country like they’re supposed to?’
Totally.
BANNON: What I love about this — they said, hey, if you just get Trump out, orange man bad, and you get Biden, you can start having holidays again without arguing at the table and at each other’s throats.
But Mike Lindell comes in, and he’s going to go the Wednesday, the eve of Thanksgiving, on a marathon, so you can go back and have fistfights. The family squabbles. Lindell, you’re a genius!
Steve Bannon is fantasizing about fistfights at Thanksgiving tables because America’s families are sitting together watching FrankSpeech dot com. And he’s calling the MyPillow Guy a genius.
But no, Lindell protested, there would not be fistfights, because the delusional squirrels who live in his butt actually believe his Thanksgiving broadcast is going to bring America together, and here’s why:
LINDELL: No, no, no it’s different now! Thirty-some percent of Democrats now believe this country was stoled and through the machines. This is going to be a uniting! Not a dividing!
Like we said, delusional squirrels.
And we swear to God it sounded like he said “stoled,” so we’re going with it, with the proviso that we could have heard it wrong.
Wonkette predicts Lindell’s Thanksgiving prophecy will fail to come true just in time for him to issue a new Christmas prophecy […]
Wonkette: “Mitt Romney Warns That Taxing Billionaires Will Force Them To Buy More Ranches, Paintings, Unicorns”
Democrats are looking for ways to fund President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda now that Senator Kyrsten Sinema from Sinema-Land opposes rolling back the huge Trump tax cuts for the wealthy that she voted against four years ago. It’s hard to find a spare trillion these days, but Democrats think they can shake down the marginalized billionaire class.
The New York Times reports:
Billionaires could be taxed on unrealized capital gains on their liquid assets, Democratic officials said yesterday. It would affect people with $1 billion in assets or those who have reported at least $100 million in income for three consecutive years, according to news reports. That would ensnare perhaps 700 taxpayers — or the wealthiest 0.0002 percent — but Democrats hope it would generate at least $200 billion in revenue over a decade.
It’s unclear why the Times used the verb “ensnare,” like Democrats are setting up bear traps for these poor billionaires. This seems like a solid plan […] Let’s consult with almost-billionaire Mitt Romney, who’s forced to work past retirement age to provide car elevators for his family. The senator from Utah explained on Fox News yesterday why taxing billionaires is a terrible idea. […]
ROMNEY: It’s not a good idea to tell billionaires don’t come to America, don’t start your business here.
This is a common rhetorical dodge for rich people who want to dodge taxes. Their patriotism is apparently so transactional, they won’t stay in the country if taxed at a level they’re unlikely to feel in any real sense. Meanwhile, no Democrat seriously suggests that working people will flee the country and settle somewhere that actually provides universal child care, paid family leave, and affordable health care.
Romney claimed that higher taxes for billionaires would convince the “Steve Jobs and the Bill Gates and people like that” to go somewhere else. Jobs and Gates both started as normal mortals who made their fortune in America, thanks to the contributions and hard work from their fellow Americans. It’s not too much to ask that billionaires not abandon their countrymen because they don’t like a capital gains tax. […]
Then Romney reminded us of simpler times when Democrats didn’t run against fake populists like Donald Trump but unabashed cartoon plutocrats like Romney himself. Every time Mittens opened his gold-plated mouth in 2012, Barack Obama’s polls numbers improved in the Rust Belt.
ROMNEY: You’re going to tax people not when they sell something but just when they own it and the value goes up. And what that means is … these multi-billionaires are going to look and say, “I don’t want to invest in the stock market, because if that goes up, I’m gonna get taxed!” So maybe instead I’ll invest in a ranch or paintings or things that don’t build jobs.
How does Romney think ranches even work if he claims that “investing” in them wouldn’t create jobs? […] You have cattle to rustle and horses to groom.
Paintings probably do require less maintenance and upkeep, but I’m imagining a rich asshole dropping a million on a painting from some artist who died broke in a rat-infested apartment and hanging it in a room of a house they visit once a year, all the while thinking, “I’m so clever for avoiding that extra tax that might’ve funded child care.”
That’s what this is all about. Senator Joe Manchin wants to put an income cap of $60,000 on the child tax credit, which is arbitrary and would penalize families making $61,000 instead of $59,500. (It would also raise taxes on families making between $60,000 and $150,000, the current cap.) That’s real life and real money, while billionaires would play games with paintings and ranches rather than help less fortunate people. Of course, when you’re among the wealthiest 0.0002 percent, almost everyone’s less fortunate.
Romney’s spiel does make another compelling argument in favor of Elizabeth Warren’s straightforward soak-the-rich tax. Thanks, Senator.
Trump Tells January 6th Panel He Has Diplomatic Immunity as Russian Official
In his latest bid to prevent the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack from obtaining relevant documents, Donald Trump has claimed diplomatic immunity in his capacity as a representative of the Russian government.
According to Trump’s legal argument, his status as a Russian official during his four years in the White House makes all documents produced during his tenure property of the Russian Federation.
“Any attempt by the U.S. to seize Russian property will be seen as an act of war,” a letter from Trump’s legal team reads.
While Trump waits to see if his claim of diplomatic immunity succeeds, he is also prepared to argue that, having once hired Rudolph Giuliani as his attorney, he would be justified in pleading insanity.
A smaller dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine cleared its first regulatory hurdle Tuesday for use in young children, after a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee voted to recommend it for emergency use authorization for those ages 5 to 11.
Five years ago, Facebook gave its users five new ways to react to a post in their news feed beyond the iconic “like” thumbs-up: “love,” “haha,” “wow,” “sad” and “angry.”
Behind the scenes, Facebook programmed the algorithm that decides what people see in their news feeds to use the reaction emoji as signals to push more emotional and provocative content — including content likely to make them angry. Starting in 2017, Facebook’s ranking algorithm treated emoji reactions as five times more valuable than “likes,” internal documents reveal. The theory was simple: Posts that prompted lots of reaction emoji tended to keep users more engaged, and keeping users engaged was the key to Facebook’s business.
Facebook’s own researchers were quick to suspect a critical flaw. Favoring “controversial” posts — including those that make users angry — could open “the door to more spam/abuse/clickbait inadvertently,” a staffer, whose name was redacted, wrote in one of the internal documents. A colleague responded, “It’s possible.”
The warning proved prescient. The company’s data scientists confirmed in 2019 that posts that sparked angry reaction emoji were disproportionately likely to include misinformation, toxicity and low-quality news.
That means Facebook for three years systematically amped up some of the worst of its platform, making it more prominent in users’ feeds and spreading it to a much wider audience. The power of the algorithmic promotion undermined the efforts of Facebook’s content moderators and integrity teams, who were fighting an uphill battle against toxic and harmful content. […]
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Monday in two cases challenging a Texas law that prohibits abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy. The stakes in these cases are great not only for the future of Roe v. Wade but also for the ability of states to violate the U.S. Constitution.
No one disputes that Texas’ Senate Bill 8 blatantly violates the Constitution. The Supreme Court has ruled for almost 50 years that states cannot prohibit abortions until a fetus is viable — about the 24th week of pregnancy. Yet the Texas law prohibits abortions far earlier than that. Until and unless Roe v. Wade is overruled, the Texas law is unconstitutional and should be enjoined.
Twice, federal district courts have done exactly that and issued preliminary injunctions to keep the Texas law from going into effect. In each instance, on Sept. 1 and last week, the Supreme Court refused to enjoin the law…
How can this be? Texas says that neither it nor any government officials can be sued to enjoin the law because they play no role in enforcing the statute. Texas argues that the only way to challenge the law would be for a doctor to violate it and argue, as a defense, that the law is unconstitutional…
Texas says no court can consider the constitutionality of the law or issue an injunction against it, but this surely cannot be right. The court has repeatedly said people don’t need to violate a law in order to challenge its constitutionality.
The two cases to be heard by the court on Monday thus raise the question of whether a state can adopt an unconstitutional law and immunize it from being enjoined by any court.
One of the challenges was brought by Whole Woman’s Health, a facility that performs abortions, and asks whether state officers could be sued to enjoin the statute. The other case was brought by the U.S. government on behalf of Texas women. The issue before the court is whether the federal government has standing to sue a state when it’s violating the constitutional rights of its residents.
…..That means the consequences are far greater than just abortion rights: If no one can bring a suit challenging a state law authorizing civil suits, then states can adopt laws creating liability for the exercise of any constitutional right. As a consequence, states could, for example, adopt a law authorizing suits against those performing same-sex weddings, even though there’s a constitutional right to marriage equality.
The outcome of the cases before the Supreme Court would be obvious and clear — states cannot disobey the Constitution — except that the cases arise in the context of abortion. And a majority of the justices on the court have already shown that they are opposed to constitutional protection for abortion rights.
It’s hard to overstate the significance of what will be argued next week, which is ultimately about whether a state can flout the Constitution. If no one can sue to enjoin an unconstitutional law, what is left of the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law?
Eastman Memo author reverses his reversal on anti-election pitch
After describing his own memo’s strategy as “crazy,” John Eastman quietly said there’s “no question” that he sees his memo’s legal reasoning as sound.
[…] John Eastman has had a busy 12 months. [Trump saw] him on Fox News and was impressed — and as part of that work, Eastman filed the brief last December on Trump’s behalf that asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the 2020 presidential election. (It was filled with factual errors — including an obvious one literally on the first page.)
Soon after, he authored what’s become known as the Eastman Memo, which was effectively a blueprint Republican officials could follow to reject the results of the U.S. election and keep the losing candidate in power. […]
Eastman even spoke at the Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally ahead of the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol.
But nearly a year later, as the Eastman Memo becomes more scandalous, its author has decided to distance himself from his own bananas legal strategy. Eastman spoke last week to National Review, a conservative magazine, and argued that the memo that bears his name “does not accurately represent” his views.
…Eastman now tells National Review in an interview that the first of the two strategies Giuliani highlighted on stage — having Pence reject electoral votes — was not “viable” and would have been “crazy” to pursue.
Asked about his memo’s assertion that the vice president was the “ultimate arbiter” of deciding whether to count Electoral College votes, Eastman added, “This is where I disagree. I don’t think that’s true.”
As for the blueprint he sketched out after the election, the Republican lawyer went on to tell National Review, “[A]nybody who thinks that that’s a viable strategy is crazy.”
[…] as Rachel noted on the show last week, it was heartening, at least to a degree, to see him back away from his own work. It suggested that Eastman recognized just how problematic it was to serve as the architect of a plan that, if implemented, could’ve paved the way for a coup.
[…] facing calls for his disbarment, Eastman effectively told a conservative publication that he didn’t stand by his own work in the Eastman Memo. There was, however, a slight problem: Eastman may not have been entirely sincere in his comments to National Review.
Lauren Windsor is a progressive activist known for catching GOP officials saying provocative things as part of hidden-camera interviews. She’ll approach important Republican figures, pretend to be an ally, make flattering comments, and then record her targets making candid comments.
As Rachel explained last night, Windsor caught up with Eastman the day after the National Review report was published, and with a little prodding, the conservative lawyer said his memo wasn’t “crazy” at all.
In fact, Eastman boasted that there’s “no question” his memo’s legal reasoning was sound and that the only reason Pence and other Republicans didn’t follow his blueprint is that they’re members of a political “establishment,” enjoying “cushy” lifestyles in D.C.
This is clearly not what the lawyer told National Review.
[…] The Washington Post reported overnight that the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack is now expected to subpoena Eastman.
The article added, “Eastman told The Washington Post last week that he had not been contacted by the panel investigating the insurrection, but a person familiar with the select committee’s work disputed that claim and said investigators have been in touch with Eastman.”
Eastman is also a liar. He lied to the National Review. He lied to The Washington Post. Good thing we have his actual memo in black and white.
As Donald Trump and his partisan allies got to work rewriting the history of Jan. 6, they targeted core truths about the attack on the Capitol. It wasn’t a “riot,” they said, it should instead be seen as a “protest.” Those responsible for the violence shouldn’t be seen as insurrectionists, they added, but rather as innocent tourists who are being unfairly persecuted.
With this in mind, it came as a bit of a surprise this week when Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said largely the opposite — for a deeply unfortunate reason. As a Washington Post analysis noted:
During an appearance on conservative outlet Real America’s Voice, Greene repeated a frequent GOP talking point that the real focus of congressional investigators should be violence at Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. But while doing so, she essentially suggested the Capitol riot comported with our Founding Fathers’ vision. “[The racial-justice protest violence] was an attack on innocent American people, whereas Jan. 6 was just a riot at the Capitol,” she said. “And if you think about what our Declaration of Independence says, it says to overthrow tyrants.”
I’ll confess, “just a riot” is one of those phrases I don’t generally expect to hear from members of Congress.
There’s quite a bit wrong with the far-right Georgian’s perspective, starting with the obvious problem that elected lawmakers tasked with certifying the results of a free and fair election were not, in reality, “tyrants.” […]
But taking a step further, note that Greene didn’t just draw an absurd historical parallel, she also took steps to justify political violence. Look at the quote again: “[The racial-justice protest violence] was an attack on innocent American people, whereas Jan. 6 was just a riot at the Capitol.”
It’s an argument rooted in the belief that when those other people commit acts of violence, it’s an unforgiveable attack, but when people on my side commit acts of violence, it’s defensible, even admirable, and entirely consistent with American traditions.
Greene is giving voice to the idea that Jan. 6 was an insurrection — and that’s OK. […]
[…] the defining issue of Virginia’s closely watched gubernatorial race has changed more than once. The contest was going to hinge on the candidates’ ability to address the pandemic. Or maybe the economy. Or reproductive rights. Perhaps it would come down to a referendum on President Joe Biden. Or his predecessor.
The race was not supposed to be defined by a novel from the 1980s. And yet, as NBC News noted yesterday, here we are.
One of the great American novels that recounts the horrors of slavery has erupted as a flashpoint in the closing days of Virginia’s race for governor, with Democrat Terry McAuliffe and his allies accusing Republican Glenn Youngkin of “racist” campaigning. Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” is staple of high school English programs, but a parent who advocated it be banned from Virginia schools appeared in a new Youngkin ad released Monday.
The impetus for the new attack ad was a comment McAuliffe made in a debate last month: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.” In context, it didn’t seem especially controversial: The idea that a small group of extremist parents, for example, should exercise veto power over what students learn about science, civics, history, and art is a recipe for educational chaos.
But the former governor’s critics nevertheless pounced. McAuliffe, the argument went, is trying to marginalize parents. For Youngkin, a new, defining issue had arrived: The Republican would empower parents, not educators, to shape school curricula, while his Democratic rival would not.
This week, this pitch was crystalized in a commercial. […] Viewers were introduced to a woman named Laura Murphy who says her son was traumatized by offensive “reading material” he’d been assigned in school. She lobbied in support of measures that would’ve required schools to notify parents about “explicit” assignments and require teachers to make alternative arrangements in response to parental objections.
McAuliffe, Murphy explained in the ad, vetoed these efforts.
[…] Those who see the commercial aren’t getting the whole story. Murphy, a Republican donor, was describing a 2013 incident in which Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel had been assigned in her son’s Advanced Placement English course for high school seniors. There’s no denying the fact that the fictional work about slavery is challenging and upsetting, but that’s the point: In an AP English class, students should expect to read difficult content.
As for how this relates to the final week of Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign, voters are apparently supposed to believe that a vote for Youngkin is a vote for empowering GOP activists to cancel literary classics, written by Nobel laureates, in English classes.
Polls show a race that is effectively tied. Election Day in the commonwealth is just six days away.
AP classes are, essentially, college courses offered to exceptional high school students. The “child” in question was a high school senior, but that fact does not appear in the Republican political ad.
Paul Ksays
And schools that offer AP classes are not, I believe, allowed to pick and choose which materials they cover. The courses are offered by an outside, private company. The AP exams that follow the courses are the same across the country, so it makes sense that the curriculum would have to be the same everywhere, too. I have problems with the whole AP process (my son took some courses, and I’m on the school board), but this argument is ridiculous.
Wonkette: “rump Tech LOLsuits Going Exactly As Well As You Expect”
In July, Donald Trump held a batshit presser to announce that he was filing a bunch of batshit LOLsuits against Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook for tortiously deplatforming him in violation of his sacred First Amendment rights. And he filed them in federal court in Florida, despite all three platforms having forum selection clauses in their terms of service that require all claims to be adjudicated in California and under California law.
The theory of these cases — if indeed this drivel rises to the term — is that the tech platforms are actually the government, and thus when they booted him, it was mean Democrats doing unlegal censorships. Not deterred by facts or logic, Trump also argued that he himself was the government, and thus could not be constrained by mere terms of service and forum selection clauses like a common mortal.
“Defendant’s Motion [to transfer the case to California] should be denied because the forum selection clause in Defendant’s TOS does not apply to Plaintiff, who at all times relevant to this dispute was the sitting President of the United States and the head of the Executive Branch of the federal government,” he argued in the Twitter case.
Astute observers will note that “this dispute” was filed in July, when the plaintiff was most definitely not “the sitting President of the United States.” And even if he were, that would make this a case of the government censoring itself, and thus not an issue of First Amendment law. But we don’t need to engage in a meta-analysis here, since the thing is just garbage on its face. [LOL]
Certainly the courts thought so, with US District Judge Michael Moore bouncing the YouTube suit off his docket on October 6.
“To begin, the Court need not reach the issue of whether the United States or its officials can be bound by a forum-selection clause because, in this case, there is no federal agency or entity that is a party to this case,” he wrote, noting that “Plaintiff Trump agreed to the TOS in his individual capacity, has brought this suit in his individual capacity, and is seeking the restoration of his YouTube account in his individual capacity.”
US District Judge Robert Scola Jr. was even more scathing yesterday when he yeeted the Twitter suit, going through the five statutes and cases cited by Trump’s crack legal team and pointing out that not one of them had anything to do with the instant claim.
Even assuming that Trump was using his account in his official capacity, Trump has not advanced any legal authority to support his contention that he satisfies the second requirement of the exemption: that he is “legally unable to accept the controlling law, jurisdiction, or venue clauses. . .” The response in opposition cites several regulations to show that Trump was legally prohibited from accepting the forum selection clause at issue. (Resp. in Opp’n, ECF No. 58 at 9.) However, after a careful review of the citations, the Court finds that not one prevents Trump for accepting the forum selection clause.
Trump’s tweets were collected at the National Archive, so Twitter’s forum selection clause, which he both agreed to and sues under as a private citizen, doesn’t apply? GTFOH.
Nor were the judges impressed by the plaintiff’s attempt to Florida-ize the cases by adding a nonsensical claim under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. Without professing an opinion as to whether Florida’s consumer protection law applies to social media platforms (it doesn’t), both judges expressed confidence that their California brethren would be well-equipped to interpret Florida statute if the need should arise.
The motion to transfer the Facebook case is still pending, probably because the court hasn’t stopped laughing at the affidavits submitted last week from Alan Dershowitz and Corey Lewandowski splaining how the court just has to order Zuck to give Trump back his account right now or else.
Dersh reminds the court that he used to teach at Harvard, gestures feebly in the direction of the the complaint and says, “I believe the allegations of the Complaints which I have reviewed raise serious, substantial legal issues some of which have not been heretofore litigated.” He’s also worried that “Unless preliminary relief is granted, it is likely that the censorship imposed by Facebook and Twitter will impact the 2022 elections.” Not for any specific reason, you know, he just feels it in his kishkes and wants the court to do something about it.
As for Lewandowski, who was recently banished from Trumpland, he’s very sure that “President Trump’s continued absence from YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter constitutes a prior restraint in the vitality of the ‘marketplace of ideas’ in American politics.” Which has fuck all to do with the law, but perhaps we should cut Corey a break since he “runs 400 miles a week, and that’s why he can last for 8 hours in bed,” so he’s probably pretty tired.
In summary and in conclusion, this is some weak shit lawyering, and now Trump is going to have to prosecute his weak shit claims in even more hostile territory. […].
Paul K @235, good points. Thanks for the additional information.
In other news: some Fox News viewers are expressing the view that host Neil Cavuto should just die already. Why? Because he encouraged viewers to get vaccinated.
Fox host Neil Cavuto is immunocompromised and has MS. He’s a cancer survivor. He’s been trying and trying and trying to get Fox viewers to get their damn COVID vaccines, after he got a breakthrough case. About getting COVID, he said, “Had I not been vaccinated, and with all my medical issues, this would be a far more dire situation.” He doesn’t want his viewers to die, for some reason.
And now he’s back on the TV, and they played some of the viewer messages people left for him while he was away. Cavuto does this sometimes, with the viewer comments and the hate mail. Fox News watchers, of course, are as charming as they are literate. And because in this case it was Fox News watchers dealing with an immunocompromised person who is vaccinated, the messages ranged from their usual weird wingnut “jokes” to downright deranged. Oh yeah and a couple death threats. Totally normal. […]
DION BAIA (PRODUCER): Our first email comes from John in New Orleans who says “heard you’re back on the show this week. That’s too bad.” So uh, that’s not very nice but I figured we’d kick it, start it off with a kicker.
CAVUTO: That seems a little mean.
BAIA: Yeah, I know I’m sorry but it wasn’t from me.
Haw haw, too bad you’re back!
And then there’s T.J., who just wishes Cavuto would kill himself.
BAIA: We’ve got T.J. who also emails. “It’s clear you’ve lost some weight with all this stuff,” one person wrote in an email. “Good for you. But I’m not happy with less of you. I want none of you. I want you gone. Dead. Caput. Fini. Get it? Now, take your two-bit advice, deep-six it and you!”
Oh, silly Fox watchers!
What about Barbara? Barbara’s probably one of the nice ones:
BAIA: We have another one from Barbara via Yahoo. “I admire your strength through so much adversity. But let me give you some advice shut up and enjoy the fact that you’re not dead. For now.”
Shut up and enjoy not being dead for now […]
So those two could definitely be construed as death threats, against the guy who pleaded with them to all get vaccinated because he doesn’t want them to die, and because he had contracted a virus that, if he weren’t vaccinated, likely would have killed him because of his health conditions.
Then there was Vince. Bless Vince’s heart. […] tweet: “Hey guys I bought a new car after being told it was the best Then it blew up after I left the car lot So now I’m begging everyone to please buy the same car Sorry I’m just pretending to be Neil Cavuto” […]
They only get smarter from there. Like the brain stallion who said, “Cavuto is the Tigger of talking heads: a head full of fluff, just not cool like Tigger.” Or the one who said, “When the asses gather, they call Cavuto boss…”
What a job it must be, to work at Fox News as a marginally sane person. Just to be on the receiving end of the dripping dregs of humanity at all times.
We just hope Cavuto’s team has forwarded all the important messages to the FBI, where they belong.
Wonkette: “Judge Not Sure If Men Kyle Rittenhouse Shot Are Victims Or Satisfied Bullet Recipients”
Judge Bruce Schroeder, who’s presiding over Kyle Rittenhouse’s double murder case, set some ground rules on how lawyers can refer to the men Rittenhouse forcibly evicted from existence last summer. After the prosecution and defense made their last-minute motions, Judge Schroeder ruled that no one can refer to the three men Rittenhouse shot as “victims.”
From ABC 7 Chicago:
“The word ‘victim’ is a loaded, loaded word,” he said. “‘Alleged victim’ is a cousin to it.”
“Victim” isn’t a loaded word. What’s loaded was the assault-style rifle he used to shoot three people. “Alleged victim” is literally the point of the trial. Rittenhouse is alleged to have committed first-degree intentional homicide, first-degree reckless homicide, and attempted first-degree intentional reckless homicide. (He’s also charged with violating the city’s temporary 7 p.m. curfew.) These charges, excluding the curfew violation, require victims, human beings who’d still be alive and/or unmaimed today if not for Rittenhouse.
So, how can the prosecution and defense refer to the people Rittenhouse mowed down like dogs? Judge Schroeder is fine with rioters, looters, and arsonists. Those descriptors apparently have no negative connotations. […]
The judge said, “If more than one of them were engaged in arson, rioting, looting, I’m not going to tell the defense you can’t call them that, “ to which I must retort, “Huh?” How can the defense prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the victims (fuck you, your honor) had committed these crimes? The jury came to see The Trial Of Kyle Rittenhouse. This is an entirely separate production the judge is trying to greenlight.
It’s one thing for a defendant to testify that they felt their life was in danger, but Rittenhouse isn’t qualified to conclude that the people he shot were criminals. It’s arguably irrelevant because actual police officers (in theory) can’t summarily execute “rioters, looters, and arsonists.” […]
public defender Olayemi Olurin at Legal Aid NYC had this to say:
Prosecutors call every single complainant in every case, a victim. Even when there’s no allegation of violence and they’re talking misdemeanors. Now all of a sudden that’s too loaded a term to describe 2 people who were shot and killed by a white supremacist, wow.
Perhaps even more appallingly, Judge Schroeder agreed to allow testimony from the defense’s use-of-force expert. The prosecution argued against this on the grounds that the teenage Rittenhouse isn’t a police officer. The judge will also let the jury see video that shows local police enthusiastically greeting Rittenhouse and armed militia members. The cops even gave RIttenhouse a bottle of water, because the last thing you want is a dehydrated murderer.
“If the jury is being told, if the defendant is walking down the sidewalk and doing what he claims he was hired to do and police say good thing you’re here, is that something influencing the defendant and emboldening him in his behavior? That would be an argument for relevance,” the judge said.
The fact that the police openly pal around with gun-toting vigilantes and white supremacists isn’t exculpatory. That evidence should be introduced during a separate internal affairs hearing.
Rittenhouse never should’ve been in Kenosha that night and certainly not armed with a gun he wasn’t legally allowed to carry. Nonetheless, he’s expressed zero remorse over his actions and has seemingly embraced his newfound celebrity as a conservative darling.
[…] I have the sneaking suspicion that he’s going to walk, and escaping justice isn’t likely to humble him. […]
Wonkette: “We Bet Democracy Would Work Better If Election Officials Didn’t Fear Being Murdered”
Until 2020, working in state elections offices tended to be a job for nerds who love doing good government, a matter of organization and administration and all sorts of basic competence that those of us with ADHD look at with wonder. It was one of those government jobs that seldom got much attention as long as the votes were counted and there weren’t long lines at the polls. […] And people who volunteered to work the polls and count the votes were generally treated as public-spirited folks […]
Ah, but that was before Donald Trump and the craziest fringe elements on the Right started insisting that elections are rigged, even maybe in places Trump won […] So election workers just doing their jobs might find themselves getting constant death threats because the Gateway Pundit decided to name them and accuse them of stealing the election for Joe Biden.
Yesterday, election officials testified to a Senate Rules Committee hearing on the threats they and their families have received for the crime of running clean elections. It’s pretty ugly stuff, as seen in these clips collected for last night’s “Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC. [video is available at the link]
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who’s running for governor, said that orange jumpsuits had been mailed to her office, and that armed protesters had showed up outside her home, just to make clear that they knew where she lives. […]
I never expected that holding this office would result in far-Right trolls threatening my children, threatening my husband’s employment at a children’s hospital or calling my office saying I deserve to die and asking, “What is she wearing today, so she’ll be easy to get.”
Al Schmidt, a Republican who serves on the city commission and on the Philadelphia Board of Elections, testified that he’d received messages like “Tell the truth or your three kids will be fatally shot,” which included the children’s names, his home address, and a photo of his home, all reconnaissance-like because these guys love pretending they’re special ops commandos. Another email read “RINO stole election, we steal lives,” and still another threat to his family said “Cops can’t help you. heads on spikes, treasonous Schmidts.”
Very fine people, those Trump supporters. […]
Since last year’s election, the number of volunteers who say they won’t work the polls has increased, and as CNN notes,
Nearly one in three local election workers said they felt unsafe because of their jobs, according to an April survey on behalf of the Brennan Center for Justice, with about 17% of those who responded saying they had received threats.
CNN also interviewed several election administrators who have faced threats, including Hobbs, who said one man left messages on her office voicemail repeatedly saying “Die you bitch, die! Die you bitch, die!” and another patriot who said “I am a hunter — and I think you should be hunted. You will never be safe in Arizona again.”
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold pissed off MyPillow fans by investigating would-be election ratfucker Tina Peters, the county clerk of Mesa County. Peters has since been removed from any election duties after evidence indicated she’d been part of a scheme to leak password-protected election machine hard drives to fellow Q-Anon crazies. For keeping Colorado elections clean, Griswold has received her own threats, including a tweet reading “Bullet. That is a six letter word for you,” CNN reports:
An email sent to her office over the summer read: “I’m really jonzing to see your purple face after you’ve been hanged.”
Asked by CNN last week if she feels safe in her job and going about her days, Griswold paused for nearly 30 seconds before answering.
“I take these threats very seriously,” she finally said, choosing her words carefully. “It’s absolutely getting worse,” she added.
CNN also notes that several elections officials it contacted for the story begged off commenting, either because they’d been advised not to by security experts, because it might reveal vulnerabilities to people stalking them, or because they just found talking about it publicly too traumatizing. […]
CNN:
[A] person fantasizing about how great it would be to see an official get hurt is seen as protected under free speech, and isn’t the same as a person laying out a specific threat for how and when to hurt an official. That’s not much comfort to Griswold. “I realize that most of it is probably bluster, but what’s concerning is the one time it’s not,” she said.
It also seems like a dubious distinction when considering whether to provide police protection to an official: Sure, you can’t arrest someone for a nonspecific wish of harm to an official, but you can certainly take action to prevent the official from being harmed.
The Justice Department, CNN reports, is at least taking the threat seriously, and has set up a task force aimed at assessing and improving security for elections officials, although that effort is just getting underway this year, because why would the previous administration have wanted local officials to be safe from threats and intimidation?
Yesterday’s hearing also highlighted the need to pass the Freedom to Vote Act, which in addition to setting national minimum standards to protect the vote also includes provisions making it a federal crime to threaten elections officials or to publish personal information on their families in an attempt to threaten or intimidate the officials. In an interview with Maddow last night, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) said that once the Build Back Better reconciliation bill is completed, the next goal has to be passing the Freedom to Vote Act, even if that means changing the filibuster.
Or we could just let things keep going as they are, until nonpartisan election officials are all driven from their jobs and elections are run by QAnon.
By late July, Covid-19 was taking a severe toll in Alabama. Infection totals were starting to spike, state hospitals were filling, and death tolls were headed in a tragic direction. The state’s Republican governor, Kay Ivey, publicly pleaded with Alabamans to do the smart and responsible thing.
“I want folks to get vaccinated. That’s the cure. That prevents everything,” Ivey told reporters on July 23. She added, “Let’s get it done. And we know what it takes to get it done…. Folks [are] supposed to have common sense.”
The governor went to assure the public that the vaccines are safe, effective, free, and life-saving.
“[I]t’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks,” Ivey concluded, adding, “It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
For those focused on ending the pandemic, her rhetoric was welcome and easy to applaud. Here was a conservative Republican governor in one of the nation’s reddest states delivering an important message in plain terms. Even the Biden White House endorsed the Alabaman’s message.
A lot can change in three months. The Associated Press reported this week:
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey on Monday directed state agencies not to cooperate with the federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate, where possible, and instead help with the state’s efforts to file a lawsuit challenging the vaccination requirements…. Ivey signed an executive order forbidding executive branch agencies — which include agencies such as Medicaid, Mental Health and Human Resources — from penalizing employees or businesses for non-compliance with the federal vaccine mandate. If federal law requires the penalty, Ivey directed the state entity to take steps to notify the affected business or individual that Alabama does not condone the penalty.
It’s a bit jarring to compare the governor’s competing approaches. In July, Ivey couldn’t have been more enthusiastic about vaccines. It was “common sense.” It was “time to start blaming” those who resisted — because they were letting Alabama down.
But in October, confronted with a stubborn pandemic and evidence that vaccine requirements are effective, Ivey is going to great lengths to make sure her state resists the White House’s vaccine policy in every way possible.
The AP report added:
In a statement Monday, the Alabama Democratic Party said vaccine mandates are “nothing new,” noting that states and the federal governments mandate a number of things to protect people — including seat belts, restaurant inspections and numerous other vaccinations that are required to go to school or join the military. “What’s wrong with a mandate that protects public health and keeps our hospitals from overcrowding?” the party stated.
[…] In new video released Wednesday, Eastman took on a more conspiratorial cast, wildly claiming that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a “setup.”
Who was behind the setup? Eastman claims it’s the FBI and big media.
[…] Eastman cited a debunked right-wing conspiracy theory that an “antifa guy” had been paid thousands of dollars by CNN to break into the Capitol for footage of the siege. In reality, the FBI Director Chris Wray has said there is no evidence that antifa (a broad term for anti-fascism that isn’t identified as a solid group) was involved in the Capitol attack, nor is there evidence that CNN or any other outlet paid anyone to ransack the Capitol.
Eastman also baselessly claimed that the feds had infiltrated the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, two right-wing extremist groups with members who’ve been arrested in connection to the attack, to spark the violence that day and lay a “trap.”
“The Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys had not just wallflowers sitting on the side of the organization, but people instigating within the association, FBI plants,” Eastman told the activists. “It was a setup. And unfortunately our guys walked into the trap.”
Eastman had joined Rudy Giuliani onstage at the pro-Trump rally in D.C. that preceded the storming of the Capitol.
During his speech, Eastman peddled lies about the 2020 election being tainted by “fraud” before he directly called out Pence and demanded that the then-vice president have GOP-controlled state legislatures “look into” the election results (a key component of Eastman’s plot detailed in his infamous memo to Trump). […]
Posted by readers of the article:
So much easier to tell the truth, if we learn nothing else from this numbskull.
Keeping lies and half-truths straight is a hell of a lot of work that is totally unnecessary.
Of course, maybe if he just shut up about it, he wouldn’t have so much difficulty.
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Isn’t bizarre conspiratorial thinking one of the symptoms of certain types of dementia? Is that what is going on with Giuliani and Eastman and Trump?
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Seems like Eastman is in line with Trump’s other so-called “lawyers” and setting himself up for yet another disbarment.
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JFC these people are stupid. That’s the tell: if they’ll work for Donald, they’re either insane egomaniacs (Bannon), drunken crooks (Giuliani), sociopathic propagandists (Miller x2), or Dunning-Krueger poster children (this dipshit).
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at a certain point … Eastman will be successful in his effort to demonstrate his own mental incompetence … appears that he is closing in on this goal.
blfsays
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 14th(!) flight. This very short flight was a test that higher rotor speeds work, as a means of dealing with the seasonal thinning of the Martian atmosphere. A previous test before Solar conjunction in late September self-aborted due to an apparently still unexplained anomaly.
blf @243 thanks for keeping us up to date on the little helicopter that could. Inspiring.
In other news, Republican dunderheads continue to stoke violence:
There are two things to know about the Republican Party’s organized attack on non-corrupt secretaries of state and other state election officials. The first is that it is resulting in more chaos in more places than you might think. The second is that it is working. It is having exactly the effects Republican lawmakers and party leaders intended when they grabbed hold of Donald Trump’s absolutely false hoaxes claiming a random and varying assortment of supposed election plots against him.
A CNN rundown of just some of the vitriol and death threats being directed at numerous secretaries of state, all of whom committed the alleged sins of not furthering Trump’s hoax or not magically “finding” new Trump votes after Trump demanded they do so, included the following:
“I’m really jonzing to see your purple face after you’ve been hanged,” wrote an emailer to Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
“I am a hunter—and I think you should be hunted,” a woman told Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in a voicemail.
For Republican Party officials, elected and not, this was the expected and desired outcome.
When you craft outright lies for your own gain, whip those devoted to you into a frenzy with claims that all of America is under threat because of the hoax you invented, and point at individual public servants with the message that that person, the one right there, is the one conspiring to steal the country from you, you are acting with both the knowledge that your hoax will likely cause your now-furious base to act out on your invented dangers and intentionally choosing which people you will aim them at.
[…] an orchestrated, nationwide push by Republican Party officials to falsely claim there is a conspiracy threatening their voters in the form of public servants who were not willing to bend to a delusional Dear Leader’s claims of invisible victory.
This is the movement Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, the Republican National Committee, your local Republican candidates, and uncountably many other Republican lawmakers built by embracing and extending the Big Lie. The purpose of the lie was not solely to defend a delusional Trump’s wounded feelings. It is to demonize those whose loyalty to the party was proven insufficient when faced with a choice of helping to overturn an election or accepting a Republican loss. Those people are being purged. […]
Every other election official in the country is facing the same, if only because the crowds Republican leaders have now worked into foaming rage through repetition of a false and crooked hoax do not intend to waste time parsing out which precise targets they should be mad at. […]
The point needs to be made again: The threats of violence being delivered to elections officials, from secretaries of state to local precinct volunteers, are the intent of Republican lawmaker’s repetitions of election-hoax language. […]
This, truly, is what it means to be anti-American. Republican leaders are intentionally targeting those that run our elections—not for any actual sins, but with invented hoaxes specifically intended to provoke such fury against those officials that they abandon their posts.
It’s working. CNN notes that up to “40% of election and poll workers in the largest jurisdictions” have already said they will not be returning to their posts for the next election, and “nearly one in three” local election workers say they feel “unsafe” in their jobs. Nearly one in five say they “had received threats.”
Who will fill those positions? In some cases, nobody. This will create Election Day chaos, long voting lines, and reduced turnout. In other cases the positions will be filled by the same propaganda-believing partisan loyalists who worked to drive out current officials; they will form new teams more willing to commit the sort of acts Trump and his allies believed true Republican loyalists should be willing to do.
[…] In some cases, the threats of violence have more immediate results. A meeting of the Michigan redistricting commission was “indefinitely delayed” due to such a threat—the machinery of our elections is being directly sabotaged through propaganda-driven violence.
There is no plausible denial of any of this. Any claimed concerns about election “integrity” coming from Republican mouths are rendered immediately invalid if the concerns raised are false information. You craft a propagandistic hoax only to achieve a goal that cannot be justified using the truth. The moment Republicans adopted the Big Lie as touchstone and as test of loyalty, the moment they claimed that the country was in peril due to fictional conspiracies by the movement’s opponents, it became self-evident that they were seeking remedies against their enemies that normal politics could not supply.
The moment the once-conservative, now ideologically vacant party adopted flagrant hoaxes as means of stoking public fury, it turned to fascism.
[…] Stoking violence via intentional hoaxes is a betrayal of the country. The Party is corrupt, is fascist, and is a full-throated enemy of our democracy.
There are no election “questions” that have not been answered. There were exactly zero claimed election “frauds” that Trump’s band of rat-chewed propagandists could even once identify, in all of the speeches and court cases, that was not immediately debunked. Every Republican leader knows this, because they followed each and watched as each was proven to be a fiction. When they continue to repeat the now-proven lies, it can only be because they believe the advantage of attacking Republicanism’s enemies with false information is worth not just one insurrection, but whatever new violence can also be squeezed out for the Party’s use.
[…] in the post-Trump era, his rabid fans have ripped off the mask of plausible deniability and are now openly calling for killing liberals and Trump critics—which includes anyone who believes he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
Much of this toxic discourse is occurring in the more extreme corners of the internet, but on Monday at a “Critical Racism Tour” event in Nampa, Idaho, it was blurted out into the open when an audience member asked Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk: “When do we get to use the guns? … How many elections are they gonna steal before we kill these people?” Kirk replied with a nondenunciation denunciation, warning that such talk is “playing into their hands,” but then saying that the query was just “overly blunt” and agreeing that “we are living under fascism.” [video is available at the link]
The event, billed as “Exposing Critical Racism at Boise State University” but held on the campus of Northwest Nazarene University, was primarily focused on promoting the bogus critical race theory narrative that American right-wingers have been wielding as a pseudo-controversy to disrupt college campuses and school boards. Kirk was the featured speaker, and he took questions afterwards.
A bearded man who did not identify himself told Kirk he was going to ask him “something a little bit out of the ordinary,” and then proceeded:
At this point, we’re living under a corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny. When do we get to use the guns? [Crowd whoops.] No, and I’m not, that’s not a joke, I’m not saying it like that. I mean literally, where’s the line? How many elections are they gonna steal before we kill these people?
The crowd seemed mostly supportive of this view, so Kirk tried to calm them down:
KIRK: No, uh, hold on. Stop, hold on. I’m gonna denounce that and I’m gonna tell you why. Because you’re playing into their plans, and they’re trying to make you do this. That’s okay … They are trying to provoke you and everyone here. They are trying to make you do something that will be violent, that will justify a takeover of our freedoms and liberties the likes of which we have never seen. We are close to having momentum to get this country back on a trajectory using the peaceful means that we have available to us.
So to answer your question—and I just think it’s, you know, overly blunt—we have to be the ones that do not play into the violent aims and ambitions of the other side. They fear—let me say this very clearly—they fear us holding the line with self-control and discipline, taking over school board meetings. They’re the ones that are willing to use federal force against us.
I know that people get fired up. We are living under fascism. We are living under this tyranny. But if you think for a second they’re not wanting you to all of a sudden get to that next level, where all of a sudden they’re going to say, ‘We need Patriot Act 2.0.’ If you think that Waco was bad, wait till you see what they want to do next.
What I’m saying is that we have a very fragile balance right now in our current where we must exhaust every single peaceful mean possible. I will say this: Idaho has not even started to exercise the peaceful means of state sovereignty against the federal government. Not even close. I’ll give you five things Idaho could do right now.
Kirk then went on to suggest that Idaho’s governor should announce that there would be no coronavirus-related vaccine or mask mandates. (In fact, Gov. Brad Little is publicly fighting the federal vaccine mandate in court, though states’ options to do so are extremely limited under the law.) He also suggested that the legislature announce it was going to choose which federal laws apply to the state—something that, again, Idaho legislators are already doing, though predictably meeting with futility.
His main suggestion, however, was for the state government to inform the federal entities managing the state’s federal lands that “you’re out of the state of Idaho, we’re managing our own lands.” This is in fact an old idea in Idaho, dating back at least to the days of the Sagebrush Rebellion of the 1970s and ‘80s.
There was a recent push for this idea—the Idaho Legislature in 2013 passed a resolution demanding the federal government “immediately transfer title to all public lands” to the state government. Other states, like Utah, tried following suit. But by 2017, but it had run aground on the shores of cold hard reality: Some 32.6 million acres out of 52.9 million of Idaho’s total land is owned by the federal government.
Moreover, because these are mostly heavily forested wildlands that over the past decade have been beset by drought and a resulting plague of wildfires, the costs of managing these lands is prohibitive for a small state like Idaho. Then-Gov. Butch Otter attacked the idea, citing the 2015 fire season—in which fires burned 740,000 acres in the state to the tune of $300 million, the cost of which was mostly picked up by the federal government—as a recent example: “If the feds weren’t there to pay for it … you’d blow a huge hole in the state budget,” Otter’s press secretary explained.
Perhaps even more relevant is the fact that Idaho can’t claim ownership of federal lands under the legislation by which it was admitted to the union in 1890. The state also currently receives some $2.3 billion annually from the federal government in its education endowment fund as compensation.
[…] His “denunciation” of the argument for killing liberals was not at any point a civil or moral one—Kirk clearly was sympathetic to the man’s sentiments. Instead, it was purely tactical, calling violence “a mistake.”
His interlocutor responded: “I just want to know, where is the line?”
KIRK: The line is when we exhaust every single one of our state ability to push back against what’s happening. We haven’t even started the process of having Idaho, or states like Idaho, get back to self-government as our founders envisioned. They gave us state sovereignty!
What is the line? Look man, I think we’re at the teetering edge of a regime that knows that good decent Americans are gonna get to the place where, like in the movie Network, ‘I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!’ Right? Well guess what? Know that there’s a deeper game at play. Understand the psychological warfare that’s being played here. They’re trying to animate you. They’re trying to get you to do something that then justifies what they actually want to do.
So what’s the solution? We need to start to demand Idaho to be Idaho, and the federal government can stay out of Idaho for just about everything.
So Kirk’s “denunciation” of the question amounted primarily to urging the audience to reel in their violence for the time being while proceeding to attack local and state governments when they fail to follow their extremist agenda. Even this solution contains an innate threat: We have seen how the right’s “self-control and discipline, taking over school board meetings” has played out on the ground—with barrages of threats, intimidation, and actual violence, including that directed at health care workers attempting to enforce pandemic mandates.
The impulse for eliminationist violence, moreover, is latent in all of this: Even if Kirk’s audience takes his advice and bides their time, the threat remains intact to overthrow local authorities if they fail to enact their extremist ideas […] We already saw how that played out on the ground on Jan. 6 at the Capitol after the “Stop the Steal” rally, an event at which TPUSA was a major sponsor, providing seven buses carrying 350 people.
If right-wing propagandists like Charlie Kirk and his army of devoted followers have their way, that scenario will be playing out again. But the next time, if the eliminationist extremism of his army’s footsoldiers continues to fester, it may very well be with guns.
Tom Cotton is trying very hard to craft a perfect 20-second soundbite for Laura Ingraham.
Yikes. Tom Cotton worked himself into a lather.
Tom Cotton leaves the hearing room in a huff.
This Garland hearing follows the pattern of most high-profile congressional hearings in recent years
— Democrats ask questions about policies and issues
— Republicans push conspiracy theories and try to own libs in hopes of getting booked on Hannity
Merrick Garland displays an impressive degree of patience with John Kennedy’s loaded questions.
astounding shamelessness is the MAGA superpower.
here’s a perfect illustration of how Republicans and Fox News work together to use these hearings to craft short soundbites for TV … and another one. a soundbite shorn of context to give the impression that Sasse owned Garland. It’s propaganda.
Do any of these Republicans making a big fuss today over DOJ’s efforts to protect school board members from violence realize that many school board members are also parents?
Hawley concludes his questioning by calling for Garland to resign.
Ted Cruz defends Nazi salutes at school board meetings.
After hours of Republicans arguing that concerns about threats against school board members are overblown, Cory Booker brings receipts showing that there have been many such incidents, including physical violence.
Ted Cruz wants AG Garland to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Fauci.
Garland pushes back on mischaracterizations from Tom Cotton (yep, he came back for more).
Iran has agreed to return to nuclear negotiations in Vienna by the end of November, Tehran’s top negotiator said Wednesday, signaling the possible revival of a process aimed at restoring the 2015 nuclear deal that has been stalled for months and surrounded by uncertainty.
In a message posted on Twitter, the negotiator, Ali Bagheri, the deputy foreign minister, who has been meeting with European diplomats in Brussels, said the exact date of the negotiations would be announced next week.
Bagheri said he had engaged in “very serious and constructive dialogue” with Enrique Mora, the European Union’s deputy secretary general for political affairs, “on the essential elements for successful negotiations.” But Peter Stano, a foreign affairs spokesman for the European Union, said “there is nothing to announce at the moment.”
[…] For months, his government has said it would return to the negotiating table but declined to set a date, feeding a growing sense of pessimism and alarm over whether the restoration of the nuclear deal was possible.
[…] Trump in 2018 withdrew the United States from the agreement, under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities and submit to international monitoring in exchange for a lifting of U.S. and international economic sanctions. After Trump reimposed punitive sanctions, Iran restarted its high-level enrichment program.
President Biden promised to reenter the accord, and negotiations started in April. Iran refused direct talks with the United States, and European partners have acted as go-betweens for the two delegations.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration indicated it was shifting its stance toward the delayed resumption of the talks, from warning that the timeline was not infinite to saying it was prepared to consider what Secretary of State Antony Blinken called “other options if Iran does not change its course.”
Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said this month that because of interruptions in the agency’s monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities, the next few weeks would be “decisive” in determining whether a resumption of negotiations was possible. […]
One deadline for returning to the talks was rapidly approaching: a meeting of the IAEA board of governors scheduled for mid-November. The European parties have repeatedly threatened to issue a condemnation of Iran and consider reimposing sanctions if it does not comply with verification commitments.
In a briefing published Wednesday, Henry Rome, a senior analyst on Iran at the Eurasia Group, said that Bagheri’s commitment to return to nuclear talks should “not be misinterpreted as a sign of real progress” and that the timing appeared to be a “tactical move to forestall a censure resolution” at the IAEA meeting in November. […]
The Senate confirmed two Republicans nominated by President Joe Biden to top diplomatic posts Tuesday. Former Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake was confirmed as U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and Cindy McCain, the widow of GOP Sen. John McCain of Arizona, will be the country’s representative at the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.
WASHINGTON (CN) — Rejecting assertions from Republican lawmakers that he is trampling conservative speech, Attorney General Merrick Garland is doubling down on his efforts to protect school board members as division over critical race theory and mask mandates usher violent threats.
The Senate Judiciary Committee summoned the attorney general to a hearing Wednesday focused on the memo he disseminated earlier this month that suggests the FBI and U.S. attorneys should hold meetings with local leaders to discuss strategies for addressing the rise in threats against education officials.
“The memo is only about violence and threats of violence,” Garland said. “It makes absolutely clear in the first paragraph that spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution. That includes debate by parents criticizing school boards. That is welcome. The Justice Department protects that kind of debate.”
Garland’s meeting with senators Wednesday follows one on the same issue last week with the House Judiciary Committee. In the interim, 19 Republicans from the House committee wrote in a Monday letter to the Justice Department that they were troubled by Garland’s testimony.
“Parents have an undisputed right to direct the upbringing and education of their children, especially as school boards attempt to install controversial curricula,” they wrote….
Senator Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, told his colleagues Wednesday that those who are arguing that school board meetings haven’t become more violent are “ignoring reality.”
“Free speech does not involve threats and violence,” Durbin said.
[…]
Across the country, as public health orders for mask wearing and vaccinations in a pandemic have driven a political wedge, school boards have also had to grapple with angry parents about an academic framework from higher education known as critical race theory. While not a fixture of K-12 instruction, the theory of studying U.S. history through the lens of institutional racism is sometimes applied broadly to any efforts toward inclusion.
Garland came under fire at Wednesday’s hearing from every Republican on the committee, but perhaps most notably from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who stormed out of the room after a pointed reference to Garland’s Supreme Court nomination that never came to pass because of Republican log-jamming during the Obama administration.
“This testimony, your directive, your performance is shameful,” Cotton said. “Thank God you’re not on the Supreme Court. You should resign in disgrace, judge.”
Missouri Senator Josh Hawley echoed the call for Garland to resign.
“You have weaponized the FBI and the DOJ,” Hawley said. “It’s wrong, it’s unprecedented to my knowledge in the history of this country, and I call on you to resign.”
[…]
A QAnon streamer whose incendiary rants accusing Democrats of running a pedophile cabal earned him thousands of followers and led to his deplatforming on YouTube has been revealed to be a registered sex offender. David Todeschini, who goes by the name David Trent on his Net4Truth BitChute channel, was convicted of one count of first-degree sexual abuse and one count of second-degree sodomy, according to the New York sex offender registry.
Todeschini’s real name and convictions were revealed by Right Wing Watch, which is dedicated to monitoring right-wing activists. The site was tipped off by Gabe Hoffman, who executive produced a documentary aiming to expose pedophilia in Hollywood, titled An Open Secret. Todeschini is considered a “level three threat,” defined by the New York sex offender registry as “high risk of repeat offense and a threat to public safety exists.”
The conspiracy theorist was 45 years old in 1996 when he coerced and sexually violated an 8-year-old boy. Todeschini was convicted a few years later and sentenced to 28 months to 7 years in state prison. He was released from prison in 2006 and has gone on to make a name for himself in the QAnon community.
The year prior to his release, Todeschini published a book he claimed exposes government secrets like “CIA drug smuggling, the JFK assassination, Operation Phoenix, Covert Operations, etc.” A surprisingly prolific writer, Todeschini’s works include a book purporting to teach readers to become human lie detectors and a book titled Psychiatry, Mind Control, Genocide, and Infanticide. […]
Todeschini is a prolific streamer and frequently posts videos like “CABAL ARRESTED absolute proof” and “Epstein NOT Dead – on board his boat surrounded by military” packed with memes, rants, and outright threats to lawmakers. His latest show, titled “THE DS BS NEVER ENDS,” was released the day after Right Wing Watch’s report was published. Throughout the 46-minute video, Todeschini complains about the mainstream media, the trailer park he manages, and once again makes violent threats against Democrats. He does not, however, mention his registered sex offender status.
Last Sunday, the Wall Street Journal ran an opinion piece endorsing the Republican candidate for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The entire article takes an extremely pro-Trump position, arguing that the Pennsylvania court did not “defend the law as it is written” when it allowed counting of votes that were delayed in the mail due to the pandemic. It insists that the court should never have allowed those 10,097 votes to count—even if they were kept segregated from the rest of the votes. But in the midst of this editorial, the Journal admits: “This didn’t matter because Mr. Biden won the state by 80,555.”
That admission of basic facts was far too much for the Wall Street Journal editorial board’s favorite person. On Wednesday, the WSJ published a “letter to the editor” from Donald Trump. [Link purposely omitted.] As might be expected, that letter contains a laundry list of lies that have been roundly disproven time and time again. In fact, most of them are claims that never had any basis in reality to begin with, but were simply pulled out of Trump’s … let’s say “golf hat.” That includes not just claims that there were far more late ballots than actually existed, but that there were 120,000 “more votes than voters!” (The exclamation point there is Trump’s, obviously.)
Naturally, doing their part for spreading the Big Lie and further eroding the already fragile structure of American democracy, the WSJ ran all of Trump’s claims without any comment or context. […]
The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page has long been a cesspool of extreme positions and a showcase of rabid Republicanism. But in publishing Trump’s letter, they’ve now turned into an ad for insurgency.
As The Washington Post notes, if the Wall Street Journal was going to run the letter at all, they owed it to readers to provide the facts about Trump’s claims . After all, they wouldn’t run a letter that came in and made more than a dozen known-false claims about a corporation. […] why is it okay for the WSJ to run a letter that repeats lies about the election, especially when those lies have already had their day in court?
[…] In a 14-point response, the Post explains how, if the WSJ decided to publish the letter at all, they could have provided context and informed their readers about which of Trump’s claims had been found to be false, which of them had already been tested in court, and which of them would not have made any difference to the outcome even if found to be true. By lumping together claims that are real but unimportant, claims that are conjecture but unproven (or worse, proven false), and claims that are, at best, rampant speculation, Trump’s letter makes it seem that there were an overwhelming number of Pennsylvania votes in dispute. In fact, there were very few. Not enough to move the decimal point on the results, much less affect the outcome.
In a second article, The Washington Post points out the simplest fact of all—even though social media platforms like Twitter were astute enough to halt Trump’s continuous run of lies and misstatements, recognizing (belatedly) that these claims were fueling division and unrest, the Wall Street Journal still has no qualms about throwing gasoline on a burning democracy. […]
[…] Even if those who decided to publish the letter lacked the resources to fact-check each of the claims, they might have pushed back on obviously false claims, as when Trump falsely claims that Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg spent millions of dollars to “interfere in the Pennsylvania election.”
They might also have noted that the organization that Trump repeatedly cites as an authority for his claims, the “highly respected” group Audit the Vote PA, has no actual experience in evaluating elections. Or, perhaps, that the organization’s website includes allegations of fraud that are themselves obviously false. […]
They could have pointed out that the first claim in Trump’s letter, about late-arriving mail ballots, had already been adjudicated by the courts and wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the race. That’s even if the numbers he cited (which came from Audit the Vote) were credible, which they aren’t.
[…] They could have taken out obviously unimportant arguments like his trip back to the “we have signed affidavits!!!” well.
[…] they could have pointed out that a canvass of one county that claims to have identified 78,000 “phantom voters” is simply not credible. […]
The paper could, for example, have asked that Trump offer some baseline number of examples of proven, demonstrated fraud, not simply various numbers dependent on amateur analyses of voter data. […]
[…] The main thing you need to know about the letter, of course, is that Donald Trump is still railing against his election loss 358 days after it occurred. And that prominent institutions are still enabling his dangerous misinformation more than 358 days after they should have known better.
Even as the administration disappoints immigration advocates, it’s providing real relief to undocumented people in the US.
Starting this week, the number of places where immigration enforcement officials are not allowed to arrest people is growing. The Biden administration issued a new policy Wednesday that directs agents to stay away from playgrounds, domestic violence shelters, healthcare facilities, public demonstrations, disaster response centers, and other locations.
The new “protected areas” policy went into effect immediately and supersedes all previous guidance for what used to be called “sensitive locations.” For years now, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents had been instructed to avoid arresting people in places of worship, hospitals, courthouses, and schools. This, in part, is why immigrants facing deportation have sought refuge inside churches as part of the sanctuary movement.
This change may not seem like a huge deal, but it can have real, immediate impact for millions of undocumented people in the United States who live with fear and anxiety every day. While in theory sensitive locations remained protected during the Trump era, agents were seen in courthouses and hospitals, which increased the level of fear in undocumented communities and in households with mixed-status families. In fact, when the pandemic started spreading in the United States, reports of ICE agents at testing sites spread on social media, keeping some undocumented folks from getting tested. At a clinic in Los Angeles, a doctor told me his patients were “very afraid” and hesitant to seek treatment. […]
Wednesday’s policy, which follows an April announcement that DHS would limit immigration arrests at or near courthouses, mandates that “to the fullest extent possible” immigration enforcement agents do not arrest people at or near the following protected areas:
Places that provide social services “essential to people in need”: food banks, domestic violence shelters, facilities that serve disabled persons.
Places where children gather: childcare centers, after-school programs, foster care facility, bus stops, and playgrounds.
Medical treatment facilities: hospitals, doctor’s offices, COVID-19 vaccination and testing sites, mental health providers, community health centers, urgent care centers, places that serve pregnant people.
Public demonstrations such as parades, demonstrations, or rallies.
Places of worship or religious study including temporary structures dedicated to activities of faith.
Places where disaster relief is being provided: emergency response shelters, places along evacuation routes or where family reunification is underway.
Places where civil ceremonies occur: funeral, graveside ceremony, wedding.
[…]
Wonkette: “Fox News Imagines Merrick Garland Putting ‘Concerned Parents’ In Gun Sights, What Could Go Wrong?”
Fox News somehow managed to top even the most breathless rightwing rhetoric against Attorney General Merrick Garland today with a graphic accompanying a “Fox and Friends” story pushing the lie that the Justice Department is “targeting” conservative parents who are upset about other lies that Fox News has been pushing about public schools. In mere reality, the DOJ has simply announced that it will investigate very real incidents of violence and death threats against public schools and school boards. But everyone on the Right is having a great time being angry at Garland for something he isn’t doing, so why not?
The introduction to the “Fox & Friends” segment praised Republican senators for “grilling” Garland yesterday over his nonexistent persecution of parents mad about school mask mandates and “critical race theory,” and illustrated Sen. Josh Hawley’s claim that Garland had “weaponized the FBI” against ordinary parents by showing gunsights superimposed over people at a school board meeting. […]
But wait! It’s only a visual metaphor! It’s not like anyone could possibly think Merrick Garland is literally training a sniper scope on good Christian parents who simply want to scream about liberty and masks and communists indoctrinating children into thinking that America has ever been racist. So it’s perfectly fine for Radio Rwanda Fox News to send the very subtle and entirely metaphorical message that the federal government is preparing to kill you simply for trying to protect your children (from masks and real history).
OK, let’s remind y’all one more time: In hearings held by both the House and Senate, Garland has repeatedly made clear that the DOJ doesn’t care if people protest at school board meetings, even if they raise their voices, lie, promote conspiracy theories, or dress like their favorite Founder by wearing a tricorner hat along with a QAnon shirt, as John Adams was fond of doing. The DOJ isn’t sending FBI agents to school board meetings, either. But if people are threatening violence, then yes, that is a matter it would look into.
[…] Mind you, thanks to the false rightwing narrative, even Yr Wonkette’s own facespace posts, which detail why it’s all bullshit, have attracted a lot of very excitable rightwing parents who have very poorly informed thoughts on Garland, with insights like these:
[Garland has declared] any concerned parent a domestic terrorist.
I believe he should totally disappear
Thank goodness merrick and the fbi are around to protect us from those evil, domestic terrorist parents. I sleep much better at night knowing our school boards are protected, also.
This is communism. He has committed Treason
This DOJ is acting more like the KGB or the Gestapo evert day in an attempt to silence all that resist this administration socialist agenda.
He needs to be sent to gitmo one way
And our favorite,
Parents are brave warriors against the teaching of hate, and division, and teaching races to fear one another. That is the magnification of racism. School boards are leftist zealots today and should be removed. School books taught the wrongs of slavery and equality issues for many decades. To say otherwise would be a lie. Now they want to create hate and anger. Shameful. Parents, from many cultures, are bravely fighting this woke garbage. Modern day heroes.
Honestly, we can’t see how a little graphic suggesting Garland has rightwingers in his literal gunsights could possibly escalate rightwing threats. It’s not like the American Right is in the habit of threatening to kill people it’s unhappy with. And it’s also not as though we might expect a person in not-total control of his faculties to respond to stochastic terrorism by terrorizing. […]
And when rightwingers actually do grab their guns and act on their violent fantasies, they don’t kill that many people at a go, just nine in a Black church one time, 11 at a synagogue another time, three at a protest another time, and 23 people at a Walmart in El Paso yet another. […]
And we certainly shouldn’t worry about the guy who plaintively asked Charlie Kirk at a Toilet Paper USA event the other day,
When do we get to use the guns? … That’s not a joke. I’m not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where’s the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?
That was actually near me, in the Boise exurb of Nampa, Idaho (motto: “Gateway to Kuna”).[…]
Wonkette: “Tucker’s New ‘1/6 Was An Inside Job’ Documentary Looks Pretty Weird”
[…] Tucker [made] a big announcement on his show about a TV miniseries fiction documentary special he made called “Patriot Purge.” It’s about the “new War on Terror,” which Tucker explains is a war on the terrorists who attacked the Capitol on January 6, who Tucker always assures us were just regular folks with some sincere and valid questions. The trailer outright suggests that January 6 was a “false flag.”
HOO BOY. A lot of people are saying there’s pretty no much daylight anymore between Tucker and Alex Jones. Glad a lot of people are starting to notice that, finally. […]
“The helicopters have left Afghanistan, and they’ve landed here at home,” Tucker Carlson declares ominously, about this new war on terror, which apparently involves white conservatives getting attacked by helicopters just for loving Jesus and asking questions about the election. The trailer begins with military drumming, and promises “the true story behind 1/6” and also “the plot against the people,” over footage of Ashli Babbitt getting shot and killed while participating in the white terrorist attack.
But in case Tucker hasn’t made this point one million times in the last year, voiceovers declare that the new enemy is “half” the country. Because it’s never just about the Capitol terrorists or other rightwing extremists, you see. Tucker has a deep need for all white Republicans to identify with the terrorists, and he’s been pushing it since January.
Another voiceover declares that “the Left is hunting the Right.” Someone else adds, “sticking them in Guantanamo Bay for American citizens, leaving them there to rot.” Clips play of President Joe Biden saying white supremacists are the greatest threat to the homeland, followed by “stop the steal” insurrectionist grifter idiot felon Ali Alexander complaining that even he has been called a white nationalist. (He is not white.) Of course, as Philip Bump notes, the trailer doesn’t really mention who Ali Alexander is, instead just letting him be a random non-white person on camera saying, in essence, “look, they’re calling ME a white nationalist? Haw haw haw, what a ridiculous!”
Bump adds:
What is useful to know about Alexander, though, is that he’s an inveterate right-wing opportunist who latched onto the post-election “stop the steal” mantra as a lucrative fundraising gambit. He was central to the creation of a rally scheduled for the Capitol grounds on Jan. 6, having previously declared on social media that he was “willing to give his life” for the fight against imaginary voter fraud. There are not many people on God’s green earth who would benefit more from a redirection of blame for the violence of Jan. 6 to the federal government, so here’s Alexander, popping up from his period of guilty anonymity, to boost Carlson’s point.
And so the trailer goes, with more militaristic imagery of kindly white conservatives being the new Osama bin Laden and finally, some Aryan jackass idiot woman at the end declaring that January 6 might have been a “false flag.” That the federal government might have made it up, in order to declare war on ALL WHITE CONSERVATIVES. […]
Here’s what GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, who co-chairs the January 6 committee in the House, has to say about Tucker’s new movie film: [video available at the link]
It appears that @FoxNews is giving @TuckerCarlson a platform to spread the same type of lies that provoked violence on January 6. As @FoxNews knows, the election wasn’t stolen and January 6 was not a “false flag” operation. @rupertmurdoch […]
Tucker’s “1/6 was an inside job” docu-drama will air on Fox Nation next month. The planned destruction of America at the hands of the Republican Party and Rupert Murdoch continues apace.
Manchin Will Agree to Halloween Only if Candy Is Completely Removed
Signalling his opposition to a storied tradition, Senator Joe Manchin said that he will agree to Halloween only if candy is completely eliminated.
The West Virginia senator, arguing that the “big Halloween giveaway is over,” said that billions are wastefully spent on candy each year.
“People seem to think that children going from house to house to get candy for free is fun,” Manchin said. “I call it something else: socialism.”
Manchin’s neighbors said that his opposition to candy on Halloween is long-standing. “Kids skip his house, because he just gives out coal,” one neighbor said.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been charged with forcible touching, a misdemeanor sex crime, according to documents filed in an Albany City Court on Thursday.
The day Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election, “sighs of relief rippled through capitals” around the world. NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reported, “As the results came through tonight, I started to watch the reaction coming in around the world, and people were reacting like the United States had overthrown a dictator, that democracy has been saved, that America’s reputation had been saved.”
In the months that followed, the United States’ allies liked what they saw from the new Democratic president. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared in February, “America is unreservedly back as the leader of the free world — and that is a fantastic thing.”
[…] there were similar assessments from, among others, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, French President Emmanuel Macron, and a great many E.U. officials. It wasn’t just leaders’ rhetoric: International public-opinion research found the United States’ global reputation bouncing back in 2021 […]
And so, as President Biden arrives in Europe for two important summits, he has reason to expect a warm welcome. There is, however, a problem hanging overhead: […] our allies aren’t concerned with our current president, so much as they’re concerned about the possible return of his predecessor.
The leaders of America’s closest partners have watched Biden’s popularity plummet while former president Donald Trump has begun holding raucous election-style rallies and making his trademark provocative or false pronouncements on a range of issues. And that is raising questions about the durability of any promises by — or agreements with — the current administration.
In other words, Trump is still a problem. And not just here in the USA. Trump is a problem for the entire planet.
“After four years with Trump, the world is very, very curious whether this is a lasting new direction of American politics or we could risk a return to Trumpism in 2024,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former Danish prime minister who served as NATO secretary general. “It will be an uphill effort for Biden to convince his allies and partners that he has changed American attitudes profoundly.”
Rasmussen went on to tell the Post that world leaders are even watching Virginia’s gubernatorial race — and if Terry McAuliffe’s Democratic candidacy falls short, it would be a sign of trouble for the United States’ overall direction.
“It would add to some skepticism in Europe that the declaration that ‘America is back’ is only temporary,” Rasmussen said.
[…] This is emblematic of the lasting damage the former president did to the United States’ international credibility. […]
There was a unique set of circumstances — the late-October Comey letter, Russian interference, Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia, etc. — which happened to unfold at roughly the same time, which led to an unfortunate fiasco that the United States was eager to undo.
The thesis was bolstered by Democratic electoral gains in 2017, 2018, and 2019, each of which made it easier for Americans to tell the world, “See? We’re correcting the mistake. The accident of history is being gradually undone.” When Biden defeated Trump by several million votes, the case seemed to grow easier.
But for international observers, the fears are not easily dismissed. In 2016, Americans proved themselves capable of electing someone like Trump to the nation’s highest office, and in 2020, his popular vote totals actually improved a little.
Roland Paris, a former foreign policy adviser to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asked last fall, “How could tens of millions of [Americans] reward this lying demagogue [Trump] after everything he’s done? People knew exactly what they were voting for. How deep are America’s democratic convictions, really?”
Complicating matters, Trump hasn’t gone away. The United States only has two major parties, and one still belongs to the corrupt, twice-impeached former president, who’s made no secret of his interest in another possible candidacy.
If Youngkin loses, some in the GOP will say it was the result of “theft” — because in some Republican circles, results they dislike must be delegitimized.
On his radio show yesterday, Fox News’ Mark Levin told his listeners that former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe is “preparing to try and steal” next week’s gubernatorial race in Virginia. The host added on his program, “This is very important to understand. So they’re going to try and steal the election.”
[…] as Politico reported, such rhetoric is quickly becoming more common.
[…] Trump and some of his supporters have already begun warning of voter fraud and laying the groundwork to question the veracity of Virginia’s elections after undermining faith in the 2020 results with a series of baseless claims. “The Virginia governor’s election — you better watch it,” Trump said in an interview, “You have a close race in Virginia, but it’s not close if they cheat.”
More recently, Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase, a prominent Republican proponent of election conspiracy theories and a campaign surrogate with whom Youngkin has campaigned, also claimed she’s aware of Democratic efforts to try to “steal” the gubernatorial race.
[…] There’s a very good chance that Glenn Youngkin, the GOP nominee in the commonwealth, will win on Tuesday and Virginia will take a sharp turn to the right after years of progressive governance. But since it’s at least possible that Republicans might fall short, some in the party are doing exactly what Donald Trump did ahead of his own 2020 defeat: GOP conspiracy theorists are making excuses by throwing around baseless fraud allegations.
In other words, if Youngkin loses, some in his party will tell Virginia’s electorate that his defeat was the result of systemic wrongdoing that exists only in conspiracy theorists’ minds.
[…] Ideally, Youngkin would take steps to denounce such efforts, but as the editorial board of The Washington Post explained last week, the GOP nominee is doing largely the opposite:
Next month’s elections in Virginia coincide with a singular moment in U.S. history, in which one major party has turned against accepting the results of free and fair elections. That momentous juncture poses a character test for all Republicans, which turns on this question: Will they stand against the assault on democracy’s most basic precept, or will they tolerate it? Glenn Youngkin, the GOP gubernatorial nominee in Virginia, has failed that character test.
The Post’s editors made the compelling case that Youngkin has “indulged and encouraged” proponents of his party’s Big Lie: “Few stances could be more subversive to the American experiment or more corrosive to our pluralistic system’s fundamental legitimacy. Few shine so bright a spotlight on a candidate’s courage and commitment to the Constitution, or lack thereof.”
The editorial board concluded, “[A]t a moment when democracy itself is under assault, Mr. Youngkin chose to dignify a fundamental fiction that is subverting our system, rather than stand up squarely for the truth. In so doing, he proved himself unfit for office.”
The man who opened fire at a mall in Boise, Idaho, on Monday, killing two people and injuring five others before being fatally wounded by police, was a far-right gun extremist who had expressed an animus towards Latinos and other minorities—and who not only carried a gun into the Idaho governor’s office, but also turned up armed at an April antifascist protest in Boise and menaced demonstrators […]
Jacob Bergquist, 27, was a convicted felon who had moved to Idaho a few years ago and had apparently developed an obsession with establishing his right to carry a firearm under Idaho law, a review of his social media posts indicates. He died Monday at a Boise hospital after being shot during the culmination of a shooting rampage inside Boise Towne Square, the state’s largest shopping mall.
Bergquist shot and killed a security guard, Jo Acker, 26, of Caldwell, and a Latino man, Roberto Padilla Arguelles, 49, who lived in Rupert. […] Bergquist also wounded two women inside a store in the mall, then proceeded outside where he exchanged gunfire with police; a woman inside a nearby car was wounded, as was one of the police officers.
[…] On April 2, Bergquist entered the office of Idaho Gov. Brad Little in the Statehouse in Boise and asked for an interview, saying he wanted to query the governor about his thoughts on convicted felons like himself being able to carry guns. A state trooper who observed the interaction and then sought guidance from the Ada County prosecutor’s office was advised that Bergquist was within his rights to do so under Idaho law.
[…] The cause of enabling convicted felons to have their firearms rights restored has long been a cause of so-called “Second Amendment” absolutists who contend that the Constitution prohibits any gun regulations whatsoever […] The same ideology has also become a major conduit of recruitment of gun owners into white nationalist and other extremist ideologies, and it proved to be a central factor in the radicalization of the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
But gun rights extremism has long had a large constituency in Idaho, resulting in some of the most lax gun ownership laws in the nation. In 2014, Idaho passed a law—which was passed unanimously in both the House and the Senate—declaring the state no longer had to abide by federal gun laws going forward. It also criminalized the enforcement of federal gun laws. Such laws, as The Atlantic explains, are unconstitutional on their face, but they have not yet been challenged in court. […]
Lawyers scrambled to deliver briefs to the Supreme Court this week to persuade the court to overturn the Texas abortion bounty hunter law. With arguments coming Monday, Nov. 1 in separate challenges—from the Justice Department and from abortion providers in the state—the lawyers filed one set of briefs on Wednesday, with responses due on Friday.
“Where, as here, a state enacts a blatantly unconstitutional statute, assigns enforcement authority to everyone in the world and weaponizes the state judiciary to obstruct those courts’ ability to protect constitutional rights,” lawyers for the Whole Women’s Health Center wrote in their brief, “the federal courts must be available to provide relief.”
[…] Far-right lawyers designed a law to get around the courts, and Justices Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas patted them on the backs approvingly. The court again refused to temporarily block the law when agreeing to hear these challenges.
Maybe the far-right justices will, after these briefs and arguments, reverse themselves until the Supreme Court hears and decides Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi abortion ban that could be the official moment when Roe v. Wade is overturned. Probably it won’t. But the stakes here go well beyond reproductive rights, as Brian Fletcher, the acting solicitor general of the U.S., detailed in his brief:
S.B. 8 was designed to nullify this Court’s precedents and to shield that nullification from judicial review. So far, it has worked: The threat of a flood of S.B. 8 suits has effectively eliminated abortion in Texas at a point before many women even realize they are pregnant, denying a constitutional right the Court has recognized for half a century. Yet Texas insists that the Court must tolerate the State’s brazen attack on the supremacy of federal law because S.B. 8’s unprecedented structure leaves the federal Judiciary powerless to intervene. If Texas is right, no decision of this Court is safe. States need not comply with, or even challenge, precedents with which they disagree. They may simply outlaw the exercise of whatever constitutional rights they disfavor; disclaim enforcement by state officials; and delegate the State’s enforcement authority to members of the general public by empowering and incentivizing them to bring a multitude of harassing actions threatening ruinous liability—or, at a minimum, prohibitive litigation costs. On Texas’s telling, no one could sue to stop the resulting nullification of the Constitution.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton barely bothered to respond, filing the same brief to respond to both cases and repeating the argument that since Texas itself is not enforcing the law, it is merely deputizing every angry ex-boyfriend and every clinic protester and everyone who wants $10,000 to do so. Why would he change what has worked so far with this court, with Federalist Society justices accepting the way Federalist Society lawyers designed the law to evade scrutiny? […]
On a glorious Saturday morning in October, about 75 people are gathered inside an airy warehouse on the wooded grounds of Foam Works, a local insulation company on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The mostly white, middle-aged crowd sports Trump 2024 hats and T-shirts extolling the Second Amendment, but no masks. Parked on the grass outside are cars scrawled with window paint warning about the evils of the “New World Order.” They’ve come from around the region for a “citizen summit” organized by a Maryland state trooper and the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) to educate “we the people” about the Constitution, and how a county sheriff could help them “resist government overreach.” CSPOA’s founder Richard Mack came from Maricopa County, Arizona, to headline the all-day seminar.
As attendees mill about grabbing donuts and coffee, Mack genially chats with them and hawks his self-published books, including The County Sheriff America’s Last Hope and The Proper Role of Law Enforcement. Tall and tan, at 68, Mack has the look of an aging game show host and carries himself with the self-assurance of a minor celebrity. He has decades-long deep ties to militia and extremist groups. He even wrote a book with his friend Randy Weaver, the white separatist whose wife and son were killed by federal agents during an 11-day standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 […]
Mack’s organization, CSPOA, is made up of hundreds of elected county sheriffs and their supporters who promote the idea that sheriffs have the power to refuse to enforce laws they deem to be unconstitutional—like, say, virtually all gun control laws. Mack believes that county sheriffs have more power than the president of the United States.
“He’s had more success in bringing anti-government ideas to law enforcement than anyone else,” says Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow at the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism who recently published a research report on Mack and CSPOA.
Recently, CSPOA members have made headlines for refusing to enforce state mask mandates and they’ve played a leading role in some communities challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election. […]
Mack has been a familiar face on the far-right extremist circuit since the mid-1990s […] In 2011, a group called Patriots of Gillespie County, in Fredericksburg, Texas, hired him to start CSPOA to focus on recruiting law enforcement into the patriot movement. […]
What’s new for Mack, and especially troubling to civil rights advocates, is that this year, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement (TCOLE) approved CSPOA to provide official trainings that officers need to maintain their proficiency certificates. So have 10 other states, according to Mack, including Virginia, Montana, and South Carolina. This is happening even as the FBI has been warning for years that extremists have been trying to infiltrate law enforcement to pursue their ideological goals. […]
[…] His spiel in Maryland is an odd jumble of civics lesson, Thomas Paine quotes, and dated pop culture references. According to Mack, sheriffs have the power to kick IRS or USDA agents out of a county, where he says federal officers have no jurisdiction. […]
At one point he plays a clip of Angela Bassett in the 2002 made-for-TV movie The Rosa Parks Story to illustrate why he believes that a “constitutional sheriff” would never have kicked Rosa Parks off that famous bus. Instead, he would have escorted Parks safely home, thanked her for her bravery, and ensured that her husband had a loaded gun in the house. Despite his fondness for invoking Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. in his public appearances, Mack has won few fans among civil rights activists, largely because of comments like the one in his 1996 book, From My Cold Dead Fingers: Why America Needs Guns, in which he wrote that “the Reverend Jesse Jackson types and the NAACP have done more to enslave Afro-Americans than all the southern plantation owners put together.”
[…] Over the course of 90 minutes, he covers everything from sex scandals at the Drug Enforcement Agency to the Agriculture Department’s persecution of the Amish for selling raw milk. He rails against the tyranny of government requiring “face diapers” and vaccine mandates and claims hospitals have fabricated statistics about the number of people who have died of COVID. He doesn’t mention that he had the disease himself in December. (“I thought I was going to die,” he tells me later.) He tells the group that his presentation is very similar to what he teaches in the sanctioned continuing ed classes for law enforcement, minus some deeper dives into things like civil asset forfeiture. […]
Much more at the link, including an analysis of the activities of Michael Peroutka, a Maryland debt collection lawyer and founder of the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC), which has teamed up with Mack to provide “educational” content. Here’s just one example:
“And who is empowered to decide what the law is?” Peroutka continues. “The sheriff. The source of law is not what some judge wrote last week. Law comes from God.” He continues to unspool his Taliban-level legal analysis to the admiring crowd, who gave him a standing ovation when he took the podium. “Unjust laws are not laws,” he says. “In America, if it violates the Bible, it’s not law.” By that reasoning, he explains, Roe v. Wade can’t be law because of Exodus 20:13, which says, “Thou shalt not murder.”
“Roe v. Wade isn’t law,” he noted. “It’s just an opinion.”
Mark Zuckerberg has legally changed his name to Mother Teresa, Mother Teresa confirmed today.
In an official statement, Mother Teresa said that he had changed his name to better reflect his mission of charity and kindness.
“The name ‘Mark Zuckerberg’ did not accurately describe my function: to be a force for good, spreading love and kindness throughout the metaverse,” he said.
Mother Teresa admitted that it might be difficult for some Meta employees to get used to his new name, but he said that he would give them until the end of October to do so.
After that, he said, any employee who refers to him as Mark Zuckerberg will be immediately “expelled from the metaverse.”
“Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind,” Mother Teresa said.
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday authorized Pfizer-BioNTech’s lower-dose Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, making it available to 28 million children in the United States.
Michael A. Riley, the Capitol Police officer who faces charges for obstructing the investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection after deleting Facebook communications between him and a man who was charged with entering the Capitol, resigned from the department this week, his lawyer said in a statement.
The House on Thursday passed yet another short-term extension of highway and transit construction programs that are set to expire on Sunday in order to avert thousands of worker furloughs and halted projects.
“At a Senate hearing in May, Dr. Fauci said, ‘The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’ That was under oath, under testimony. On October 20th, the NIH principal deputy director in writing directly contradicted it.”— Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), remarks at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Oct. 27
“Last week his agency admitted they had in fact funded gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.”— Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), at the same hearing, Oct. 27
In May, we examined a high-profile spat between Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At issue was whether the National Institutes of Health had funded “gain-of-function” experiments at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). At a Senate hearing, Paul said “super viruses” had been created, and Fauci shot back that the senator was “entirely and completely incorrect.”
We awarded Two Pinocchios to Paul, saying “there still are enough questions about the work at the Wuhan lab to warrant further scrutiny, even if the NIH connection to possible gain-of-function research appears so far to be elusive.”
Readers have been asking for an update ever since a top NIH official sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 20 saying that the nongovernmental organization EcoHealth Alliance — which received NIH funding to do the research on the potential for bat-specific pathogens in nature to jump to humans — did not report an experimental finding that indicated a spike in viral growth.
Both Cruz and Cotton have cited the NIH letter to assert that Fauci lied to Congress. Cruz even told Attorney General Merrick Garland that Fauci should be prosecuted. The issue is important because of speculation that the virus that caused the coronavirus pandemic might have been created in a lab. But the NIH letter does not say what they claim — and, in fact, the NIH letter appears to have inaccuracies.
The Facts
This is a complex story, on many levels. We are going to keep focused on what was disclosed in the NIH letter and in the release of grant updates by EcoHealth by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Intercept.
Gain of function, in many ways, is basic biological research. It’s done all the time with flies, worms, mice and cells in petri dishes. Scientists create novel genotypes (such as arrangements of nucleic acids) and screen or select to find those with a given phenotype (such as trait or ability) to find new sequences with a particular function.
But it’s one thing to experiment with fruit flies and another thing when the research involves genotypes of potential pandemic pathogens and functions related to transmissibility or virulence in humans.
That’s when gain of function becomes controversial. The idea is to get ahead of future viruses that might emerge from nature, thereby allowing scientists to study how to combat them. But increasingly many scientists have decided the research was potentially dangerous — and, especially in China, not done with the proper safety precautions.
Even now, it’s not clear whether the research funded by EcoHealth in China amounted to gain of function. When the Intercept obtained EcoHealth documents in September, seven of 11 scientists who are virologists or work in adjacent fields told the Intercept that the work appeared to meet NIH’s criteria for gain-of-function research. Obviously, it’s a matter of dispute within the scientific community.
But Cotton claimed NIH admitted that it had funded gain-of-function research. That’s wrong. No such admission appears in the letter, and NIH officials continue to insist that the EcoHealth work using NIH funds did not constitute gain-of-function research.
In 2014, gain-of-function research was paused for three years as the U.S. government set up a case-by-case review process to oversee funding, known as the Potential Pandemic Pathogen Care and Oversight (P3CO) framework. Under that framework, funding of enhanced potential pandemic pathogens would receive greater scrutiny if research was intended to create such pathogens and if the virus was highly transmissible and could create a pandemic among humans.
There has long been criticism that the P3CO framework had too many loopholes. But the EcoHealth grant, awarded in 2014, does not show that it intended to create an enhanced pathogen or that its experiment posed any harm to humans.
“As sometimes occurs in science, this was an unexpected result of the research, as opposed to something that the researchers set out to do,” Lawrence A. Tabak, NIH principal deputy director, wrote in his letter to Congress dated Oct. 20. “Regardless, the viruses being studied under this grant were genetically very distant from SARS-CoV-2,” which causes covid-19.
Now let’s turn to the experiment itself [Snipped a long section describing the experiment in detail. See the link for more information.]
In a response to Tabak’s letter this week, Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth, emphasized that the report highlighted genome copies per gram. “Viral titers were not conducted in this experiment,” he said, adding that six to eight days later, there was “no discernibly significant difference among the different viral types.”
(Confusing matters, however, a graph in the 2018 EcoHealth report was mislabeled “viral load per gram of lung tissue,” even though the graph’s Y axis is clearly labeled genome copies per gram of tissue.) [Yeah, honest mistake.]
Richard H. Ebright of Rutgers University, a longtime critic of gain-of-function research, dismissed this explanation. “The claim is technically true. PCR is measuring viral nucleic acids, not viruses per se,” he said in an email. “But the claim is factually nonsense. PCR is a standard method for quantifying viral growth,” and “NIH, in the Tabak memo and in subsequent comments, has made it absolutely clear that the NIH interprets EcoHealth’s data as indicating a greater-than-10-time increase in viral growth.”
Robert Kessler, a spokesman for EcoHealth, told The Fact Checker that the experiment was conducted only once and involved only a few mice. He confirmed Tabak’s comment that researchers encountered an unexpected result. “This testing is intended to determine whether strains discovered in the field can infect humans and how efficiently, not to create super viruses,” he said.
“Given the small number of mice, it is also uncertain whether the survival and weight loss data were statistically relevant, and as no further replications of this experiment were performed, we are unable to corroborate these initial results,” Daszak said in his letter to NIH.
[…] We sent questions to NIH about the failure to note the 2018 disclosure by EcoHealth and why it believed an increase in genome copies per gram would indicate 10-fold increase in viral growth. After a four-day wait, we received this emailed statement: “NIH stands by the letter provided to Congressional Committees in response to their inquiries and released by the House Energy & Commerce. NIH is not commenting on internal deliberations with the grantee beyond the information in the letter.”
[…] The Pinocchio Test
EcoHealth’s research has come under increased scrutiny after more details about its work in China have been revealed, either through congressional or journalistic pressure. The NIH letter, flawed though it may be, indicates the federal government is taking a closer look, too.
But we see no reason to change the Two Pinocchio rating we awarded Paul [Rand Paul]. There is a split in the scientific community about what constitutes gain-of-function research. To this day, NIH says this research did not meet the criteria — a stance that is not an outlier in the scientific community. Indeed, it appears as if EcoHealth halted the experiment as soon as it seemed to veer in that direction.
Meanwhile, Cotton and Cruz are spinning the letter as confirming what it does not say. They are welcome to offer an opinion about its meaning. But, so far, it’s not a fact that NIH has admitted funding gain-of-function research. So they also earn Two Pinocchios.
It’s a step that could end in the license being revoked.
[…] Trump’s new TRUTH social network is in violation of the software license it’s built on and must get in compliance, the holder of the license demanded this week.
The company that holds the software license for the open source code sent TRUTH Social, the Trump-founded venture, a letter demanding compliance with its software license, Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko said in a statement.
Rochko told TPM last week that he believed an early version of Trump’s network was using open-source software that he developed, called Mastodon, without abiding by the terms of the license that make it available to use.
“Truth Social is required to make its complete source code available,” the letter reads. “We request that Truth Social comply with this important condition of the license.”
Rochko said in the statement that though he would “prefer if people so antithetical to our values did not use and benefit from our labour,” the reality of open-source, free software means that “you give up the possibility of choosing who can and cannot use it from the get-go.”
[…] The letter, sent on Tuesday, triggers a 30-day response period for Trump to comply
[…] “Users were quick to note that the terms of service included a worrying passage, claiming that the site is proprietary property and all source code and software are owned or controlled by them or licensed to them,” Rochko added.
If Trump refuses to comply with Rochko’s demand within the 30-day period, that could result in the license being revoked, and in eventual legal action […]
Another option could be to cease use of the code – requiring them to spend the massive amount of time and money it takes to build a social network from scratch. […]
Not only Big Tech is trying to silence Trump, but now Little Tech is giving it a shot as well!
———————
I am convinced Trump enjoys using other people’s IP without paying for it or without their permission. The more the other people protest, the happier he is. Just ask the Village People and the Rolling Stones.
———————-
This is a slam-dunk injunction case. If he doesn’t comply, Trump will get shut down in a heartbeat and a half.
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The other missing parts are phone apps to access the site, and a cloud services host like AWS to run the back-end servers and bandwidth. That’s expensive, and has to conform to terms and conditions that Trump will hate. They also have to find a DDoS firewall provider.
As far as I know, TRUTH social hasn’t gotten this far yet, which is one indication that it’s a just a meme stock scam. Putting up a demo web site with open source software doesn’t mean anything. It’s like showing an artist’s rendering of a new office building you’re going to to open, without actually building anything.
—————————-
Who could have predicted TRUTH would be built on a lie and a fraud? What’s that? Literally everyone? Oh. Ok.
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Since this is now a publicly traded company with shareholders, it can’t afford to ignore this legal demand or to try to avoid it. The big question is what is the downside to the company if it complies with the requirements for being properly licensed?
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The upside is that this social network is nearly guaranteed to fail, like the vast majority of social networks people have come up with.
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The big obstacle to setting up a site like this is the cloud services provider, which can shut down a site in a heartbeat like AWS did to Parler. As far as I know, TRUTH hasn’t contracted with a cloud service yet to become an actual “live” social media platform, instead of just a signup web page. And it never will, if it’s just a stock scam.
On Thursday, after weeks and weeks of goalpost-moving, constant compromising on what was already a compromise, incoherent messaging, and consternation, Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema finally agreed to something. That ‘something’ mimics the many campaign promises President Joe Biden (and most of the Democratic Party) made to voters this past election cycle. The Build Back Better (BBB) plan that was supposed to include lots of climate change initiatives, paid family leave, expanded Medicare coverage for vision and dental, and government negotiation on prescription drugs, will now have some climate change stuff. Better than nothing? Eh.
That’s the clear hope of people like Manchin and Sinema, who have allowed their corruption and cynicism (and possibly pathological narcissism) to torpedo their own chances at having a meaningful legacy of service to the American people. While Manchin’s one driving force is his own corruption and that of his corrupt family, Sinema’s motivations have been hard to pin down. Either way, both senators have let down the American people and have greatly hurt other Democratic candidates and incumbents’ chances in the coming months. What will happen next remains a mystery as House Democrats, who agreed to the original compromise of $3.5 trillion spent over 10 years to be coupled with a reconciliation package, are now in a place where the White House is desperate to get something passed and Sens. Manchin and Sinema have shown they are not trustworthy people—at all.
On Thursday, as the White House announced it had a “framework” agreed on to some mysterious degree by the two senators most likely to be found staring at themselves in on their phones, those two decided to release statements lauding themselves. The responses to these two statements were intense.
Kyrsten Sinema wrote, “After months of productive, good-faith negotiations with@POTUS and the White House, we have made significant progress on the proposed budget reconciliation package. I look forward to getting this done, expanding economic opportunities and helping everyday families get ahead.” Joe Manchin’s tweet was equally gross: “President Biden’s framework is the product of months of negotiations and input from all members of the Democratic Party who share a common goal to deliver for the American people.”
Whether this cynical move will be enough for voters to forget what these two have actually done to hurt the American people remains to be seen for someone like Sinema, who seems to believe she just needs big corporate donors to float her into a cushy Senate gig until she is ready to run for president. Joe Manchin is a corrupt scumbag in a state that is hellbent on voting bankrupt human beings like Joe Manchin into office.
It’s a tale of two politicians with very unpopular, anti-American attitudes and actions: [tweets, with images, are available at the link]
Whoa! Things are getting worse and worse for John Eastman.
On Friday, the Washington Post dropped another bombshell report on what […] Trump’s top lieutenants were up to during the January 6 insurrection: As a mob chanting “hang Mike Pence!” raged through the Capitol, one of Trump’s lawyers, John Eastman, sent an email to the vice president’s office blaming Pence for the carnage. According to an email obtained by the paper, Eastman (who was responding to an angry email from a Pence staffer) wrote that “The ‘siege’ is because YOU and your boss did not do what was necessary to allow this to be aired in a public way so that the American people can see for themselves what happened.” What’s more, the Post reported, Eastman continued to advocate for the electoral college results to be rejected after Congress returned to business following the riot.
Eastman, at the time (but no longer) a professor at the University of California Hastings College of Law, had spoken alongside Rudy Giuliani at Trump’s rally on the National Mall that morning, where he alleged widespread fraud from Georgia voting machines and stated that if Pence didn’t delay the certification of the Electoral College, “We no longer live in a self-governing republic.” But behind the scenes, he’d played an even more important role; as Robert Costa and Bob Woodward reported in their book Peril, Eastman had drafted a memo that outlined a series of steps by which Trump, with Pence’s help, could overturn the results of the election.
Since that memo was published, Eastman and his current employer, the Claremont Institute, have sought to downplay its significance. Claremont recently described the reporting and criticism of its fellow as a “disinformation, de-platforming, and ostracism campaign,” and vowed to “not remain silent in the face of widespread lies peddled by malicious domestic political opponents.” Eastman, in a lengthy interview with National Review, said that the memo was simply one of several arguments he’d prepared for Team Trump’s perusal and not one he ultimately recommended or even agreed with in full.
But Eastman was not participating in some after-hours law-school bull session; he was advising a corrupt and desperate man who would do almost anything to hold onto power. The radical scenario outlined in the memo, and the equally-radical scenario Eastman says he ultimately recommended—in which Pence would decline to certify the results, buying time for Republican legislators in key states to purportedly investigate alleged fraud, and submit new slates of electors—would have only indulged Trump’s delusions about his own chances.
And Eastman pursued all of this, because he was likewise deluded about what had happened in November. As part of a legal analysis he prepared for state legislators making the case that they could reject their states’ election results, the Post reported, “Eastman’s seven-page paper featured theories about voter fraud published by the right-wing blog the Gateway Pundit and an anonymous Twitter user named ‘DuckDiver19.’”
DuckDiver19. It’s a long way from Federalist no. 68.
President Biden and other world leaders endorsed a landmark global agreement on Saturday that seeks to block large corporations from shifting profits and jobs across borders to avoid taxes, a showcase win for a president who has found raising corporate tax rates an easier sell with other countries than with his own party in Congress.
The announcement in the opening session of the Group of 20 summit marked the world’s most aggressive attempt yet to stop opportunistic companies like Apple and Bristol Myers Squibb from sheltering profits in so-called tax havens, where tax rates are low and corporations often maintain little physical presence beyond an official headquarters.
It is a deal years in the making, which was pushed over the line by the sustained efforts of Mr. Biden’s Treasury Department […]
The revenue expected from the international pact is now critical to Mr. Biden’s domestic agenda […]
Leaders hailed the agreement, which was negotiated by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development with nearly 140 countries signing on. It would impose a minimum 15 percent corporate tax rate in nearly every country in the world and punish the few holdouts who refuse to go along. The O.E.C.D. estimates the accord will raise $150 billion per year globally from tax-fleeing companies. […]
Shell’s CEO said that meeting energy demand while addressing climate change is “one of the defining challenges of our time.” But @Shell won’t put its money where its mouth is. I made this hypocrisy plain with a simple visual.
Excerpt:
Shell is trying to fool people into thinking that it is addressing the climate crisis, when what it is actually doing is to continue to put money into fossil fuels.
Commentary:
[…] During Porter’s questioning of Shell President Gretchen Watkins, the California congresswoman held up a jar filled to the brim with M&Ms, each of which represented about $50 million. Altogether, the M&Ms signified upwards of the $22 billion Shell’s 2020 annual report called for spending on renewable energy in the near term. The near term must add up to almost a decade, because Watkins said Shell is only spending $2 billion to $3 billion on renewables this year.
Porter noted that Shell will be spending between $16 billion and $17 billion this year on oil, gas, and chemical operations, with another $3 billion going towards marketing. “Mrs. Watkins, to me, this does not look like an adequate response to one of the ‘defining challenges of our time,’” Porter said, quoting Watkins’ own testimony. “This is greenwashing,” Porter added. […]
Texas Cops Thought They Were Real Cute Ignoring Calls For Help From Biden Bus
[…] “helping people one does not like” is a requirement of pretty much any job that involves interacting with the public […]This is particularly true of professions like firefighters, doctors, nurses, EMTs and others tasked with jobs in the general lifesaving field. It should apply to cops […]
Like, for instance, the San Marcos, Texas cops who thought it was very funny that a “Trump Train” of nearly 50 cars swarmed a Biden campaign bus last year, attempting to drive it off the road.
Transcripts of 911 calls released in discovery for a lawsuit against the city, Director of Public Safety Chase Stapp and several cops reveal that not only did they and their 911 dispatchers think it was very funny that the Biden bus was being harassed, but also that they refused to provide a police escort for the bus when asked to take over doing so by another jurisdiction.
Via Texas Tribune:
The 911 dispatcher in San Marcos put the New Braunfels dispatcher and the Biden campaign staffer who was pleading for assistance on hold and called Daenzer, the police supervisor on duty.
“I am so annoyed at New Braunfels for doing this to us,” the dispatcher tells Daenzer, who answered the call and began laughing, according to the transcribed recording in the filing. “They have their officers escorting this Biden bus, essentially, and the Trump Train is cutting in between vehicles and driving — being aggressive and slowing them down to like 20 or 30 miles per hour. And they want you guys to respond to help.”
“No, we’re not going to do it. We will ‘close patrol’ that, but we’re not going to escort a bus,” Daenzer responds.
The transcript shows that the 911 dispatcher passes along information about the sense of danger expressed by the Biden campaign staffer who called for assistance as he was trying to caravan behind the bus in a white SUV.
“[T]hey’re like really worked up over it and he’s like breathing hard and stuff, like, ‘they’re being really aggressive.’ Okay. Calm down,” she said to Daenzer.
The transcription shows that Daenzer said the Biden bus should “drive defensively and it’ll be great.”
“Or leave the train,” the 911 dispatcher responds. “There’s an idea.”
In group text messages that were also entered into discovery, the cops discussed the incident in the days following, still mocking the passengers on the Biden bus and laughing about how they were unable to leave the highway because of the “Trump escort.”
According to the filing, plaintiffs argue a text message between some of the San Marcos police officers who refused to provide assistance “poked fun at the attack.”
To support that claim, the lawsuit refers to a group text message among San Marcos officers, including Winkenwerder, in which an unidentified person appears to refer to Democrats who drove through town as a derogatory slang term for someone who is mentally disabled.
The following day, Chase Stapp, the public safety director, texted multiple officers about the situation, according to Friday’s filing. “From what I can gather, the Biden bus never even exited I-35 thanks to the Trump escort.”
Yet in the days afterward, after news of the melee spread, officers started calling the event a “debacle” in internal emails and braced for a “political fire storm” after officers realized that what happened in San Marcos “might lead to political and legal consequences,” the complaint alleges.
When Daenzer wrote the report of the incident four days later, he said “due to the staffing issues, lack of time to plan, and lack of knowledge of the route, we were unable to provide an escort.”
It wasn’t just threatening and scary — the Trump supporters even caused a collision with one of the vehicles being driven by a Biden staffer. People could have been hurt or killed. The San Marcos cops received multiple phone calls from people who had nothing to do with either campaign asking them to please do something, and they refused.
It looks like they all still have their jobs for now, but given the damning nature of these transcripts, one hopes they don’t have them for much longer.
In a particularly disturbing twist, former Texas Republican lawmaker Jonathan Stickland seemed to suggest that the passengers could have just shot the Trump supporters, creepily demanding that Shannon Watts of the gun control advocacy group Moms Demand Action “repent for turning millions into potential victims w/ leftist advocacy.” […]
Call me crazy, but it seems like shooting at people in cars from a moving bus would have made things a lot more dangerous for everyone involved. It’s hard to see how that ends well.
If police officers like these are too devoted to Donald Trump to do their jobs, then perhaps they ought to consider another profession. One which does not involve getting a paycheck paid for by everyone’s taxes.
Tonight I did something I haven’t done for years (even pre-pandemic) — go to a nightclub (on my own initiative). The band was playing “Brazilian traditional” music — and was good — as was the beer (a witbier from Aix). As were the people I met — a Norwegian history professor (who lived / studied in Brazil) and is now moving to the village, his partner (who has lived in the village for awhile), a Brit whose parents are from the area, etc. The entry protocol was strict, and enforced, you had to show your Health Pass (proof of full-vaccination, etc.). The ventilation wasn’t good, but I knew that beforehand… and of course, it has hot, sticky, and a lot of fun. Only complaint is the volume seemed low, albeit once I stuck my head inside the sound-stack (speakers) it was almost bearable…
stroppysays
“Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) used a trunk full of rice to question oil executives about the amount of unused oil permits on federal land.”
Abortion would immediately become illegal in at least 12 states if the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe v. Wade, and more would likely follow suit quickly.
States have been preparing contingency plans for a post-Roe landscape while state Republicans ramped up efforts to get the landmark ruling overturned. And the future of Roe is on the court’s docket.
The court on Monday will hear oral arguments in two cases challenging a Texas law effectively banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Abortion providers and the Justice Department are both challenging the law.
A month later, the court will hear another major abortion case, challenging Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks. The state is asking the court to overturn Roe.
If the court were to ultimately overturn the precedents that established the constitutional right to an abortion, a patchwork of state laws would govern the procedure.
Oklahoma on Monday will become the 12th state to have a “trigger law” in place — an abortion ban that would kick in right away if the court overturns its precedents. Four states have even amended their constitutions to prohibit any protections for abortion rights.
Several other states don’t have trigger laws in place but would likely move quickly to ban or tightly restrict the procedure if the court clears the way: Florida, Indiana, Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming would be prime candidates, according to new analysis from the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights research organization.
Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and South Carolina have all enacted restrictive laws that were then blocked by federal courts. They could try to revive those policies in a post-Roe world.
The other side: At least 15 states and Washington, D.C. have enacted laws that would automatically keep abortion legal if Roe is overturned.
[…]
While the Texas cases will not be directly addressing whether the high court overturns or weakens Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the procedural questions they are focusing on could affect how states handle abortion legislation.
“If the court were to hold that federal courts are powerless to stop state laws that prohibit the exercise of a fundamental federal constitutional right, then that gives states an easy avenue to get around Roe and Casey,” Marc Hearron, lead counsel for abortion providers in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, said in a press call last week.
And the Mississippi case a month later does directly implicate Roe.
A map at the link shows the immediate effect overturning Roe would have on every state.
[…] Unhoused people, in general, are deeply vulnerable to all sorts of abuse and discrimination, pandemic or not, and one story out of North Carolina has many people unable to turn away from all too common reality.
In this case, Joshua Rohrer, a veteran of the Iraq war who lives with PTSD related to his military service, was arrested for panhandling in Gastonia, North Carolina, on Oct. 13. Rohrer alleges that his service dog, Sunshine, was tased during the arrest, then was later hit by a car and killed. This is horrifying no matter what, but additionally so because Rohrer’s two-year-old dog was part of his PTSD treatment plan prescribed by Veterans Affairs (VA), according to Military Times.
Rohrer maintains that he wasn’t doing anything illegal when he was stopped by police. Rohrer was standing on a median near a shopping mall in Gastonia when someone called the police; the caller told 911 Rohrer wasn’t bothering or harming anyone, but suggested he was using Sunshine as a way to get money from people out of sympathy, and described the situation as “bullcrap.” According to Rohrer, he was there, but he was waving at people and chilling when he says a woman offered him money. As soon as he took the money, Rohrer says the police pulled up “aggressively” with lights on.
From there, an officer informed Rohrer he’d be receiving a ticket for panhandling, which is illegal under some specifications in the state. Rohrer argued he wasn’t panhandling and the officer called for backup. Rohrer was also asked to show state ID when he said he only had his VA-issued ID.
Justyn Huffman, a witness to Rohrer’s arrest, told local outlet WCNC that when Rohrer didn’t move fast enough to get his ID, “they slammed him up against the car and they put cuffs on him.” Huffman added that officers surrounded Rohrer during the arrest.
According to Rohrer, Sunshine jumped onto the hood of the car in an attempt to comfort him, which prompted the cops to yell at Rohrer, but he said he couldn’t calm her down without being able to physically interact with her. Rohrer says Sunshine nipped at one of the officer’s ankles as she jumped down, and the officer tased her. (Some reports say Sunshine nipped the officer’s boot, not his ankle.)
According to Huffman, he and fellow witness Nydia Conley were screaming at the police not to shoot the dog. He recalls Sunshine bolting to a store nearby with a taser prong still on her body. Conley described the scene as “traumatizing.” Meanwhile, according to Huffman, police slammed Rohrer onto the pavement before being taken away for booking.
Rohrer says he cited his right to keep his service dog with him as someone with a disability but says police laughed at him.
“I begged them to bring her to me or to give her to an officer to take with them,” Rohrer said. “But they wouldn’t listen, they didn’t care.” He stressed that he “begged” the police not to separate them but says they didn’t care about either of them or the fact that he needed her.
Dave Dowell, a Veteran Affairs advocate, was at first able to locate Sunshine, but she ultimately slipped out of her leash and bolted. Rohrer was released from jail the next day and within two days, found her. She had been hit by a car and killed. Dowell said Sunshine’s death has made Rohrer suicidal and depressed.
Rohrer faces charges for panhandling and resisting arrest. According to a statement from the Gastonia Police Department, the department is investigating the incident to “determine if the conduct of our officers was appropriate.”
Some in the community are protesting to raise awareness for both Rohrer and Sunshine. […]
Trump has found a way around his being banned from Facebook, and he is using the platform for fundraising … big time:
[…] It scares me how quickly President Fifteen Flushes was able to shove Jan. 6 down the memory hole—at least in the barmy bean-brains of his troglodytic troop. And Facebook—which has banned Donald Trump from its platform for two years—seems far more concerned these days about hiding its crimes against humanity than fumigating its site against anti-American ex-presidents.
Tell me exactly why Facebook is allowing Trump to do this? Other than pure, noxious greed, that is.
While Trump is currently banned from Facebook for—erm, uh … Jesus Waffle-Noshing Christ, this can’t be right, can it?—attempting a coup against the legitimate government of the United States of America, he’s found a way around that ban, while he also skirts laws about using his current fundraising to fund a (likely) future presidential campaign.
Washington Post:
[Trump’s] primary political action committee, Save America, has been spending more than $100,000 a week this month on Facebook ads, according to the company, many of which seek donations with deceptive claims about corruption in the last election and public support for the belief that “Trump is the true president.”
Facebook allows the ads because Trump is not posting them personally through his suspended account and the ads do not speak in Trump’s “voice,” according to a company spokeswoman. The money raised can be used to finance his current political operation — his staff, his rallies, his travel — until he announces another campaign. At that point, he would have to start fresh with a new account, but with a significant advantage: advisers may rent back the updated list of donors that Save America has collected to give him a head start. And advisers say he could transfer the money to another outside group that buttresses his bid.
Oh, isn’t that cute? You’d think that at some point, on its way to making the planet safe for fascism again, Facebook would take time to meaningfully enforce its ban. […]
The fundraising haul puts his political operation, which has so far reported giving little to other candidates or causes, among the largest in the country, dwarfing organizations set up to raise money nationwide. The National Republican Senatorial Committee declared less than $30 million in cash at the end of September and the National Republican Congressional Committee had $65 million in cash at the same point.
[…] Trump’s post-election-loss foray into politics is unusual, as is his continued fundraising effort (aka scam). The last losing president to make another run at the White House was Herbert Hoover, who, like Trump, also presided over a cratered economy. […]
Gee, it would sure be nice if someone stopped him. Huh, Facebook?
Of course, if Facebook doesn’t want to bar Trump’s fundraising efforts, they could at least put the kibosh on his corrosive lies. They’re not doing that either, of course. In one series of ads cited by The Post, the Trump team claimed “53% believe Trump is the true president” and “56% believe the 2020 election was tainted.” As the paper noted, those numbers refer only to Republicans, and it remains an open question whether they’re actually Americans anymore.
So it’s time to do better, Facebook. That should be pretty easy, as the bar could not possibly be any lower.
Rowdy protests. Trash thrown at the Mayor’s mansion. Suspensions following threats to state Senate staffers. With the pushback against New York City’s vaccine mandate among a relatively small number of government employees grabbing headlines all week, it might have been easy to miss one simple fact: The mandates are working.
While 26,000 people missed Friday’s 5 p.m. deadline (and its accompanying $500 cash bonus), thousands more across city agencies were inspired to get the shot, according to data provided to Gothamist by Mayor Bill de Blasio’s office:
… the NYPD’s vaccination rate rose to 84% on Friday, up from 79% the day prior. FDNY’s rate increased to 77% from 69%. The Sanitation Department went from 67% to 77% .
Last night, the mayor announced that 91 percent of city workers now had one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, after a Saturday surge saw an additional 2,300 shots. […] 19,000 employees joined the ranks of the vaccinated since the city did away with weekly testing as an alternative. […]
Still, there are holdouts—and apparent “sick outs”, especially amongst protesting firefighters, which have curtailed services within some firehouses in the city. “Irresponsible bogus sick leave by some of our members is creating a danger for New Yorkers and their fellow firefighters,” FDNY Commissioner Daniel A. Nigro said in a statement. “They need to return to work or risk the consequences of their actions.”
And there has been an uptick in complaints about uncollected trash […]
Unpaid leave for the remaining vaccine-resistant kicks in on Monday.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who has been critical of […] Trump’s claims about the election and announced last week that he will not seek reelection, slammed Republicans on Sunday “who haven’t said a dang word” about the “lie and conspiracy” pushed by factions of the GOP.
When asked by host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” if his retirement announcement handed Trump a win, Kinzinger said it “potentially” did before criticizing Republicans who have “put their head in the sand.”
“It’s not really handing a win as much to Donald Trump as it is to the cancerous kind of lie and conspiracy not just wing anymore but mainstream argument of the Republican Party,” Kinzinger said.
“This is not on … the 10 of us that voted to impeach. It’s not on [Rep.] Liz Cheney [R-Wyo.] and I to save the Republican Party. It’s on 190 Republicans who haven’t said a dang word about it, and they put their head in the sand and hope somebody else comes along and does something,” he added.
Trump on Friday sent out a statement that read, “2 down, 8 to go,” referring to Kinzinger’s and Rep. Anthony Gonzalez’s (R-Ohio) decisions to not seek reelection next year. Both lawmakers voted for Trump’s impeachment in January.
Kinzinger has been critical of Trump and the state of the Republican Party following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. He is now one of the two GOP members — along with Cheney — serving on the select committee investigating the attack.
Kinzinger told Stephanopoulos on Sunday that “basically” only he, Cheney and “a few others” are “telling the truth.”
“You can fight against the cancer in the Republican Party of lies, of conspiracy, of dishonesty, and you ultimately come to the realization that basically it’s me, Liz Cheney and a few others that are telling the truth, and there are about 190 people in the Republican Party that aren’t going to say a word, and there’s a leader of the Republican caucus is that embracing Donald Trump with all he can,” he added. […]
Of all the “America’s Frontline Doctors” spreading misinformation about the COVID pandemic, Dr. Stella Immanuel is perhaps the most whimsical. She doesn’t stop at claiming COVID is a harmless virus evil scientists invented so they could kill you with vaccines, she doesn’t stop at claiming masks don’t work or that a variety of bullshit she sells on her website will cure you — she’s got a whole mythology going on that involves demon sperm, satanic vaccines and now, blood-drinking clones.
In a video captured by Right Wing Watch this week — right in time for Halloween! — Dr. Demon Sperm warns us that many of our world leaders have been replaced by clones. Clones who make laws that kill people, so that they can then drink their blood. [video available at the link]
She says:
We have human beings, like all the rulers of darkness of this world. These are people that are human beings that have [liaisons?] with the devil, but we have spiritual weaknesses in high places.
These are the clones that are not human. Some of them are governors in states, some of them are Presidents in different countries, some of them are big leaders of places [unintelligible] like the CDC, WHO, the FDA, some of those people are leaders and their job is to make laws that will cause people to die. And you know why? Because they are blood drinkers. They need people to die because they need to drink blood.
Huh. Yeah, it seems like people die pretty regularly without anyone needing to create laws to help them do that? The thing I don’t really get here is that recently, Dr. Immanuel told Gateway Pundit that the whole COVID pandemic was a Trojan horse for a vaccine that would reduce the world’s population by 10 to 15 percent and also implant the Mark of the Beast into everyone.
I actually think that the whole pandemic was a Trojan Horse for vaccines. COVID, from day one, I’ve always said it, it’s completely treatable, and it’s completely preventable, And there is no reason for you to be giving a vaccine for a disease that’s completely treatable, and completely preventable. And on top of that, the death rate of COVID is not that high. So, we need to wake up and realize that these mandates, the vaccines, and everything is taking us right into the book of Revelations where you cannot buy or sell without taking the vax. I tell people my big mantra right now is, get prevention, early treatment, if you get sick, sick, sick and end up in the hospital, don’t be afraid, because you know that it’s a transition. If you’re, if you’re a child of God, if you’re a Christian, you should not be afraid to die, first of all. So the reason why they can cage us is we’re all so scared. So I said, you know, die saved and die human. […]
Bill Gates had a video, that said that if you do good vaccines, they can cut down the world’s population by 10 to 15%. Bill Gates has done a lot of atrocities in India in Africa and everything. If somebody tells you they want to depopulate the world with 15% with vaccines. Why would you let them sponsor a vaccine? And Bill Gates’ hands are in every vaccine. And then of course we talk about the whole Mark of the Beast, 666 thing.
Obviously they haven’t done a very good job with that, as nearly all of the people still dying from COVID are unvaccinated — but if they need to drink people’s blood, then why would they want to reduce the human population? If there is anything I have learned from watching way too many vampire shows on the CW, it is that people who drink blood tend to prefer to get it direct from the source. While clones may not have a dental situation that allows them to drink straight from the carotid, you can get a lot more blood from a living person than from a dead person.
I’m just gonna say it — it seems like Dr. Immanuel has not really thought this whole thing through. [LOL] It’s quite slapdash. […] logistically, I’m just not buying this as a cohesive evil plan to enslave all of mankind for Satan. It’s simply not believable that these clones would go through such an elaborate scenario just to obtain the human blood they need to survive when there are obviously more convenient ways of doing that. […]
She gets points for creativity […] but if she wants to keep selling expensive telehealth appointments and vitamin supplements, she’s should really consider doing something about all of these plot holes.
“Misinformation online is bad in English. But it’s far worse in Spanish.”
Our research found Facebook, YouTube and other platforms aren’t doing enough to combat falsehoods
The release of internal Facebook documents showing that the platform isn’t doing enough to stop a flood of lies and misinformation has sparked outrage nationwide. As bad as these problems are in English, though, they are even worse in other languages: Facebook has admitted its platform was used to incite violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar, and in the Philippines, the site helped fuel a vicious drug war and attacks on dissident journalists. Social media platforms are allowing far more misinformation to spread in other languages than they are in English.
But some of the scariest misinformation online is spreading right here in the United States — in Spanish.
[…] We are living with the consequences of years of inaction, which have yielded a mass shooting of Latinos in El Paso, a literal insurrection and deaths from anti-vaccine misinformation.
Latino communities maintain strong connections across Latin America; the result is an entire continent of Spanish-language misinformation largely unchecked by the platforms. Latinos are more susceptible to misinformation simply because of how much time we are spending online — twice as much on YouTube as non-Latino adults […] Two-thirds of Latinos treat YouTube as a primary source for their news and information about politics and elections. Half of Latinos in the United States use WhatsApp, the Facebook-owned messaging platform, more than any other ethnic or racial group in the country.
Spanish-language misinformation narratives often start on Facebook or YouTube, but then conversations or viral content move to closed WhatsApp groups where there’s less of a chance for fact-checkers to intervene. […]
Many Spanish-language social media pages and groups are cesspools, enabling smugglers to target desperate migrants and refugees and spreading harmful covid-19 and vaccine misinformation as fast as your tia’s “Dios Te Bendiga” meme. These tech platforms don’t just spread racist hate speech targeting Latinos; they’re also frequently spreading racial tropes that perpetuate colorism and anti-blackness, which help drive a wedge between Latino and Black communities.
[…]. Facebook still has Spanish-language posts active today from November 2020 that promote election lies with no warning labels. Facebook and YouTube both announced policies to remove or restrict QAnon content, but it continued to spread in Spanish. The platforms allowed content to stay up for weeks until we flagged it for them — and they still refused to take some down.
Facebook pages we were tracking last year spread the lie that dead people voted in Nevada in the 2020 election, a claim Facebook’s fact-checking partners rated false multiple times. The pages posting the claim in English had the posts labeled as “false information.” One Spanish post with hundreds of shares still has no label.
[…] Facebook will flag vaccine misinformation content in English, but the same content in Spanish takes days to get flagged, if it ever does. The online activist group Avaaz found Facebook failed to issue warning labels on 70 percent of misinformation in Spanish, compared to only 29 percent in English. […]
When a soccer player collapsed in cardiac arrest during an international match this year, anti-vaccine social media accounts jumped on it, falsely claiming the incident was related to the coronavirus vaccine (the player hadn’t even been vaccinated, his coach said). Several Facebook pages we found sharing the lie in English were almost immediately labeled as false. But the exact same lie posted on a prominent disinformation account in Spanish was left up for days — an endless amount of time for disinformation — receiving hundreds of shares before being labeled.
Late last year, Facebook said it was banning content promoting false claims that the vaccine contained a microchip. Since then, we have seen Facebook label several posts in English promoting this narrative as false, but similar posts we have tracked in Spanish still have no label.
[…] Advocates have been pushing for a set of solutions that the platforms can take — including hiring a C-suite position to oversee Spanish-language content moderation, expanding Spanish language moderation capacity and being more transparent about their moderation systems and processes — but with little to no success. And Facebook and the other platforms have repeatedly shown that they won’t solve this problem. […]
Social media companies hide behind meaningless marketing terms like “connecting” and “community” because their only real goal is higher profits. Lies, hate and even insurrection and deaths are not accidental byproducts of the way these platforms operate — they are the growth strategy. […] And for all the harm Facebook and other companies allow to flourish in English, their handling of Spanish content has been even worse.
And we wonder why so many Spanish-speaking people voted for Trump.
Good news from New Jersey, as summarized by Steve Benen:
In New Jersey’s gubernatorial race, the final Stockton University poll found incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy leading Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli, 50 percent to 41 percent.
And about that tight gubernatorial race in Virginia:
[…] the final Roanoke College poll showed Democratic former Gov. Terry McAuliffe with the smallest of leads over Republican Glenn Youngkin, 47 percent to 46 percent. FiveThirtyEight’s averages, however, show Youngkin with a one-point advantage.
Youngkin is a replica of Trump, just younger, and more careful about trying to occasionally hide his trumpish nature. If he is elected in Virginia it will be a disaster.
Related:
[…] Trump over the weekend told Fox News that he “strongly” endorses Youngkin, and this morning, the former president issued a written statement, telling his followers that he and Youngkin “get along very well together and strongly believe in many of the same policies.” It’s worth emphasizing that Trump’s written statement went on to say, “I am not a believer in the integrity of Virginia’s elections, lots of bad things went on, and are going on.”
[…] Trump will also host a virtual campaign rally tonight in support of Virginia’s GOP ticket. Youngkin has already said he will not be participating in the event.
“In May, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds rushed to get people off of jobless aid. For those fired over missed vaccinations, she’s changed her mind.”
Yeah, not good. I think this almost amounts to the Governor of Iowa paying people to NOT get vaccinated.
n the spring, many of the nation’s Republican governors embraced a provocative economic idea. With congressional Democrats having approved enhanced unemployment benefits, these GOP officials decided the smart move would be cut off the extra assistance to the jobless, in the hopes that it would force people back to work faster.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds joined the partisan push in early May, arguing that there were too many Iowans receiving too much aid for too long.
“Now that our businesses and schools have reopened, these payments are discouraging people from returning to work,” the Republican governor said nearly five months ago. “Our unemployment rate is at 3.7 percent, vaccines are available to anyone who wants one, and we have more jobs available than unemployed people.”
As the Associated Press reported over the weekend, Reynolds’ perspective on rushing people off of unemployment assistance appears to have changed a bit — for a very specific reason.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Friday signed into law a bill that allows Iowa workers to seek medical and religious exemptions from Covid-19 vaccine mandates and guarantees that those who are fired for refusing a vaccine will qualify for unemployment benefits. Reynolds signed the bill a day after the Iowa Legislature passed it in a one-day special session convened to pass the state’s redistricting maps. The law becomes effective immediately.
The GOP governor, who has consistently opposed requirements for masks and vaccines, despite her state’s difficulties during the pandemic, said in a statement that “no Iowan should be forced to lose their job or livelihood over the Covid-19 vaccine.”
Reynolds is also moving forward with plans to sue the Biden administration over its efforts to end the pandemic through vaccine requirements.
The disconnect between the policies is jarring. In May, unemployment insurance was derided by Republicans for creating unhealthy disincentives: People would make irresponsible decisions, they said, affecting themselves and the larger economy, as a result of unneeded financial rewards from the government. The goal, they argued, should be to get as many people off jobless aid as quickly as possible.
And yet, in October, as some Americans lose their jobs after choosing to go unvaccinated during the pandemic, Iowa’s Reynolds seems to have arrived at an entirely different set of assumptions.
“Three University of Florida professors want to give expert testimony on Republicans’ voter-suppression law. So why are they being blocked?”
Florida officials took great pride in how well their system of elections performed in 2020. But as we’ve discussed, that didn’t stop Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis and GOP state legislators from putting new hurdles between voters and their democracy anyway — in part because they could, in part to give themselves an added electoral advantage, and in part because the GOP believes it must enact policies supportive of the party’s Trumpian conspiracy theories.
With this in mind, the governor in May signed voter-suppression measures into law, which took effect immediately and will be in place for the Sunshine State’s busy 2022 election cycle.
Not surprisingly, Florida Republicans’ new anti-voting policies are being challenged in the courts, and under normal circumstances, we’d expect to see some of the state’s leading scholars offering expert testimony, explaining in detail the effects of the new state statutes.
As The Miami Herald reported, however, the current circumstances are anything but normal.
In a decision that could have far-reaching free speech implications for faculty at universities and colleges across Florida, the University of Florida has refused to allow three political science professors to continue to serve as expert witnesses in a case that challenges a new state law that restricts voting access. Political Science Professors Daniel Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin, in cases before the state, were told by emails earlier this month that their requests to serve as experts would now be rejected.
The professors’ dean said that the scholars’ testimony “may pose a conflict of interest to the executive branch of the state of Florida” and “create a conflict for the University of Florida.”
It’s an odd argument. It’d be one thing if a lawyer for the governor was prepared to give testimony about a law his employer/client had signed into law, but in this instance, we’re talking about university professors who operate independently from DeSantis’ office.
To see a “conflict” is to suggest the university’s professors are somehow an extension of the DeSantis administration. They are not.
[…] The New York Times added, “Leading experts on academic freedom said they knew of no similar restrictions on professors’ speech and testimony and said the action was probably unconstitutional.”
The professors are now represented by counsel, and it’s likely that we haven’t heard the end of this story. Among the questions in need of answers is how the university arrived at this decision, whether the school feared political retaliation, and whether anyone in state government leaned on university officials before the decision was made.
Update: The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this morning that the University of Florida’s accreditor plans to investigate the incident. The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent added, “The Democratic members of Congress from Florida are set to come out sharply against the decision, I’m told, and depending on how things go, this could result in congressional hearings.”
[…] records from Mark Meadows, Stephen Miller, and former White House Deputy Counsel Patrick Philbin
The White House Daily Diary, which includes the president’s movements, calls, and meetings
Phone logs, including calls between Trump and then-Vice President Mike Pence concerning Jan. 6
Proposed talking points for former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany
A handwritten note concerning Jan. 6
A draft text of Trump’s pre-riot speech
A draft proclamation honoring the Capitol Police
A memo about potential anti-election litigation
A series of emails from a state officials regarding election-related issues
Talking points on alleged election irregularities in one Michigan county
It’s worth emphasizing that at this point, Saturday morning’s court filing revealed the list of materials, but not the contents of the materials. In other words, we now know that Trump wants to hide phone logs detailing calls between Trump and Pence about the Jan. 6 attack, but it isn’t clear precisely what’s included in these call records.
The next step, of course, would be to see the calls themselves, which would presumably shed light on why the former president doesn’t want Congress to see the materials.
For what it’s worth, Trump’s litigation is not expected to succeed. As a recent NBC News report added, we may very well see “a legal showdown between the current and former president over executive privilege,” though the Republican “faces long legal odds” since the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 that the incumbent president “is in the best position to assess the present and future needs of the Executive Branch.” […]
There’s a new PRRI study looking at American identity and probably the big takeaway is how much anti-democratic beliefs and openness to political violence have taken root in the GOP. I’m going to list here some of the findings. These are ones that stand out to me. Definitely worth reviewing the whole thing.
62% of Republicans believe being born in America is something that makes you truly American. 43% for Democrats. 63% say being a Christian is something that makes you “truly American”; 35% for Democrats. […]
31% of Americans mostly or completely agree that the 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump. 68% of Republicans believe this. 82% of people who most trust Fox News believe this. 97% of people who “most trust far-right news” believe this. 26% of independents believe this.
About one in four Republicans are Qanon believers.
11% of Democrats believe that “true American patriots might have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” 30% of Republicans believe this. 39% of people who believe the election was stolen from Trump believe this. […]
COVID-19 vaccination for children aged five to 11 is expected within days, following the FDA’s emergency use authorization on Friday. Many parents are wildly cheering that news, counting the days until it becomes a reality. But, as with so many times during the coronavirus pandemic when the voices of people who aren’t doing the right thing for public health are elevated above those who are, the media won’t give you so many chances to hear from parents who are ready and waiting to protect their children, their families, and their communities.
[…] people are hesitating to get their kids vaccinated—just as too many adults have hesitated to get themselves vaccinated. But why not report on the people who are eager to do the right thing? Why not elevate their voices? Instead, we watch again and again as the small proportion of anti-maskers get more coverage than the majority of people who support public health measures, as the tiny percentage of people willing to leave their jobs rather than be vaccinated get widespread coverage. But parents counting the days until their kids can be vaccinated against COVID-19 just as they’ve been vaccinated against measles and chickenpox and tetanus and diphtheria and pertussis and rotavirus and polio and more? For some reason, we’re not so interesting to the media.
Jean-Pierre Jacquet is a New York educator with four children—a seven-year-old and five-year-old triplets. His wife is an OB/GYN who has had patients with COVID-19, but, he says, they were lucky—especially early on in the pandemic—that she had the personal protective equipment she needed.
Speaking about what changes his family will make once the kids are vaccinated, Jacquet said that, for instance, his sister and her children were visiting: “We spent the weekend hanging out with each other, and we did a lot outside, but we’re masked indoors. When we’re eating, we’re eating in different rooms.” With vaccination, they can relax some of those restrictions. Similarly, “We’re at the age where we’d love to put them in different activities, not because they’re going to become a premier soccer player, but just for running around outside,” but with inconsistent safety protocols across organizations, they’ve waited.
[…] One mother of two living in a Georgia county where less than 40% of residents have had one dose of COVID-19 vaccine said she waited until school started to vaccinate her 12-year-old. But now, her 11-year-old “is ASKING why she can’t get it. She wants it. As soon as it’s available for her, I will get it. If she feels informed enough at 11 to ask for it, there’s no way I will deny her when the rest of us in the house are vaccinated.” Her daughter doesn’t want to be quarantined and miss school—“Being at school is very important to her”—and they will be more able to be more comfortable visiting with elderly and at-risk family members once she’s vaccinated.
Highlighting the importance of advice from trusted figures, the mother added: “My pediatrician has also vaccinated her own children, and I have confidence in her as a mother.” […]
[…] Together, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Brazil — all upper-middle- or high-income countries — account for one-eighth of the world’s population but nearly half of all reported deaths. The U.S. alone has recorded over 740,000 lives lost, more than any other nation. […]
For 187 harrowing minutes, the president watched his supporters attack the Capitol — and resisted pleas to stop them.
Trump had just returned to the White House from his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6 when he retired to his private dining room just off the Oval Office, flipped on the massive flat-screen television and took in the show. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, thousands of his supporters were wearing his red caps, waving his blue flags and chanting his name.
Live television news coverage showed the horror accelerating minute by minute after 1:10 p.m., when Trump had called on his followers to march on the U.S. Capitol. The pro-Trump rioters toppled security barricades. They bludgeoned police. They scaled granite walls. And then they smashed windows and doors to breach the hallowed building that has stood for more than two centuries as the seat of American democracy.
The Capitol was under siege — and the president, glued to the television, did nothing. For 187 minutes, Trump resisted entreaties to intervene from advisers, allies and his elder daughter, as well as lawmakers under attack. Even as the violence at the Capitol intensified, even after Vice President Mike Pence, his family and hundreds of Congress members and their staffers hid to protect themselves, even after the first two people died and scores of others were assaulted, Trump declined for more than three hours to tell the renegades rioting in his name to stand down and go home.
During the 187 minutes that Trump stood by, harrowing scenes of violence played out in and around the Capitol. Twenty-five minutes into Trump’s silence, a news photographer was dragged down a flight of stairs and thrown over a wall. Fifty-two minutes in, a police officer was kicked in the chest and surrounded by a mob. Within the first hour, two rioters died as a result of cardiac events. Sixty-four minutes in, a rioter paraded a Confederate battle flag through the Capitol. Seventy-three minutes in, another police officer was sprayed in the face with chemicals. Seventy-eight minutes in, yet another police officer was assaulted with a flagpole. Eighty-three minutes in, rioters broke into and began looting the House speaker’s office. Ninety-three minutes in, another news photographer was surrounded, pushed down and robbed of a camera. Ninety-four minutes in, a rioter was shot and killed. One hundred two minutes in, rioters stormed the Senate chamber, stealing papers and posing for photographs around the dais. One hundred sixteen minutes in, a fourth police officer was crushed in a doorway and beaten with his own baton.
[…] The Post’s investigation also found that signs of escalating danger were in full view hours before the Capitol attack, including clashes that morning among hundreds of pro-Trump demonstrators and police at the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial. The mounting red flags did not trigger stepped-up security responses that morning, underscoring how unprepared law enforcement authorities were for the violence that transpired. Yet some officials knew what to expect; Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) had hired a personal security detail out of fear for her own safety. […]
Senator Joe Manchin screws the whole country … again.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) reminded everyone that his vote remains crucial for passing the reconciliation bill at a hastily arranged Monday press conference at the Capitol.
Manchin called the presser after stating that he wanted to “clear up a lot of things” related to his position on the infrastructure bill. The White House has pushed for votes on both the reconciliation package and the bipartisan infrastructure bill this week. […]
But Manchin declined to offer any clarification of his position
Well, that’s totally par for the course. He’s still delaying and obstructing. He’s still looking for a way to may sure that the reconciliation bill fails in the senate. He sounds like a 74-year-old Republican.
“I’m open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward,” Manchin said. “But I’m equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country.” [Oh, FFS. Could you be more vague?]
Manchin took no questions, adding only at the end that he would not “negotiate in public” and intended to continue negotiating in “good faith.” [“Good faith,” my ass.]
“We must allow time for analysis and complete transparency,” Manchin said of the reconciliation package, which currently stands at $1.75 trillion in new spending over the next 10 years.
See comment 193 for a realistic view of the cost.
Manchin all but stated that he is not yet ready to vote on the White House’s reconciliation framework, released last week by the House Rules Committee.
But he did direct most of his remarks towards House progressives, who he criticized for refusing to vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week. Many members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus said they would not vote for the bipartisan bill until Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) made their support for the reconciliation package clear.
“Holding this bill hostage is not going to work in getting my support for the reconciliation bill,” Manchin said, referring to the bipartisan package.
Those same House members had signaled that they were ready to vote in favor of the reconciliation package this week, so long as Manchin and Sinema signaled their support to President Biden.
At another point, Manchin demanded that the reconciliation package’s real cost be stated before he votes. The Congressional Budget Office has yet to score the bill; the deficit hawk-leaning Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget issued a statement hours before Manchin’s press conference demanding that the bill be scored before Congress holds a vote. [Right. Manchin is echoing Republican talking points.]
Manchin echoed that line, accusing the White House of releasing a framework full of “shell games” and “budget gimmicks that make the real cost of the so-called $1.75 trillion bill estimated to be almost twice that amount” were the programs to be extended permanently.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI) pointed out minutes after Manchin concluded his remarks that the bill needs a score from the CBO anyway in order for the Senate parliamentarian could consider the bill.
“None of what was said was exactly new,” he tweeted. “The tone alarmed people, but substantively nothing has changed.”
You holding the other bill hostage won’t get you what you want on this one, but me holding this bill hostage should get me what I want on that one. Oh, fuck youuuuuu
Passing both bills in tandem was always the Biden plan. Manchin is not only delaying and obstructing, he is also trying to rewrite history.
Marco Rubio intends to champion the interests of working people by steering business leaders away from “woke” corporate values. That won’t work.
Sen. Marco Rubio is well aware of the close ties between his party and corporate America, and the Floridian has spent years trying to position himself as a different kind of Republican. During his ill-fated presidential campaign, for example, the senator said he intended to make the GOP “the party of the bartenders and the maids, of the people that clean our rooms and fix our cars.”
[…] In March, the senator wrote an op-ed for USA Today in which he condemned Amazon, not over wages and working conditions, but because he perceives the online behemoth as being “allies of the left in the culture war.” The piece repeatedly used the word “woke” derisively. [Oh, FFS.]
[…] [Snipped description of op-ed for The New York Post.] This week, the Floridian is at it again. Rubio’s newest op-ed, published by The American Conservative, is the latest installment in the series. The Associated Press reported:
In an op-ed published Monday, the Republican from Florida called corporate America “the instrument of anti-American ideologies.” Rubio bemoaned what he described as corporate America’s “wokeness” — a catch-all phrase for being sensitive to social problems such as racism and inequality but which is also derided by critics as virtue-signaling or adopting neo-Marxist world views. He proposed holding corporate leaders legally liable “when they abuse their corporate privilege by pushing wasteful, anti-American nonsense.”
[…] Of course it sounds nice to think a leading GOP senator would prioritize the interests of bartenders, maids, and mechanics over the demands of Wall Street, but there’s a substantive breakdown. Does Rubio support a higher minimum wage? No. Does he support social-insurance programs such as the Affordable Care Act to ensure bartenders, maids, mechanics, and their families have health security? No.
Has the senator championed paid-leave legislation? No. Is he prepared to back stronger labor union protections? No. Did Rubio oppose his party’s massive tax breaks to corporations already enjoying record profits? No.
Instead, the Floridian intends to champion the interests of working people by steering business leaders away from “woke” corporate values. It’s about conservative ideological and cultural goals, not practical and material goals. […]
Pennsylvania’s Sean Parnell, a Republican Senate candidate, is facing dramatic domestic violence allegations from his estranged wife.
[…] When Parnell launched a U.S. Senate campaign earlier this year, many GOP officials in Pennsylvania were delighted. When Donald Trump announced his support for Parnell, the former president assumed he was backing a likely winner.
But just below the surface, there are several areas of concern. In fact, CNN reported last week that a growing number of Republican officials are concerned that Parnell’s “messy personal life” may undermine his chances.
Reading this Philadelphia Inquirer report published yesterday, “messy” isn’t an adjective that captures the seriousness of the allegations.
The estranged wife of Republican Senate candidate Sean Parnell testified under oath Monday that he choked her until she bit him to escape, that he hit their young children, and that he lashed out at her with obscenities and insults. In tearful testimony, Laurie Snell told a family court judge that her husband once called her a “whore” and a “piece of s—” while pinning her down. On another occasion, she said, Parnell slapped one child hard enough to leave fingerprint-shaped welts through the back of the child’s T-shirt. And she said he once got so angry he punched a closet door with such force it swung into a child’s face and left a bruise. She said Parnell told his child: “That was your fault.”
In the same sworn testimony, as part of child custody proceedings, Snell claimed that in 2008, after a Thanksgiving trip, Parnell briefly forced her out of their vehicle and told her to “go get an abortion.” […]
People’s personal lives are messy, but even taking that into account the number of Republican men who abuse women is disturbing.
Republicans keep complaining about the Biden administration stopping illegal fentanyl shipments at the border. It’s getting a little weird.
In July, Republican Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona published an odd complaint. “Under Joe Biden,” the Arizonan wrote via Twitter, “enough fentanyl to kill 238 million Americans was seized at the southern border last month. Where’s the outrage in the media?”
It was hard not to wonder whether the congressman — the chair of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus — had thought this through. Why would anyone in the United States, other than drug dealers, complain about officials seizing fentanyl at the border? […] why anyone would be outraged that U.S. officials had successfully done their jobs.
And yet, that didn’t stop the Republican National Committee from making the same complaint several days later, as if the seizure of fentanyl shipments was necessarily evidence of failure, rather than the opposite.
In fact, in recent months, a variety of other congressional Republicans — South Carolina’s Ralph Norman, Texas’ Brian Babin, Texas’ Beth Van Duyne, Texas’ August Pfluger — have all criticized the Biden administration over fentanyl shipments seized at the border.
Yesterday, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa published this tweet, pushing the same line. (I’ve edited the text slightly, converting abbreviations to actual words.)
“Welcome to President Biden’s America, where 10,000 pounds of fentanyl have been seized by Customs and Border Patrol so far this fiscal year, which is enough to kill over 2 billion people or more than one-fourth of the world’s population.”
Let’s briefly review some basic details.
Criminals have tried to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States for many years. It’s happened during Republican administrations; it’s happened during Democratic administrations. Criminals have focused their efforts on the southern border, the northern border, ports, and even airports. The United States’ system of defense is far from perfect, but a dedicated group of professionals do their best to stop the shipments before they reach American streets.
That is, of course, what we want them to do. If officials have seized 10,000 pounds of fentanyl so far this fiscal year, that’s evidence of the system working as intended.
[…] If the president had implemented an “open-border” policy, as the right routinely claims, U.S. Customs and Border Protection wouldn’t have stopped these shipments before they entered the country.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates asked via Twitter yesterday, “Wait, Republicans are now attacking us for stopping fentanyl trafficking?” […]
Formerly convicted Trump associate Roger Stone is demanding that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) launch an “audit” of the state’s 2020 elections. Or Else.
Stone threatened via Telegram on Sunday to tank DeSantis’ reelection bid with a third party gubernatorial campaign if there isn’t an audit of Florida’s election results on the basis of ex-President Donald Trump’s election fraud myth.
“If Gov. Ron DeSantis does not order a full audit of the Florida 2020 vote I may be forced to seek the Libertarian party nomination for governor in 2022,” Stone wrote. […]
Posted by readers of the article:
Roger can’t stand the fact that the entire GQP has pretty much adopted his “ratfuck the system” schtick, and now he’s just a bitter and increasingly out of touch old man who doesn’t get any credit for it.
Wonkette: “Lord God Joe Manchin Demands More Temples In His Honor Before Supporting Reconciliation Bill”
Senator Joe Manchin, the man who assumes he’s president, seemed to put the kibosh Monday on actual President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda. While Biden was out of the country on a diplomatic trip, Manchin harshly criticized the Democrats’ reconciliation bill with a children’s treasury of rightwing talking points about the deficit and spending.
The Washington Post reports:
“I will not support a bill that is this consequential without thoroughly understanding the impact it will have on our national debt, our economy and the American people,” Manchin said. “Every elected representative needs to know what they are voting for and the impact it has, not only on their constituents, but the entire country.”
“I’m open to supporting a final bill that helps move our country forward,” the senator added. “But I’m equally open to voting against a bill that hurts our country.”
Fortunately, the final reconciliation bill is titled Move Our Country Forward and not Bill That Hurts Our Country. […]
Manchin is so goddamn annoying. He’s the cranky old dad who grudgingly agrees to dinner out at a nice restaurant and then complains about the prices once there […]
The White House and congressional Democrats have spent months now negotiating — or more accurately, appeasing Manchin. Yes, he’s the vital 50th vote in the Senate, but 81 million of us across the nation voted to elect Joe Biden and his campaign platform. Just 290,510 West Virginians re-elected Manchin in 2018, so based on how math and democracy works, Manchin should defer slightly to the people’s agenda. […]
Manchin isn’t uniquely powerful. Kirsten Gillibrand or Elizabeth Warren could also refuse to support reconciliation unless the bill met their specific preferences. Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have leverage primarily because they’ve made it clear they’re willing to walk away from reconciliation, tanking Biden’s ambitious agenda and dooming their Democratic colleagues up for re-election next year. That’s how self-centered centrists roll and we must accept it. However, it pisses them off whenever other Democrats, especially progressives, exert the same leverage over their bipartisan “OK, fine, we’ll repave some fucking roads” infrastructure bill. They don’t have enough Republican votes to pass the BIF without progressive caucus support, and that offends Manchin, who believes he’s entitled to votes from people he regards with nothing but contempt. […]
Emperor Manchin demanded an immediate vote on the the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan, which experts suggest has shakier financing than the reconciliation bill. He insisted that “the political games have to stop.” OK, Yahtzee is a game. Putting an offer on a house that’s contingent on inspection is not a game but a straightforward professional agreement. Progressives provided their votes for BIF contingent on Manchin and Sinema’s support for reconciliation. […] No matter how much bath water is removed from the final reconciliation bill, Manchin and Sinema seem determined to kill Biden’s baby.
Manchin claimed this is “not how the United States Congress should operate or in my view has operated in the past.” That’s just bullshit. He hasn’t condemned his Republican buddies for repeatedly blocking voting rights legislation and almost filibustering the nation into default. However, good old-fashioned legislative horse-trading was a cornerstone of an era when Congress supposedly operated effectively.
[…] The White House remained optimistic that Manchin will come around like he always does. Once his belly’s full with a few pounds of progressive flesh, the old tiger will support the president’s bill. […]
Senator Manchin says he is prepared to support a Build Back Better plan that combats inflation, is fiscally responsible, and will create jobs. The plan the House is finalizing meets those tests — it is fully paid for, will reduce the deficit, and brings down costs for health care, child care, elder care, and housing. Experts agree: Seventeen Nobel Prize-winning economists have said it will reduce inflation. We remain confident that the plan will gain Senator Manchin’s support.
Manchin obviously wants progressives to take the blame if either or both bills fail, but leading House progressive Rep. Ro Khanna wouldn’t take the bait. Khanna told CNN that progressives are still prepared to vote for both bills this week. […]
Wonkette: “North Idaho Has A New Wingnut News Source, And It’s A Doozy”
Residents around northern Idaho last week found their mailboxes packed with the expected flyers for candidates in the area’s city council, school board, and mayoral elections being held today, as well a another very special publication: a 16-page tabloid called The People’s Pen, a rag whose bare-bones website describes it as “a printed publication empowering patriots.” The cover illustration, by local arteest and sometimes political cartoonist Daniel Brannan, depicts a super-muscly patriot guy in camo body armor, carrying an AR-15 and a holstered handgun, as other patriots “cowboy-looking dude” and “lady with elaborate blond braids” also stand armed and ready, as a really buff German shepherd sits alertly, too. Also, for some reason, the painting features lens flares.
Civil War Or At Least Rezoning
The grouping is labeled “The Battle for Coeur D’Alene 2030 AD,” and it’s not entirely clear until you read the tabloid why that’s the apparent date of the coming civil war, or at least a squirmish in it. Turns out there’s a wingnut running for CDA City Council, Roger Garlock, who explains in an interview that he wants to put a stop to the nefarious actions of a group of city planning commissions, one of which is named “CDA 2030.” Garland says CDA 2030 will implement the UN’s Agenda 21 plan and force all the people of north Idaho to live under tyranny and stuff, by forcing changes to zoning laws and destroying all the city’s single-family zoned neighborhoods via “infill zoning, high density zoning, and mixed use zoning.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s pretty much what Donald Trump tried to scare suburban white ladies about, […] kill those who would undo the zoning laws that Make America Great.
Agenda 21 Coming To Make You Ride Bikes
Also, just in case anyone had forgotten what Agenda 21 is, there’s a lengthy discussion of how it’s all a fiendish plan to do away with individual freedom and to make all levels of government yield to the tyrannical dictates of the United Nations and force you to ride bicycles. It’s among the most enduring conspiracy theories on the far Right, even though we’re well into the 21st century and no blue-helmeted stormtroopers have shown up to crush liberty under their jackboots. In mere reality, Agenda 21 and a follow-up UN document, Agenda 2030, are simply a set of recommendations or aspirations aimed at promoting sustainable development, not a blueprint for the New World Order. […] It’s kind of difficult to steal America’s sovereignty and impose one-world socialism when the UN has no actual power to do so.
Not that wingnuts like the good folks at People’s Pen don’t try to say it’s on the way any day now. […] the schools are full of communists pushing “equity” on our children […]
People’s Pen [complains] that the media is required to promote “sustainability, gender equality, diversity, social justice, collectivism, multiculturalism, and promoting government authority.” […]
Critical Race Theory Gonna Give Black Kids All The Good Stuff
The current issue also includes a nice dose of moral panic over the supposed scourge of “critical race theory” in local schools, and explains how the average school day works in the fallen American Schools of Today’s America:
It’s Monday morning; a child sits down at his classroom desk, six feet apart from his classmates who, like him, are all wearing masks. His teacher begins the day by going over the weekend news segments currently dominating the headlines, where she claims, as she always does, that “former president Donald J. Trump attempted to destroy our Democracy,” and that his supporters, who are all “white supremacists,” failed in their attempted coup at the United States capitol. This recap of the news is then followed by the daily discussion on race, sexuality, gender and “social equity.” The bell rings and the students quietly shuffle on to their ‘next class.
This is a brief glimpse into our children’s classrooms. This dystopian description of the average child’s day at school may sound like hyperbole, but it is in fact a reality for millions of children all across this nation.
[…] We’re told that CRT is nothing less than a “malicious attempt to re-write history, and often times completely fabricate current events in a way that inspires mistrust, confusion and contempt for groups and individuals based on their race.” (This definitely means white people, especially conservatives, who are the greatest victims of everything.) […]
There’s a lot more griping about all the socialist indoctrination, plus a brief rant about allegedly “pornographic” books in school libraries, plus the mandatory fearmongering that your children are learning that there are “between 25 and 73” different genders, so please vote for all the school board members backed by the Kootenai County Republicans, including the sweaty anti-Semitic guy too.
Be Like Us, Think For Yourself
There’s also an editorial encouraging patriots to move beyond simply reacting to the evil plans of “the Adversary” [hmmm, that’s Mormon jargon] to take away all our freedom, and to start planning the kind of America that patriots will build once The Adversary is finally defeated. Who exactly the Adversary is goes unnamed. […]
Art Criticism For Wingnuts
The current edition closes with a screed by house arteest Daniel Brannan complaining that a new statue scheduled to go up in CDA looks exactly like the Biblical Tower of Babel. The statue, a “Monument of Peace and Unity,” is a horrible thing because the artist isn’t from Idaho […]
Are you terrified yet? Ready to take up arms to fight the socialist overlords of Kootenai County? […]
The high-stakes U.N. global climate summit started its second day in Glasgow on Tuesday with pledges by the United States to curb the emissions of methane and new efforts expected by the nations to address deforestation. World leaders have made significant pledges to slow climate change so far at COP26 — but not enough to stave off a catastrophic rise in global temperatures. After leaders depart Tuesday, negotiators will keep working over the next two weeks, but chances of a breakthrough by the talks’ conclusion remain uncertain.
[…] The Biden administration unveiled a sweeping set of policies to cut the emissions of methane — a key greenhouse gas — in the nation’s oil and gas operations, in what is likely the president’s most consequential effort to fight climate change to date.
More than 100 world leaders representing over 85 percent of the world’s forests pledged to halt deforestation over the next decade.
[…] Many young activists attending the summit have expressed frustration with the long-term targets presented by government officials. To them, pledges to reaching net-zero by 2050, 2060 or 2070 just looks like kicking the can further down the road.
In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, which is today, Trump held a tele-rally last night in support of Glenn Youngkin and the GOP ticket. “I’ve gotten to know him so well and our relationship is great,” the former president said of the Republican nominee, who chose not to participate in the virtual event.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement yesterday that “there is no specific, credible threat to election infrastructure” this year.
The Supreme Court will soon decide whether Americans have a constitutional right to carry loaded concealed weapons in public and in public places, wherever and whenever they believe they might need their guns for self-defense. Practically, that could mean everywhere and at all times.
The announcement of such an absolute and unfettered right would be shocking and disquieting to most Americans, not just to Americans in the many states where the people, through their elected legislatures, have for centuries restricted the carrying of handguns in public. It would also be concerning to many Americans who support gun rights. They, too, would understandably be unsettled and frightened by the idea that everywhere they went, their fellow citizens might be carrying loaded guns.
At stake in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen is whether the Supreme Court will claim for itself the power to decide where and when Americans can carry loaded handguns in public — a power that the Constitution reserves for the people and their elected representatives.
…..The court has a newly reconstituted conservative majority who may want to expand Second Amendment rights and protections. But that would be a mistake in this case because the framers of our Constitution intended the people and their democratically elected legislatures to decide where and when to permit the carry of firearms in public, as they have done for centuries.
The Supreme Court is not constitutionally empowered to make these decisions, and it is ill suited to make them. For the justices to begin deciding for the people exactly where and when a person has a right to carry a handgun in public would be to establish the court as essentially a National Review Board for Public-Carry Regulations, precisely the kind of constitutional commandeering of the democratic process that conservatives and conservative jurists have long lamented in other areas of the law, such as abortion. It would be hypocritical for this conservative court to assume what essentially would be a legislative oversight role over public-carry rights, when conservatives on and off the court have for almost 50 years roundly criticized the court for assuming that same role over abortion rights.
New York isn’t the only state that authorizes local officials to issue residents unrestricted licenses to carry a loaded handgun in public if they show a particular need. (In 2018 and 2019, at least 65 percent of New Yorkers who applied for such an unrestricted license were granted one.) Seven other states have similar statutes…..Most other jurisdictions restrict the carrying of handguns in myriad public places, including schools, courthouses, parks, public transit, restaurants and bars, malls, businesses and houses of worship. These laws restricting public carry would fall, too, were the gun advocates to prevail, as would the District of Columbia’s.
[…]
Striking down all of these laws would upend the entire country’s regulatory scheme for the public carry of guns that has been meticulously designed over the course of the past two centuries, laying waste to legislative efforts to curb gun violence in America.
…..What is more, centuries of unbroken history and tradition show that there has never been such an unrestricted constitutional right to bear arms outside the home.
Historically and traditionally, legislatures have restricted the public carry of guns, from medieval England to colonial times, through the founding and to the present day. In fact, many of those early laws were more draconian than our own, banning the carry of guns in public places generally, without offering any exceptions like those New York provides for people who can demonstrate an actual need to defend themselves.
[…..]
The people and their representatives have responsibly made the decisions where and when to allow the carry of handguns in public since long before our country’s founding. As contemplated by our federalism, the various colonies, states and jurisdictions have regulated and restricted public carry differently, each in response to the different needs of public safety and self-defense in their particular public spaces and locations. Whatever its policy misgivings and temptation, this conservative Supreme Court would be wise, not to mention true to its conservative principles, to leave these decisions for the people and their elected representatives to make — as the framers of our Constitution intended.
Luttig and Bernstein, along with others, have filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in support of the State of New York in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that Democrats had reached an agreement on lowering prescription drug pricing, one of the party’s key disputes in the $1.75 trillion safety net bill…. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., a key holdout, endorsed the agreement.
The heads of the five major unions representing members of the New York City Police Department warned that 10,000 unvaccinated police officers were ‘set to be pulled from [the] streets’ as a Nov. 1 vaccine mandate deadline for New York City employees passed. So far, the number is 34.
The Biden administration announced on Saturday that it had reached a deal to roll back tariffs on European steel and aluminum, an agreement that officials said would lower costs on goods like cars and washing machines, reduce carbon emissions, and help get supply chains moving again.
[…] On Tuesday, Senate Democrats announced that they’d arrived at a deal.
“By empowering Medicare to directly negotiate prices in Part B and Part C, this deal will directly reduce out of pocket drug spending for millions of patients every time they visit the pharmacy or doctor,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday afternoon. “It will cap out of pocket spending at $2,000 per year — ending the days when a life-changing diagnosis could mean thousands upon thousands of dollars in new expenses. And it will reform the entire industry to end price gouging.”
While Schumer didn’t release all the details, the provision will certainly be less ambitious than what many Democrats initially wanted to do. It lets negotiations begin in 2023 on certain drugs, but includes patent exclusivity for most drugs for nine years before negotiations can start and exclusivity for 12 years on more advanced drugs, according to the New York Times.
“It’s not everything we all want,” Schumer said. “Many of us would have wanted to go much further, but it’s a big step in helping the American people deal with the price of drugs.”
[…] the pharmaceutical industry has incredibly deep pockets and has been spending heavily against any provision like this. […]
After the proposal was chopped from the White House’s reconciliation framework late last week, lawmakers rallied.
[…] Those deliberations continued into the weekend, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told reporters today.
Sinema put out a statement during Schumer’s remarks saying she “welcomed the new agreement.”
Klobuchar added that now the focus is on having an “enforcement mechanism” for the provision, which is still being written.
Fighting for the survival of this provision was one of the last loose ends remaining as Democrats look to wrap up the reconciliation package. […]
Wonkette: “Stupid Arizona QAnon Idiot Has Racist Thing To Say About Virginia Elections”
Wendy Rogers is the QAnon-loving GOP state senator from Arizona who really got excited when she heard about the Arizona frauditors scanning the ballots for secret bamboo, because that’s how stupid she is. She wasn’t even trolling. She thought it was so cool that the frauditors were examining ballots like that, to find out if China had secretly sent a bunch of ’em to Arizona on Joe Biden’s behalf.
Anyway, she’s also a vile racist, if this tweet she sent about Virginia’s elections today is a reliable barometer for such things, and if the bamboo thing didn’t spoil that surprise for you.
Good morning. Today is election day in Virginia. Check in if you already voted Republican. Also, if you have family and friends who haven’t voted, please send them a reminder via text or call. Let’s go Old Virginia! Make General Lee proud.
[…] Goddammit, you can’t even parody these people.
Whatever happens today, it is *insane* that the dominant topic of the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election is how the Republican candidate would “solve” a completely fictitious problem.
—GOP are very strong in Virginia
—Dems on path in NJ but still very early
—Progressives way ahead in Boston, Cleveland
—Dems keep Manchester [NH], St Petersburg [FL]
—Police-boosting side down in Austin, Cleveland
—Large expected leads for Gainey, Krasner
It’s still too early to know what’s going on in PA’s big Supreme Court race, and we wait for polls to close in New York, Minnesota, and Washington (site of huge battles).
Terry McAuliffe received 1.6 million votes, which is easily the most ever for a Democratic gubernatorial nominee in the commonwealth. He lost anyway thanks to enormous Republican turnout.
Other campaign news: Voters in Boston yesterday chose Democrat Michelle Wu as the city’s new mayor, becoming the first woman ever elected to the office.
And: Voters in Pittsburgh yesterday chose Ed Gainey as their new mayor, easily defeating retired police officer Tony Moreno. The Democratic state representative will be the city’s first elected Black mayor.
Akira @315, the GOP didn’t even need voter suppression laws to win in Virginia. Democrats have done all kinds of good things in Virginia and now we’ll probably get to watch as the new Republican governor rolls all that progress back.
A slightly more hopeful analysis of yesterday’s election results:
To study election results in the United States is to realize that gubernatorial races often produce counterintuitive results. For example, Vermont, Maryland, and Massachusetts are three of the nation’s bluest blue states — but they’re each led by Republican governors.
On the other hand, Kentucky, Kansas, and Louisiana are reliable red states, each of which Donald Trump carried by double digits. They’re also led by Democratic governors.
I mention this because the conventional wisdom this morning suggests that Republicans will look at yesterday’s results in Virginia and New Jersey, and use them as templates in the 2022 midterm election cycle.
There’s reason for some skepticism. Pointing to Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin’s success in Virginia, a Roll Call analysis explained:
Youngkin blazed a legitimate path to victory in territory that had previously rejected Trump by keeping some distance from the former president. While Trump will claim credit for Youngkin’s win, his absence from Virginia and not requiring Youngkin to kiss the ring allowed the GOP nominee to appeal to the independent voters he needed to win. That won’t be as easy in 2022 for Republican candidates who have to navigate competitive primaries, and profess loyalty to Trump, before moving on to the general election.
All of this applies equally well to New Jersey, where Republicans nominated Jack Ciattarelli, who had no qualms about denouncing Donald Trump and who didn’t want the former president to be involved in his candidacy at all. For congressional GOP candidates, this won’t be as easy. A Washington Post analysis added:
What also matters is whether Republicans can actually put forward candidates like Youngkin and perhaps Ciattarelli who can effectively craft their own brand. That’s especially true given how much some top GOP Senate candidates have tied themselves to Trump in the service of winning primaries — and how much Republicans might nominate candidates more extreme and with more baggage than Youngkin because they have Trump’s backing.
The Associated Press added, “Whether Republicans can maintain this week’s success in the 2022 midterms — where the most competitive races will be in traditional swing states and moderate districts — may depend on whether Trump is content to remain an afterthought in national politics, even as he moves toward a 2024 presidential run. That’s not likely.”
No matter what, there are still too many voters living in the sludge of disinformation and voting for doofuses like Youngkin. I think Youngkin will show his true trumpian colors now that he has been elected.
Mitch McConnell’s case against the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is so awful that it’s insulting to Americans’ intelligence.
The U.S. Senate is moving forward with plans to consider the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell isn’t happy about it. Here’s the message the Kentucky Republican delivered to reporters yesterday afternoon:
“Clearly, [Democrats] want to change the subject … to a non-existent problem with this marching out of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. Again, I repeat, the Supreme Court did not strike down the Voting Rights Act. It’s still on the books. There’s no evidence right now anywhere in the country that states are engaged in suppressing the vote based upon race.”
[head/desk]
So, a few things.
First, the idea that Democrats are only pretending to be interested in voting rights, as part of a ruse to distract the public, is plainly silly. This has been a priority for the party for quite a while — they first took up the For the People Act last year — and Democratic leaders would be pushing the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act regardless of the larger political circumstances.
Second, McConnell’s insistence that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is “still on the books” is disingenuous nonsense — and he knows it. In their Shelby County v. Holder decision, Republican-appointed justices gutted the landmark civil rights legislation, making the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act necessary. For the Kentucky senator to pretend the Voting Rights Act is fine is insulting to Americans’ intelligence.
Finally, I was struck by McConnell’s latest pitch about his party’s anti-voting efforts: “There’s no evidence right now anywhere in the country that states are engaged in suppressing the vote based upon race.” This is, oddly enough, a slight departure from his usual rhetoric on the subject.
In March, for example, the Senate minority leader told reporters, “States are not engaging in trying to suppress voters whatsoever.” In June, McConnell pushed a similar line: “The biggest lie being told in American politics in recent weeks has been that the states are involved in a systematic effort to suppress the vote.”
That rhetoric was demonstrably ridiculous, though I’m fascinated by the tweak: McConnell’s new line is that there’s no voter suppression based upon race.
In other words, there may be all kinds of voter-suppression measures becoming law in red states across the country — but don’t worry, they’re not racially discriminatory.
But that’s wrong, too. The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law published a report last month that made it painfully clear that too many state legislatures “have proposed and enacted legislation to make it harder for Americans to vote, justifying these measures with falsehoods steeped in racism about election irregularities and breaches of election security.”
Not surprisingly, it’s communities of color that are adversely affected most. Someone should probably let McConnell know.
Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked an attempt to move forward with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Like other attempts to pass voting rights legislation this year, even a formal debate on the bill could not pass Republicans’ use of the filibuster.
A majority of the Senate supported moving forward with bill, which would reconstruct some of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) “preclearance” provisions that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013, as well as other parts of the 1965 law that were weakened by another Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the lone Democratic hold out on the legislation over the summer, announced his support for a slightly-amended version of the bill on Tuesday. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also supports that legislation as well; for months, she’s been the only Republican signed onto the effort.
The cloture vote to move forward with debate on the bill failed to surpass the 60-vote bar necessary to overcome a filibuster.
The vote was 50-49, with Murkowski the lone Republican in support. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) switched his vote, a procedural maneuver so that the Senate could take up the measure at a later date.
[…] So the focus, again, is on the filibuster. Just like the Freedom To Vote Act, which Republicans blocked from receiving a debate two weeks ago, the failure of the motion to begin debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is just the latest episode to demonstrate how the arcane Senate rules have stopped progress on Democrats’ priorities.
“If they’re not going to do this, then we have to look at what’s next, and I believe that is restoring the Senate,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told reporters Tuesday, referring to Republicans’ intransigence. “We can’t deny debate.”
“They are literally stopping us from debating something,” she said, […]
Sens. Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) are alone among Democrats for their opposition to changing the filibuster rules, at least publicly.
[…] The House passed an earlier version of the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act along party lines in August.
[…] Democrats’ (and in this case, Murkowski’s) push to protect voting rights came as Republican legislatures around the country pass bills to restrict those rights, fueled in part by Donald Trump’s lies about widespread voter fraud in the last election and a series of Supreme Court decisions, most notably 2013’s Shelby County v. Holder, that have weakened voter protections.
[…] “As anyone who has been here for more than a few years knows, the gears of the Senate have ossified over the years,” Schumer said in a floor speech following the vote, noting the spike in filibuster use in recent years. He called on the colleagues to “explore whatever path we have to restore the Senate, so it does what it framers intended: Debate, deliberate, compromise and vote.”
“We can’t be satisfied in this chamber with thinking that democracy will always win out in the end if we aren’t willing to put in the work to defend it,” the majority leader said.
[…] The Washington Post has a new piece targeting that point, noting that Giuliani and Kerik’s attempts to dodge House demands for information on the [insurrection/coup] plot suffer from a rather glaring weak point: It was the Donald Trump campaign that footed the bill for the team’s posh Washington hotel “command center” and other expenses.
The attempt to nullify a U.S. election was being paid for by Trump’s campaign, not by Trump’s administration. Giuliani and the others involved can pound sand on any thought of invoking an “executive” defense for Team Sedition.
The details laid out in the Post are gorier, of course, with the team racking up huge bills while Trump threatened to stiff them (as usual), Fox News shouting-head Jeanine Pirro personally intervening with Trump and team to convince them to reimburse Giuliani and Kerik (did you remember that Pirro’s husband is another cog in the Republican crime machine, one who would get a last-day Trump pardon for felony tax evasion?), and the Trump campaign eventually paying out “more than $225,000” for steep hotel bills and travel expenses.
Everyone involved is an absolutely terrible person, either a felon or within hand-shaking distance of felonies, and it was all the sort of incompetent mess that Trump’s bottom-feeders specialized in. […] there is no “executive” to invoke for an executive privilege claim. Team Sedition was acting on behalf of Trump’s political campaign, not his administration.
[…] Trump’s executive privilege claims were nonsensical from the start; the only real test is whether the team’s absolute contempt for U.S. laws and the investigative powers of Congress will result in consequences. The new rule of Republicanism is that legality or illegality doesn’t matter, because even international extortion or assembling a violent mob are allowed so long as you have sufficient allies in government to ensure no investigation takes place.
If Congress wants to get to the bottom of just how the violent mob that Trump’s team assembled on January 6 intersected with the rest of the Trump White House and campaign’s efforts to intimidate Mike Pence and Congress into nullifying the presidential election’s results, it’s going to have to start throwing people in jail—and soon. Come next November, there’s a very good chance enough pro-sedition Republicans will be elected to Congress to shut down the investigation and bar even the Justice Department from probing the day’s events further.
[…] Long story short, the foot-dragging by the Biden Justice Department and by the House itself is getting more dangerous by the day. There is yet no serious belief among the insurrection’s orchestrators that Congress will pursue them if they simply refuse to testify, and—still—there are zero plausible claims that any of Trump’s pro-nullification plotters have protection against congressional demands. Dust off the powers of inherent contempt and send the Sergeant-at-Arms off with enough pairs of handcuffs to do the job. The nation can’t claim to have laws if the nation’s elites never find the stomach to enforce them.
Private prison profiteer GEO Group has had yet another bad day in court. U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan ruled it must pay the state of Washington nearly $6 million “in unjust enrichment gained” through the company’s use of forced immigrant labor, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s office announced on Tuesday.
A federal jury had already said the private prison profiteer owed more than $17 million to detained immigrants forced to work at the Northwest ICE Processing Center (NWIPIC) for just $1 a day. Following the judge’s decision, the total amount that GEO Group must pay over its abuses now totals $23.2 million. “This is a landmark victory for workers’ rights and basic human dignity,” Ferguson said.
The jury determined last week that GEO Group violated the state’s minimum wage laws in paying immigrants detained at NWIPC $1 a day for their forced labor. Just $1 a day when GEO Group reported revenues of nearly $2.5 billion in 2019 alone […]
Thousands of detained immigrants have borne the brunt of GEO Group’s greed, including being forced to clean in the middle of the night. “While officials portray the labor program as ‘voluntary’ in light of the 13th amendment of the US constitution, detained immigrants are often penalized for refusing to work,” Project South legal and advocacy director Azadeh Shahshahani wrote in The Guardian back in 2018. Some immigrants have been punished with solitary confinement, which is torture, for trying to refuse to work.
[…] among those forced to work at NWIPC was Nigerian asylum-seeker Goodluck Nwauzor, who has gained permanent residency since the time he was detained at the facility. During his detention, he was forced to clean a number of bathroom stalls used by dozens of men daily. “At the end of the day, I got one dollar,” he told the Post. He described officials making him and other detained alongside him feel like “animals,” the report continued.
[…] The Post reports that following the court’s decisions, attorneys are now seeking out all immigrants who are eligible for a settlement, a task that could be difficult because they estimate only about one-quarter may actually still be in the U.S. The rest have presumably been deported. “Tracking people down is going to be a challenge, and we’re going to do the best we can,” attorney Adam Berger told the Post.
Ohio Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday that calls for a total ban on abortions in the state, reaching farther than the Texas “heartbeat” law that is currently under examination by the Supreme Court.
The bill, called the 2363 Act, which the lawmakers said is the number of children lost to abortion everyday in the U.S., seeks to ban all abortions in Ohio and, like the Texas law, empower “any person” to bring civil action against an individual who performs and abortion or “knowingly engages in conduct that aids or abets the performance or inducement of an abortion.”
Individuals who filed such lawsuits will be permitted to ask for $10,000 or more, according to Cleveland.com.
Sheesh. They even have the bounty thing going on.
The legislation does not include exceptions for rape or incest, but it would shield abortion patients from being sued by individuals who may have gotten them pregnant through rape or another form of sexual violence.
The controversial Texas law bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, something that can occur as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — a point where many women will not know they are pregnant.
The U.S. Supreme Court is currently debating the Texas law, which sparked outrage nationwide when it was enacted in September.
The justices previously denied a request to block the law largely along ideological lines, but they are now giving the text another look.
The Ohio bill, if passed and signed into law, would ban defendants in civil suits from claiming ignorance or mistake of law as a defense, in addition to any personal belief that the legislation is unconstitutional.
Additionally, the text says that defendants cannot point to a court decision’s ruling as a defense if it is later overruled — even if it remained intact at the time of the abortion.
[…] The Ohio state House has a 65 to 35 Republican majority. […]
Democratic Socialists of America member India Walton, the only Democrat on the ballot, was overwhelmingly defeated by a write-in campaign organized by the Democratic Party and the unions in support of the incumbent Byron Brown. Walton had won the Democratic primary in June with 50.5 percent of the vote.
Remember that when the wealthy elite stratum who controls the Democratic party whines about “electability” and “uniting” behind the primary winner for the general election. They have no such intentions when the primary doesn’t go their way, and they will burn their own party to the ground to support a candidate who embodies their class interests. The left wing in the U.S. will be stuck in this endless, frustrating loop until enough of us learn to abandon the Democratic party and focus our energies in actual leftist organizations.
KGsays
beholder@323,
How long do you think it would take to build an effective left alternative? Because it will only take one major national Republifascist win to end what remains of democracy in the USA – and any chance of avoiding climate catastrophe. Of course the “wealthy elite stratum who controls the Democratic party” will act in the class interests of the rich. But the constitutional setup and political situation in the USA mean that the only rational course for socialists who are interested in more than egotistical pseudo-radical posturing is to fight within the Democratic Party. And part of that strategy must be to divide that wealthy elite stratum itself, since (a) historically, the kind of radical change needed occurs only when the elite is divided, and (b) rational self-interest even for the ruling class is to act effectively to avoid such catastrophe.
Good news: Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy won a second term in New Jersey. He’s the first Democratic governor to win re-election in New Jersey since 1977.
That’s a Democratic Party win. And here’s another one: In New Jersey, Democrat Andrew Zwicker flipped a state Senate seat from red to blue, despite the fact that Republicans have held the seat since 1905.
Akira MacKenziesays
KG @ 324
… and (b) rational self-interest even for the ruling class is to act effectively to avoid such catastrophe.
Yeah, that’s where the whole damn thing falls apart. Regardless of the most rose-tinted daydreams of the average liberal make claim, human beings are not rational They are greedy, selfish, and supersticious, and would rather let the world burn than go against their primitive base instincts. You don’t even have to go far for an example. Human beings, both rich and poor, spent nearly two-years of denying the severity of a global plague that’s killed millions. In some cases, literally turning to armed violence to oppose the mildest of public health measures aimed to mitigate the COVID-19, or allow others to do it.
What makes you think that lot is going to allow anything to be done about climate change?
A week before Biden’s inauguration, weekly unemployment claims were still a painfully high 886,000. Now they’re 269,000, which is awfully close to normal.
[…] it was in March 2020 when jobless claims first spiked in response to the Covid-19 crisis, climbing to over 3 million. That weekly total soon after reached nearly 7 million as the economy cratered. For 55 consecutive weeks, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits was worse than at any time during the Great Recession.
All of that appears to be behind us. Looking at today’s report, we haven’t seen data this good since before the pandemic began in earnest.
Periodically over the course of the crisis, there have been understated threshold-based celebrations. When unemployment claims finally dipped below 1 million last August, it was a step in the right direction. When they fell below 800,000 in February, it offered similar evidence of slow, gradual progress. Fortunately, the pattern continued: Totals fell below 700,000 in March, below 600,000 in April, below 500,000 in early May, and below 400,000 in late May.
And now, finally, we’ve seen four consecutive weeks in which jobless claims have dipped below 300,000.
[…] As a political matter, it’s also a reminder that the economic conditions that acted against Democrats in this week’s elections are improving in ways that are likely to help incumbents.
tomhsays
With Latina and Black nominees, Biden unveils 10 new court picks Bringing his total number of judicial nominees to 62 on Wednesday, the president has officially worked to fill empty court seats at a faster clip than any of his predecessors.
Alexandra Jones / November 3, 2021
WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden put 10 people on the path to the bench Wednesday, including one nominee who, if confirmed, would be the only Black woman serving the Northern District of California as an active U.S. district judge.
Judge Trina Thompson is one of two former public defenders included in the latest slate of nominees…..
The White House noted Wednesday that with 62 nominees to date, Biden has put forward more judicial candidates during his 287 days in office than any other president in modern American history, including former President Donald Trump……
In a statement Wednesday, the nonprofit advocacy group Alliance for Justice highlighted the importance of keeping up this pace on the heels of statewide elections where Democrats suffered a critical loss of power in Virginia.
“This slate advances his important commitment to bringing more professional and demographic diversity to our courts, including two more former public defenders and several women of color,” Alliance for Justice President Rakim H.D. Brooks said in a statement. “As Tuesday’s elections demonstrated, time may be limited to ensure the Senate can continue confirming these nominees. It is imperative that this impressive pace continues.”
[…]
Biden’s latest slate of court picks includes his second Latina nominee to the Southern District of California. If confirmed, Ruth Bermudez Montenegro would become only the second active Latina federal judge in a state with 61 federal bench seats and a Latino population of approximately 40%…..
Good news: Gabby Giffords’ group has filed a new suit against the National Rifle Association, which includes some campaign-finance allegations.
The National Rifle Association was already facing some legal difficulties. In May, for example, a federal judge denied the group’s effort to file for bankruptcy protection, concluding it “was not filed in good faith.” The developments stemmed from a case brought against the NRA by the New York attorney general’s office.
Now, there’s a new case that’s likely to keep the far-right organization’s lawyers busy. NPR reported:
Giffords, the gun-control nonprofit founded by former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, has filed a federal lawsuit accusing the National Rifle Association of violating campaign finance laws dating back to 2014. The lawsuit alleges that the country’s leading gun rights group used shell companies to funnel “as much as $35 million in unlawful, excessive, and unreported in-kind campaign contributions” to Republican candidates for federal office, including Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“The NRA has long acted like it is above the law, and it has done so flagrantly in the last several election cycles,” David Pucino, Giffords Law Center senior staff attorney, said in a statement. He added, “This lawsuit demonstrates that the NRA broke the law by illegally coordinating with federal campaigns and funneling millions of dollars to candidates who supported their extremist, deadly agenda.”
Not surprisingly, the NRA said the lawsuit is […] part of an “anti-freedom agenda.”
[…] the NRA was so eager to financially support its Republican allies — a group that included senators such as Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, and Arkansas’ Tom Cotton, among others — that it created an illegal scheme to hide contributions through shell companies.
[…] Giffords’ lawyers also allege this wasn’t just a one-time transgression: The lawsuit claims the NRA did this repeatedly over multiple election cycles.
[…] What this new lawsuit is alleging is […] that the NRA, in addition to the political support the public already knows about, created an entirely separate mechanism for funneling money to likeminded Republican candidates.
[…] The Washington Post reported yesterday that this legal complaint “came after a federal judge granted Giffords’s nonprofit the right to sue the NRA when the Federal Election Commission failed to act on previous complaints.”
On Sept. 30, the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia issued an order compelling the FEC to act on Giffords’s previous complaints within 30 days. The FEC did not act in that time period, and the court ruled Monday that the nonprofit could sue the NRA itself. “The FEC had the chance to do its job by taking action against the NRA for this massive coordination scheme,” Molly Danahy, senior legal counsel for litigation at Campaign Legal Center, said in a news release, “but as usual, the FEC failed to enforce the law.”
[…] Michigan specifically makes history with not one but three firsts for the Muslim community. Three Michigan towns—Dearborn, Dearborn Heights, and Hamtramck—elected their first Muslim mayors Tuesday.
While both Dearborn and Dearborn Heights have a high Muslim population, neither town has seen a Muslim mayor before. Tuesday’s results now reflect the towns’ demographics and show the reality of a change in demographics in Hamtramck as well.
[…] “While the night marks the first of many, we never ran to be the first, we ran to be the best,” Hammoud said during his victory speech acknowledging his historic win but noting his candidacy was not just about diversity. […]
When Hammoud takes office early next year, the House lawmaker will become the first Muslim and the first person of color to lead the city’s 110,000 residents as their seventh mayor.
Hammoud’s win is historic not only because of his identity, and the fact that it reflects the demographic of the community he will be representing, but also in light of the town’s history of racism.
According to Al-Jazeera, Dearborn’s longest-serving mayor, Orville Hubbard, was known nationally for his racism against minority groups. While the town is now heavily Arab populated and houses one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation, the census does not reflect this because Arab Americans are classified as white. […]
Advocacy groups, including the Council of American Islamic Relations (CAIR), acknowledged the historic wins in Michigan. “We congratulate Mr. Hammoud and Mr. Ghalib on their historic victories in Dearborn and Hamtramck and for becoming the first Muslims to hold mayoral office in those cities,” CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid said in a press release. “Their victories are signs of not only the increased political engagement of Muslims in our region but also the comfort fellow Michiganians of other faiths have in supporting Muslim candidates.”
While he was campaigning, many criticized Ghalib for opposing flying an LGBTQ Pride Flag in the city and for his disapproved of marijuana dispensaries. But Ghalib told the Detroit Free Press that he would not impose his beliefs on others.
“People think because of my background and my religious beliefs that I will be anti-LGBT or something, but we are in America,” Ghalib said. “The same Constitution that allowed me to practice my religion here, to pray the way I want, it gives others the same freedom to practice their beliefs and express their values the way they want.” […]
More at the link.
Akira MacKenziesays
@330
So the fact that the cowards at The Daily Kos is so deftly dancing around is that Ghalib IS a fucking homophobe… and a Islamic one at that.
No one has ever accused Tom Carper, a Democratic Senator from Delaware, of being a far-left ideologue. His endorsement of a filibuster carve-out for voting rights is likely to make a difference.
In April 2017, a bipartisan group of 61 senators signed a joint statement in support of preserving the legislative filibuster for the indefinite future. Among them was Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, a relative moderate who has supported collaborative policymaking.
As Republican abuses became more common, many Democratic senators — including several who signed onto the 2017 letter — started expressing greater interest in institutional reforms. Carper, however, was not one of them.
[…] the Delaware Democrat wrote a new op-ed for the News Journal in Wilmington, arguing that it’s absolutely necessary for Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in order to “protect the right to vote and uphold the sanctity of our electoral process.” In recent weeks, both compromise proposals were derailed by Republican filibusters.
And so, Carper is prepared to make a change. From his piece:
I’m an optimist by nature, so I want to hold out hope that a compromise can be reached. But I cannot look the other way if total obstruction continues. I do not come to this decision lightly, but it has become clear to me that if the filibuster is standing in the way of protecting our democracy then the filibuster isn’t working for our democracy. Earlier this year, my friend Sen. Angus King, an Independent from Maine, wrote that “if forced to choose between a Senate rule and democracy itself, I know where I will come down.” And so do I.
Finally! About damned time.
The Delaware Democrat, in his 20th year in the Senate, concluded, “No barrier — not even the filibuster — should stand in the way of our sacred obligation to protect our democracy.”
[…] Carper isn’t alone in arriving at this point. In addition to Angus King, Virginia’s Mark Warner, another moderate Senate Democrat, publicly endorsed a carve-out to the status quo, saying Americans’ voting rights are so fundamentally important to our system of government, this is “the only area” in which he’d support an exception to the chamber’s existing filibuster rules.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, after years of cautious neutrality on the issue, also appears ready to do whatever it takes to protect Americans’ voting rights, even if that means creating an exception to the chamber’s filibuster rules.
Obviously, if conservative and centrist Democrats like West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema continue to prioritize the filibuster over democracy, these compromise proposals will fail, and the Republican Party’s voter-suppression measures will go unanswered.
[Carper] earned a reputation as a cautious lawmaker.
If and when he makes the case to his colleagues that this is the sensible and responsible way forward, it might help make a difference.
Insurgent Jenna Ryan, a real estate broker from Frisco, Texas, was sentenced today for her part in the Jan. 6 riot and insurrection on and inside of the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Ryan made news in part because of her personal, recorded performances on social media that showed her breaking the law. The fact that she boasted of her wealth and privilege and flew into D.C. on a private jet in order to break the law added fuel to the social media fire.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper told Ryan—who two months after her arrest tweeted out that she was “definitely not going to jail. Sorry I have blonde hair white skin a great job a great future and I’m not going to jail. Sorry to rain on your hater parade. I did nothing wrong”—that she was indeed going to jail. […]
Cooper’s sentence comes after Ryan did a number of news interviews, posted myriad videos, and wrote all kinds of declarations of her innocence, made weird attempts to pass blame to antifa for her own actions, and even attempted to publicly petition the disgrace of a person Donald Trump for a pardon. Ryan’s excuse for why she should be given a lighter sentence like no jail time? She has an image to maintain on social media. True story. […]
Ryan went on to argue that the “good actions” she took that day should be considered. Those good actions? Coming to D.C. to protest the elections. Okey dokey. As for why she said the whole weird racist and classist thing about being white and blonde and wealthy and deserving different justice than everyone else? Ryan says it was because she was feeling bullied online by people. These are the same people who were responding to her other privileged, hateful, and ignorant posts. Posts about chartering a private jet and flying with champagne to D.C. in order to break the law and overthrow our democracy. It was the blowback Ryan received that made her strike out and karate-kick her foot into her mouth, I guess.
[…] Ryan’s own videos, where she clearly understands the chaos going on around her and revels in it, made her a real target for justice.
Cooper told the court before sentencing her to 60 days: “I don’t think you could have missed the fact that this was no peaceful protest … You were a cheerleader, you cheered it on.” Cooper also remarked that because Ryan’s case had received quite a bit of public attention, it was important that his sentence showed the public how seriously Ryan’s behavior was being taken. […]
“Assuming most people continue to get the HPV vaccine and go for screening, cervical cancer will become a rare disease,” researchers said.
Rates of cervical cancer were 87 percent lower among women in their 20s who received the vaccination between the ages of 12 and 13 when compared with unvaccinated women.
The study estimates there were 450 fewer cases of cervical cancer and 17,200 fewer cases of pre-cancers than expected in the vaccinated population by mid-2019.
HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection. […]
Wonkette: “Special Counsel John Durham Arrests Russian Pee Tape Man For TERRIBLE LIES!”
Sounds like Department of Justice Special Counsel John Durham’s clownass iNVeStiGatE THe iNVeStigAtorS probe into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation is getting stupider.
The news today is that the feds have taken into custody Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst who resides in the US, who was one of the primary sources of the Steele Dossier. Indeed, Danchenko was the source for the allegation about PEE TAPE.
Danchenko has been indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI when he talked to them in 2017. Is this indictment dumber than Durham’s last indictment? […]
We’re just going to large block quote the Washington Post here, since they summarize the charges no nicely:
The indictment charges that Danchenko repeatedly lied to the FBI in interviews in 2017 as agents sought to get to the bottom of claims made in the dossier. The indictment also notes that the FBI “was ultimately not able to confirm or corroborate” most of the dossier’s substantive claims.
The indictment charges that Danchenko lied to agents when he said he had never communicated about the dossier allegations with a U.S.-based public relations executive “who was a long-time participant in Democratic Party politics,” when in truth that executive was “a contributor of information” to the dossier.
The new Durham indictment also charges that unnamed executive’s ties to the Democratic Party were so extensive that they bore upon their “reliability, motivations, and potential bias as a source of information.” Danchenko “gathered some of the information . . . at events in Moscow” organized by that same executive, who invited him to attend, the indictment charges.
Danchenko is also charged with lying to the FBI about interactions he claimed to have with the then-president of the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce in the USA. The indictment doesn’t identify that person, but people familiar with the case have previously said it is Sergei Millian.
The indictment charges that Danchenko falsely claimed to have had a phone conversation with a person he thought was Millian as part of his information-gathering for the dossier and that the two agreed to meet later in New York, but “Danchenko fabricated these facts.”
The indictment charges that those lies were material to the investigation because chasing them down consumed a significant amount of the FBI’s time and resources, and that Danchenko’s claims “played a role in the FBI’s investigative decisions and in sworn representations that the FBI made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.”
We’re sorry, but does any of that rise to the level of “lied to FBI about secret negotiations with Russian government”? […]
The Steele Dossier has always been raw intelligence, but Republican collaborators and wingnuts have been gunning for it for years and making up lies that allege that the entire Trump-Russia investigation was predicated on Christopher Steele’s unverified raw intelligence, when that was never the case. (If you’ll remember, the investigation started after this one very stupid Trump idiot drunkbarfed information all over an Australian diplomat about how the Russians had all kinda dirt on Hillary Clinton, at which point Australia picked up the intel phone and called the FBI.)
However, it’s true that some unverified info from the dossier ended up as part, but nowhere near all, of the justification for FISA warrants for Carter Page, which was detailed in the 2019 inspector general’s report. […]
When the FBI interviewed Danchenko back in 2017, it was trying to verify whatall in the dossier might be true. And if Danchenko lied to them, that’s on him. MSNBC analyst and former State Department spox Matthew Miller tweeted that it seems like Danchenko did, while also saying this is one of the “most convoluted indictments I’ve ever read.”
Of course, what we don’t see here is an indictment that says Danchenko is a Russian agent or anything like that. Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham and others have been accusing him of that ever since Bill Barr and Graham, as the Times reported last year, basically laid out a “road map” for blowing his cover, which happened soon after. The indictment also does not say Danchenko committed the crime of Illegal Fabrication Of Pee Tape.
In an interview with the Times last year Danchenko said absolutely NYET he is not a Russian agent, for what that’s worth. But he also explained in more detail what he had done to investigate the alleged pee tape. (That’s right, if Durham is dropping BS indictments like this that miss the point entirely, we are going to pivot halfway through and talk almost exclusively about PEE TAPE.)
One contact told Danchenko the broad outlines of the rumor — the Moscow Ritz-Carlton, the bed where the Obamas had once stayed, the prostitutes, the alleged peeing.
Mr. Danchenko said the contact told him that Mr. Trump was “well known” to Russian security services and seemed surprised he had not already heard about the purported Ritz-Carlton matter.
Another contact mentioned Trump and the Ritz-Carlton, but not the pee. Then Danchenko talked to people who worked at the hotel.
“I circled around it, you know, enough for them to say, ‘look, yeah, there is a — you know, a funny thing. There might be a tape of Mr. Trump, might be sexual, but, you know, things that happen at Ritz-Carlton stay at Ritz-Carlton,'” Mr. Danchenko said.
How very interesting!
But also in that interview, Danchenko said his job for Steele was always simply to find raw intelligence, that he takes what he found and relayed to Steele with a “grain of salt,” and that even he is skeptical of what he heard. The Times mentions that another source told the US government later on that the pee tape stuff was Russian disinformation.
On the other hand, Christopher Steele just said last month that he thinks the pee tape “probably exists,” and that any walking back by Danchenko might have had to do with fear of what might happen to him after his cover got blown.
Hey remember like five seconds ago when Donald Trump out of literally out of nowhere told a crowd of donors that he definitely isn’t a pee guy? That seems like a good way to abruptly end this post about John Durham’s latest indictment.
Wonkette: “Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers Got ‘Immunized.’ We Guess From Prosecution, Because It Wasn’t Against COVID-19!”
Hello! Tis I, your friendly resident cheesehead and football fan.
I need sports. In a world that’s quickly becoming uninhabitable and a country where literal Nazis are making a comeback, sports give me the escape from reality that I need. I don’t get people who say they don’t care about sports because they’re meaningless – it’s the fact that sports are meaningless that makes them so great! It’s almost meditative, to take a few hours to care about nothing but which team gets the ball past the line or through the giant U-shaped thing the most times.
Aaron Rodgers is good at football. He’s a Super Bowl MVP, three-time regular-season MVP, and – and no, I’m not just saying this because I’m biased – one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time.
But Aaron Rodgers isn’t only good at football. He’s goofy and fun and a little nerdy. He was SUPER into guest-hosting “Jeopardy!” He went to Cal, not a typical football college. To our knowledge, he’s never murdered or raped anyone or tried to kill his girlfriend. […]
This season’s hair choices aside, Aaron Rodgers is a dream. He is delightful to root for. Especially when you consider that the Packers’ last quarterback is a Trumpy asshole who sent dick pics to a female reporter and recently scammed Mississippi out of $600k in welfare money, I couldn’t have asked for a better replacement than Aaron.
That’s why it was even more disappointing when the news broke yesterday that, Rodgers, who contracted COVID, was unvaccinated.
“But why,” you may ask, “is Antivaxxer Aaron just breaking now?” And that’s a great question! Why did we all think Aaron Rodgers, one of today’s most famous football players, was vaccinated?!
OH, RIGHT, MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE HE TOLD US HE WAS.
Back in August, a reporter directly asked Rodgers if he had been vaccinated. Rodgers said, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized,” and we all took him at his word. [video available at the link]
What none of us realized was that Aaron has a different definition of that word than, well, literally everyone else.
After Rodgers tested positive for COVID yesterday, we learned that rather than receive one of the three approved vaccines for COVID-19, Rodgers got an “alternate treatment” from his personal doctor “to raise his antibody levels.” He petitioned the NFL to have his snake oil treatment treated like a real vaccine, but the NFL was like “lol nah.”
In response to a follow-up question after saying he was “immunized,” Rodgers also said:
“There’s guys on the team that haven’t been vaccinated. I think it’s a personal decision. I’m not going to judge those guys,” Rodgers said in August. “There’s guys that have been vaccinated that have contracted COVID. So it’s an interesting issue.”
Someone thought his clever language would protect him. And for a while, obviously, it did. But now, that strategy appears to have worked about as well as Antibody Aaron’s “immunization.” […]
According to the Wisconsin State Journal, “Aaron Rodgers arrived at Green Bay Packers training camp in July believing he was protected from COVID-19 — or at least as protected as anyone who’d received the Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines.” […]
But hey, maybe we were all just expecting way too much from a jock from Chico who plays a sport best known for brain injuries. And at least there have been some truly excellent memes. […]
P.S. Aaron, now that you’re sick, you may want to see a doctor other than the one who injected you with the horse dewormer or whatever. Please.
During oral arguments in a major Second Amendment case, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito opined that New York would be a lot better place if all the law abiding people could pack guns wherever they want, so they could protect themselves from the bad guys in all the “high-crime areas” […]
The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, concerns New York state’s 108-year-old concealed carry law, which requires applicants to show that they have “good cause” to have a concealed weapon, beyond the warm feeling they get from knowing they can shoot anyone who tries to take the parking space they had their eye on. The Court’s 2008 DC v. Heller ruling established an individual right to own firearms (based not so much on history as on NRA ideology), and now that the “keep” part of the Second Amendment is taken care of, gun humpers want to make sure there are virtually no limits on the right to “bear” arms, too. No matter how that might harm public safety.
[…] “good cause” laws cover about a quarter of Americans, about 83 million of us. Now that there are two more gun-friendly justices among the Supremes, it looks like state laws aimed at limiting the right to carry guns, concealed or openly, will be done away with, and we’ll all get to see just how polite an armed society can be.
In an attempt to remind the Court that the Founders weren’t big fans of everyone going armed all the time, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that
many of the colonies “restricted concealed arms” before the Revolutionary War, and states maintained these bans following independence. And “after the Civil War, there were many, many more states” that granted “a right to arms but not concealed.”
“Many of the laws conditioned or retained the right of the state to decide which people were eligible” to carry concealed guns, Sotomayor said. “To carry the arms,” citizens “had to be subject to the approval of the local sheriff or the local mayor.” Why, she wondered, “is a ‘good cause’ requirement any different than that discretion that was given to local officials to deny the carrying of firearms to people that they thought it was inappropriate?”
Ah, but the plaintiffs’ attorney, Paul Clement, was ready to demolish such arguments, explaining he didn’t read such “historical examples” the way Sotomayor did, so how’s that for convincing?
After a few more rounds of history fights — with precedents in many states that had restrictions on carrying arms, yes even in the “Wild” West — Alito presented his case for arming more good decent people who would definitely use their guns responsibly. After all, he noted, New York is a crime-filled sewer […]
ALITO: So I want you to think about people like this, people who work late at night in Manhattan, it might be somebody who cleans offices, it might be a doorman at an apartment, it might be a nurse or an orderly, it might be somebody who washes dishes. None of these people has a criminal record. They’re all law-abiding citizens. They get off work around midnight, maybe even after midnight. They have to commute home by subway, maybe by bus. When they arrive at the subway station or the bus stop, they have to walk some distance through a high-crime area. And they apply for a license, and they say: “Look, nobody has said I’m going to mug you next Thursday. However, there have been a lot of muggings in this area, and I am scared to death.” They do not get licenses, is that right?
New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood noted that there would definitely be problems with allowing “a lot of armed people in an enclosed space” like New York City subways, but Alito cut her off with his streetwise wisdom about what goes on in the city’s mean subways:
All these people with illegal guns: They’re on the subway, walking around the streets, but ordinary, hard-working, law-abiding people, no, they can’t be armed.
We can only imagine what brave fantasies of righteous armed citizens wiping out criminal scum may have been dancing in Alito’s head just then. He certainly couldn’t have been thinking of the many cases where Responsible Gun Owners shot someone over where a dog pooped, or because someone pulled into their driveway to check directions, or for the criminal act of trying to sell you frozen steaks, or in an argument over how much a German Shepherd can possibly weigh. Small price for people to be able to go Charles Bronson in the subways.
So get ready to wave goodbye to some really effective gun laws, like those in Massachusetts, because this Supreme Court is ready to make sure everyone everywhere can have guns in public, for America.
Offering a unique interpretation of Tuesday’s election results, Donald J. Trump announced that he is now the Governor of Virginia.
“The people of Virginia have chosen me as their Governor,” Trump said. “Frankly, we did win this election.”
He had nothing but contempt for media outlets that have declared Glenn Youngkin the winner of Tuesday’s contest.
“I’m sure Glenn Youngkin is a nice person, but, if he thinks he’s Governor and I’m not, that’s just sad and very pathetic, O.K.?” he said. “Go away, Glenn. You’re a disgrace and a baby.”
Trump, who said that he was eager to take the reins as Governor, announced that his first priority would be to build a wall with West Virginia.
During the Biden administration, the stock market is doing well. There’s growth.
Two weeks before Election Day 2020, Donald Trump and Joe Biden met for their final debate […] the incumbent president made a bold prediction. “If he’s elected, the stock market will crash,” [Trump] claimed, pointing at his Democratic rival.
Americans elected Biden soon after. The stock market, at least for now, has not crashed. In fact, the Wall Street Journal reported in April that Wall Street was off to its best start to a presidential term since the Great Depression. Fortunately for investors, the growth has continued. […]
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a record high this morning, fueled in part by the excellent jobs report.
[…] As the nation crawls out of its pandemic-generated hole, it stands to reason that Wall Street would respond positively.
What’s more, any such analysis should come with all kinds of caveats, starting with the most important: The major stock market indexes are not the economy and do not always reflect economic health.
The major indexes’ record highs nevertheless stand out, in large part because this is likely the one part of Biden’s record that frustrates Trump the most.
t’s not just that [Trump] promised Americans “the stock market will crash” in the event of a Biden presidency — one of several unfortunate Trump predictions from the fall — it’s also Trump’s persistent belief that Wall Street offers a real-time barometer of the incumbent president’s performance.
[…] He even incorporated Wall Street into entirely unrelated stories. In late 2019, for example, Trump argued in a tweet that if he were impeached, “it would lead to the biggest FALL in Market History. It’s called a Depression, not a Recession!” He was impeached soon after. Investors didn’t much care.
Trump spent years operating from the assumption that Wall Street was a direct reflection of the American presidency — and upturns were proof of Oval Office excellence. That never made any sense […]
No surprise, Trump was wrong again. Also no surprise, Trump has not offered an explanation. Hair Furor is slowly, all too slowly, becoming irrelevant.
Former FBI counterintelligence officer Peter Strzok talks with Rachel Maddow about Trump special counsel holdover John Durham’s investigation of the Trump Russia investigation. Strzok tells Maddow, “I’m certainly concerned when I read these indictments, both Mr. Sussmann’s and Mr. Danchenko’s… They have subtle dog whistles to these kinds of pro-Trump conspiracy theories… The indictment makes a point to note that the FBI was unable to corroborate Steele’s reporting, but at the same time it neglects to mention that we weren’t able to disprove it either.”
Six months after signing what he called the strongest election security bill in the nation, Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday said he wanted to beef up the state’s voting laws and create a new office to investigate and prosecute election-related fraud…. “We’re going to do another package of election integrity reforms that is going to make Florida way No. 1 by a long shot anywhere in the country,” DeSantis said.
Commentary:
[…] Remember, there were no problems with Florida’s elections, which produced results Republicans liked. The party nevertheless made it more difficult for Floridians to cast ballots in future elections.
The right said that wasn’t good enough, and so the governor is prepared to try again to satisfy his own party’s election opponents.
Time will tell exactly what the next round of voter-suppression measures might include, but DeSantis suggested dead Floridians received ballots — a claim unsupported by evidence — and added that he doesn’t believe ballot drop-boxes should exist anywhere in the state.
The governor also announced plans for a state law enforcement office that would be dedicated specifically to election-related crimes, none of which appear to exist in any meaningful numbers.
At face value, it’s pitiful to see DeSantis scramble this way, exploring new ways to undermine the franchise because conservative activists want him to. But there’s also a degree of irony to the circumstances.
Remember this Associated Press story from the summer?
A sham candidate for the Florida Legislature pleaded guilty Tuesday to being part of a vote siphoning scheme in last year’s election and will testify against a former Republican state senator who prosecutors say ran it. Alex Rodríguez agreed to testify against former Sen. Frank Artiles after pleading guilty in Miami-Dade County to accepting illegal campaign donations and lying on campaign documents. He will receive three years probation if he cooperates, including a year of house arrest. He had faced a possible 20-year prison sentence.
According to prosecutors, the former Republican state senator secretly paid Rodriguez to run a third-party campaign against a Democratic incumbent with the same last name. The point was to confuse voters, and it worked: The auto parts salesman with no political experience received 6,000 votes, in a race the Republican challenger won by 32 votes.
The Florida Commission on Ethics recently sent the case to the governor for further action. DeSantis, clearly concerned about “election integrity,” must be eager to address this Republican scheme, right?
Wrong. The Miami Herald reported yesterday that the governor’s office “has not had a chance to review” the matter.
On the surface, the Jan. 6 committee is fighting with Team Trump for cooperation. Below the surface, the investigation is making surprising strides.
In light of the coverage surrounding the Jan. 6 committee and its fight to hear from Donald Trump’s allies, it may be tempting to think the bipartisan select committee has been stymied in its work.
As NBC News reported, there’s fresh evidence to the contrary.
Members of the House panel investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol have interviewed more than 150 people so far, ranking member Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said Thursday. Cheney, the top Republican on the select committee, said that the panel spoke to “a whole range of people connected to the events, connected to understanding what happens.”
The select committee’s co-chair added, “It is a range of engagements — some formal interviews, some depositions…. There really is a huge amount of work underway that is leading to real progress for us.”
It led Politico to note, “The public has just seen the tip of the iceberg…. [Cheney’s reference to more than 150 interviews] is an indication that the vast majority of the committee’s work is happening out of public view.”
In related news:
Donald Trump’s lawyers were in court yesterday, insisting that the former president should be allowed to claim executive privilege over documents sought by the Jan. 6 committee. To put it mildly, a federal judge appeared skeptical of the Republican’s arguments.
CNN reported that Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, who chairs the bipartisan select committee, said that he’s signed about 20 additional subpoenas, which should go out “soon,” possibly as early as today.
Politico reported yesterday that committee investigators “are examining the contacts between one of the rioters who breached the Capitol and state-level GOP officials who worked with former President Donald Trump as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election.”
Reuters reported that the House select committee is scheduled to hear testimony today from Jeffrey Clark, a former senior Justice Department official in the Trump administration.
[…] Clark was the acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division at the time, and he used his office to sketch out a map for Republican legislators to follow in which they could try to overturn the will of the state’s voters. Trump was impressed enough with Clark’s reported anti-election efforts that the then-president considered making Clark the acting attorney general as part of a possible Justice Department overhaul with only two weeks remaining in Trump’s term. […]
In newly aired deposition videos obtained by CNN, Rudy Giuliani and pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell admitted under oath that they hadn’t bothered to check if their conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and voting tech companies were true when they repeatedly regurgitated them in public.
Giuliani was just too darn busy to look into it all, he told the lawyer of a former Dominion Voting Systems executive suing him and Powell for defamation.
It’s also not Giuliani’s job to make sure his claims were based on fact, he argued. “Otherwise, you’re never going to write a story.”
Powell argued the truth wasn’t really important, claiming that it “didn’t seem to be the material part of the inquiry.”
The only thing new about this is that now we get to see the videos instead of just reading transcripts. CNN link
Giuliani is so awful in that deposition that it would be hard to over-emphasize how stumbling, bumbling and ridiculous he is. The commentary from CNN hosts is irritating and largely unnecessary.
[…] Short version is whatever version of the reconciliation bill passes the House today will get altered in the Senate and have to come back to the House, where it will likely get shoved down the throats of Dem members. That will happen in late November or early December. House members are used to getting dictated to by the Senate. Doesn’t mean the Senate version won’t pass the House. Just means there’s a long way to go even if Pelosi gets all her votes lined up today.
[…] I understand teachers, like everyone, are imperfect, and I don’t necessarily think all “political” topics should be off-limits in the classroom.
But this incident out of Anacapa Middle School is so wildly inappropriate, offensive, and downright concerning, it’s not even in the same stratosphere. A history teacher at the school was recorded ranting about Hunter Biden, claiming that Biden had sex with his niece and had child pornography on his laptop. The teacher topped off the diatribe by, you guessed it, bringing up Ukraine, as reported by CBS Los Angeles. They also ranted about—you guessed it—vaccines. The teacher has not been publicly identified at the time of writing.
“People need to wake up and see the government has way too much power right now,” the teacher can be heard saying in the recording taken by a student in the classroom. The child’s parent apparently told them that if they were ever uncomfortable with what a teacher was saying, they were allowed to take out their phone and record. That’s what the student did when the incident occurred about two weeks ago, and whew, what a great thing that student did.
“Hunter Biden, for example, is doing deals with China and Ukraine where he was funneling money illegally,” the teacher says in the recording, which reportedly lasts about seven minutes. “He also had child pornography on his laptop. He was having sexual intercourse with his own niece.” Again, obviously not true, and obviously disturbingly inappropriate to say to literal children.
Sarah Silikula, the parent of the child who recorded the teacher’s bizarre rant, said her child came home very upset and confused by the whole thing. According to Silikula, her child said: “I’m never getting vaccinated,” and declared that they’re not getting any more shots of any kind. It’s no surprise the kid is totally spooked by vaccines, given that the teacher alleged that if you have a baby in a hospital and you choose not to get vaccinated, you don’t get your baby back.
According to Silikula, her child then asked her a question that likely made her stomach drop: “Did you know Trump’s still president?” Yikes.
According to the outlet, the school district has condemned the teacher’s comments. Students in the class have been assigned to another teacher. The teacher involved in the incident is still employed at the school, and the district told the outlet it will apply its “progressive” discipline policy to handle the situation.
CBS Los Angeles link. In the CBS video you can hear excerpts from the recording of the teacher spreading lies about Hunter Biden, about vaccines, etc.
The young student want home and told his parents that they were wrong about vaccines, and that “teachers know everything.”
Wonkette: “Newsmax Host Emerald Robinson Too Nutty For Newsmax!”
Newsmax host Emerald Robinson has been suspended from her job at Newsmax after tweeting out the bizarre (but unfortunately common these days) conspiracy theory that mad scientists or Bill Gates or Satan himself put a substance called “Luciferase” in the vaccines for the purpose of “tracking” people, which somehow factors into the Apocalypse.
In a tweet that has since been deleted by Twitter, Robinson wrote, “Dear Christians: the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called Luciferase so that you can be tracked. Read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends.” The tweet she quote- tweeted read “The Moderna vaccine DOES contain Luciferase.” […]
The Moderna vaccine, of course, does not contain Luciferase and neither do any of the other vaccines.
Via Reuters:
A fact sheet on the FDA’s website here discloses the ingredients in the vaccine. It includes mRNA, lipids, cholesterol, 1,2-distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, tromethamine, tromethamine hydrochloride, acetic acid, sodium acetate, and sucrose.
It does not list luciferin, an organic compound that produces light through oxidation (here), in its ingredients, or mention anything about a “a 66.6 solution,” as the posts claim.
Moreover, none of the other available vaccines, manufactured by Pfizer, Janssen and AstraZeneca, contain luciferin […]
What’s happening here is that Robinson and others who are not all that swift are taking bits and pieces of information and patching them back together to create a narrative that they find appealing and which they very much want to be true.They want to believe a whole ass cabal is out there creating viruses and vaccines and going to various other elaborate (but clearly Satanic) measures just for the sheer pleasure of tracking them, because of how very fascinating they are. They also want to feel righteous and holy while getting to do something as unbelievably selfish as not getting a life-saving vaccine and dooming us all to years and years of pandemic life.
Luciferin is the organic compound that makes fireflies glow. It was isolated by scientists recently and used, quite openly, in COVID research. No one was hiding this, it was fairly well publicized. It was not, however, put into the vaccines.
Apparently even Robinson’s bosses at Newsmax were capable of understanding this.
Via The Daily Beast:
A Newsmax spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Beast that the network is “currently reviewing the posts and during that period Ms. Robinson will not be on the air but continue with duties for the network.”
Several Newsmax staffers cheered on the decision to bench Robinson. “It’s really buzzing the newsroom,” one current employee told The Daily Beast. “I think it’s a good idea. If we are going to be viewed as a news organization, we have to act like one.” Another staffer agreed that sidelining the reporter was “probably was the safe thing to do,” as “it was a stupid thing to tweet.”
When even Newsmax says you have gone too far, you have probably gone too far.
In a far-too-long essay on her Substack, Robinson expressed shock and dismay that she was the only “journalist” capable of doing the work of figuring out that the vaccine contains Luciferin or Luciferase (it doesn’t) and putting it together that this is obviously a plot to track us all and prevent us from being able to buy or sell without Satan’s special vaccine marker (it isn’t).
Under the cover of vaccinating people, we are really preparing to tag and track people. The once free nations of the West are testing a new authoritarian system of total control under the guise of public health. Just look at Australia or New Zealand or Canada or Italy to see how basic civil rights have been suspended indefinitely and a pseudo-medical tyranny has been installed. The Great Reset is being implemented with the lie that it’s all about “protecting your health.” Our military and intelligence agencies are not confronting China — they’re copying China. A totalitarian nightmare is being imported into free countries through surveillance technologies.
You don’t have to be a Christian to understand that such technology will be used to build a global surveillance state. The vaccine mandates have already led to vaccine passports. The vaccine passports are basically QR codes to track you by connecting to your smartphone. This will inevitably lead very soon to biometric ID embedded into your body. You won’t be able to enter restaurants or buy groceries or go to work without it. As the Bible says: no one will be able to buy or sell anything except those that have the mark. You will know the mark by its name, which is the name of the beast: the enemy of all mankind who, before he fell, was an angel of light named Lucifer. That’s why “Luciferase” should send a chill down your spine.
Unless, of course, you are capable of looking up what Luciferase actually is.
[…] Lucifer is a latin word meaning “light bringer,” it is not the literal name of Satan, it’s not like God created Lucifer and was like “Oh hey, gonna name you this Latin word that doesn’t exist yet.” This is not a chicken and egg situation. We know which came first, and it is “Lucifer” meaning “light bringer” and not “Lucifer” meaning “Satan’s birth name.” […]
The American population is becoming more Latino, and fast. Yet Latino communities across the country remain shut out of real political power, sidelined from representation by rigged districts expressly designed to suppress their vote.
The result of this discriminatory gerrymandering is the near complete exclusion of Latinos from public office. In 2020, Latinos made up just 1 percent of all local and federal elected officials, despite being 18 percent of the population.
In fact, the 2020 census results show that Latinos made up over half of the country’s population growth from 2010 to 2020, adding 11.6 million people to their total numbers — more by far than any other ethnic group in absolute terms. Latinos are already the largest minority group in 21 states, and in California and New Mexico they have already surpassed non-Latino whites as the largest single ethnic group in the state. In Texas, they are poised to do the same.
The booming Latino population is a dominant force in the economy, responsible for almost three-quarters of all labor force expansion since the Great Recession. Latinos are increasingly getting college degrees, becoming homeowners, and running for elected office. And Latino growth is having an impact on politics — as a growing portion of the electorate, Latinos were decisive in President Biden’s victory in 13 states, and they showed up in record numbers in the 2020 election across the country.
But with this size and emerging electoral power has come a backlash. In states where growth among Latinos and other people of color threaten the political status quo, lawmakers are already beginning to gerrymander Latino communities out of their political voice, packing them into fewer districts to circumscribe their electoral power or dispersing Latino communities across multiple districts to dilute their voting strength. In Texas, for example, lawmakers recently passed a new congressional map that reduced the number of Latino-majority districts — despite the fact that the state has actually added 2 million Latinos since 2010.
[…]
Anti-Latino redistricting practices are occurring amid the biggest voter suppression push in decades — much of it aimed at diminishing the growing power of Latino communities.
These attacks on Latino voters have deep roots in historical prejudice and violence going back over a century. Often erased in U.S. history books, violent mobs are estimated to have killed thousands of people of Mexican descent in the early 20th century. Forgotten too is the campaign by state and local officials to “repatriate” (that is, forcibly move to Mexico) an estimated 2 million Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, many of whom were U.S. citizens. Later, even the Voting Rights Act of 1965 failed to initially protect Puerto Ricans from English literacy tests at the New York polls — “language minorities” weren’t included in the law until 10 years after its passage.
Though the Latino population has grown and grown more diverse over the last 50 years, the pattern of discrimination remains strikingly unchanged.
Every day, lawmakers across the country are recycling the bad map-drawing practices that have stymied Latino political opportunity for decades. Voters and advocates can challenge these maps in court. But they will be hampered by courts’ restrictive interpretation of voting rights laws and the ability for map drawers (after the Supreme Court’s greenlighting of partisan gerrymandering) to claim that Latinos were targeted for partisan reasons, not their ethnicity. That’s why it is more urgent than ever that Congress repair and strengthen the nation’s voting rights laws by passing the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and the Freedom to Vote Act.
UnknownEric the Apostatesays
If anyone actually tracked me they would die of boredom.
Agents tracking me:
“Ooh ooh, he’s getting up… walking towards the door… and… he put a different record on. And now, he’s laying down in front of the heater again.”
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @347:
If anyone actually tracked me they would die of boredom.
Have any of these people considered that in order to track millions (or billions) of people, the time and resources required would be prohibitively expensive. I mean, that is what cell phones are for, right? Who needs a vaccine to do that?
KGsays
Regardless of the most rose-tinted daydreams of the average liberal make claim, human beings are not rational They are greedy, selfish, and supersticious, and would rather let the world burn than go against their primitive base instincts. You don’t even have to go far for an example. Human beings, both rich and poor, spent nearly two-years of denying the severity of a global plague that’s killed millions. In some cases, literally turning to armed violence to oppose the mildest of public health measures aimed to mitigate the COVID-19, or allow others to do it.
What makes you think that lot is going to allow anything to be done about climate change? – Akira Mackenzie@326
Of course no-one is wholly rational – and some appear to be wholly irrational (selfishness, btw, is neither rational nor irrational, rational/irrational and selfish/altruistic are pretty near orthogonal dimensions). But your generalization is as faulty as the opposite one. I think it unlikely we will avoid climate catastrophe, but possible. And unlike you, I’ve no intention of spending my time and energies moaning about how awful (other) people are.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia appeared on CNN yesterday morning and offered his assessment of the national political landscape. Not surprisingly, it raised a few eyebrows.
“I believe in President Biden. I still do and I will always because he’s a good person. He’s here for the right reason. He really is in government for the right reason. We just have to work together; we can’t go too far left. This is not a center-left or a left country. We are a center — if anything, a little center-right country. That’s being shown, and we ought to be able to recognize that.”
In terms of the nation’s ideological leanings, Republicans routinely use similar rhetoric. Indeed, it’s standard GOP response to Democratic legislative efforts: Democrats shouldn’t even try to engage in progressive governance, because it’s not what a center-right country wants.
Yep. Joe Manchin is good at repeating rightwing talking points. That’s what he does.
But is that true?
Earlier this year, Gallup released its latest report on Americans’ political ideologies and found evidence that, at face value, seemed to bolster Manchin’s point. Gallup’s data showed 36 percent of Americans described themselves as “conservative,” slightly ahead of the 35 percent who described themselves as “moderate.” Though the number of Americans who labeled themselves “liberal” has grown steadily in recent decades, they still represented only 25 percent in the survey.
But that doesn’t help us much. These labels are inherently subjective and vague. How voters perceive “moderation,” for example, is tethered far more to shifting perceptions than anything tangible.
Perhaps a different kind of measurement of public opinion would shed additional light. Putting aside amorphous ideas about ideologies, what are the kinds of policies that enjoy broad public support?
Among the most popular measures in the United States are raising the minimum wage, expanding firearm background checks, raising taxes on the wealthy, and expanding Medicare.
Some might suggest, however, that public-opinion research isn’t as reliable as it should be, and the best way to measure Americans’ attitudes is through election results. Maybe so.
But the last time I checked, voters elected a Democratic-led House, a Democratic-led Senate, and the Democrats’ presidential ticket. In fact, over the last 30 years, only two presidential candidates managed to top 51 percent of the national popular vote: Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Taking a step further, the Democratic ticket has won the popular vote in seven of the last eight presidential elections. Looking to American history, when was the last time a major political party enjoyed a comparable streak? Never. It literally never happened until Democrats pulled it off.
A rather bizarre development in Virginia. On election day Glenn Youngkin’s 17 year old son twice tried to vote illegally. Indeed, he attempted to do so – twice – in a precinct where his family doesn’t even live.
The younger Youngkin went to vote in a precinct at the Great Falls Library in Fairfax County. He presented his ID which identified him as a 17 year old. The voting official realized who Youngkin was and told him that people under the age of 18 are not allowed to vote in Virginia. She offered to register him for the next election but he left. He then returned about 20 minutes later and insisted he be allowed to vote because an unidentified friend of his, also 17, had been allowed to vote. The precinct captain, Jennifer Chanty, again told him that he was not eligible to vote.
State officials say – I think rightly – that there is no crime because the younger Youngkin didn’t try to falsify his identity or age. So he didn’t break the law since he wasn’t allowed to vote.
Asked about the incident a spokesman for Gov-Elect Youngkin attacked people “pitching opposition research on a 17-year old kid who honestly misunderstood Virginia election law” while Youngkin was trying to unite the state.
What I find so strange about this is that kids being ineligible to vote is hardly an obscure part of election law in the US. It’s often less than clear when people who have committed crimes in the past are again eligible to vote. Sometimes it’s not clear what’s legit as your primary residence or how long you have to have lived somewhere. But doesn’t everyone know you have to be 18 to vote? Weird story.
After agitating for the chance for weeks, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) finally visited alleged Jan. 6 rioters in jail Thursday night and compared them to prisoners of war, part of a months-long campaign to valorize the attack on Congress.
Though the vast majority of people facing charges for their actions on Jan. 6 are not in custody, a few dozen are behind bars. The Washington Post reported this week that 40 Jan. 6 defendants were being held in D.C.’s Correctional Treatment Facility.
Greene has taken the lead on campaigning for these detainees, and following her visit to what she dubbed the “Patriot wing” of the jail Thursday, she said “I was greeted by men with overwhelming cheers who rushed out to meet me with tears streaming down their faces.”
[…] “It was like walking into a prisoner of war camp and seeing men who eyes can’t believe someone had made it in to see them,” Greene said.
Greene made the wild claim that the jailed Jan. 6 defendants are “being put through re-education which most of them are rejecting.” A spokesperson didn’t respond to TPM’s request to clarify what the congresswoman meant.
In an appearance on Steve Bannon’s “War Room,” Greene said homeless people and detainees at Guantanamo Bay were living in better conditions than those housed in D.C. jail.
“Those men in those jail [sic] that I met with last night are more patriotic than every single American in this entire country, because they still love in this country, while the federal government is abusing them and making them live in their own waste,” she said.
The FBI, Greene said, should go after “criminals, not Americans.” She suggested the DOJ prosecute “antifa,” short for anti-fascists, and other “enemies of our country,” and she blamed the media for dividing the country.
[…] The jailed Jan. 6 defendants are being held in D.C.’s Correctional Treatment Facility, which was recently inspected by a team from the U.S. Marshals Service. A report from the inspection found conditions in that facility to be “largely appropriate and consistent with federal prisoner detention standards,” The Washington Post reported.
However, hundreds of inmates at the adjacent Central Detention Facility were transferred to another facility after an inspection found “systematic failures” such as withholding food from detainees and poor sanitation including “standing human sewage,” the Post reported, quoting the inspection report.
She is winning going away the “Can you top this Trumpiness” sweepstakes.
—————–
Marjorie Taylor Greene does not legislate, she performs stunts.
——————
She came out of a backwater part of Georgia with no prior political experience, got elected as a rep to Congress, and now she’s suddenly on the national stage and wants to make the most of it. She’s using Trump as a model, trying to be more outrageous than anyone else to stay in the media spotlight.
—————–
maybe checking out what her new quarters will be like when Congress finishes its investigation
——————
Performative hypocrisy and bullshit.
A Canadian flat-earther has been found dead two weeks after he said on a livestream that although he was sick with classic COVID symptoms, he could not possibly have the virus because he didn’t believe it’s real. “CONVID doesn’t exist,” Mak Parhar told his followers, according to Global News. In a followup video, Parhar said he was taking ivermectin, the anti-parasite drug that experts say doesn’t prevent or treat the coronavirus and could be dangerous. Authorities have not determined his cause of death.
Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, said he would not rule out contempt charges against Jeffrey Clark, a former Trump Department of Justice official implicated in the former president’s efforts to forward his election fraud claims.
“It’s under consideration, absolutely,” Thompson said.
Thompson’s comments came after a relatively brief deposition with Clark, who sat down with committee staff on Friday and apparently refused to respond to questions.
[…] Clark’s testimony was sought by the committee because he was at the center of Trump’s election efforts at the DOJ.
“You proposed that the department send a letter to state legislators in Georgia and other states suggesting that they delay certification of their election results and hold a press conference announcing that the department was investigating allegations of voter fraud,” the House panel wrote in its October subpoena to Clark.
[…] A letter from Clark’s new attorney to the committee suggests the former mid-level DOJ attorney had little appetite to answer the questions in the investigation.
“Mr. Clark will, of course, abide by a future judicial decision(s) appropriately governing all underlying disputes with finality, but for now he must decline to testify as a threshold matter because the President’s confidences are not his to waive,” attorney Harry MacDougald writes in a letter to Thompson.
“Accordingly, beyond showing up today to present this letter as a sign of his respect for a committee of the House of Representatives, albeit one not formed in observance of the ordinary process of minority participation, Mr. Clark cannot answer deposition questions at this time,” the letter goes on to state.
The letter bears resemblance to one penned by an attorney for former White House strategist Steve Bannon who was also subpoenaed by the committee and argued he would be unable to give deposition because of executive privilege claims from former President Trump.
Bannon, unlike Clark, failed to make a physical appearance before the committee, a move that ultimately resulted in a remarkable censure from the House as a whole, which voted to refer him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
[…] Clark has previously declined to sit with congressional investigators; he failed to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee as it produced a report detailing Trump’s pressure campaign at the DOJ, including his one-time plan to install Clark as acting attorney general if high-level officials failed to act on his election claims.
That report found Clark “engaged in unauthorized investigation of allegations of voter fraud and failed to abide by the department’s policy on contacts with the White House.”
Clark’s attorney, the Atlanta-based MacDougald, previously worked alongside Sidney Powell to challenge election results in Georgia — one of the states where Clark wanted the DOJ to intervene.
“Clark’s attorney, the Atlanta-based MacDougald, previously worked alongside Sidney Powell to challenge election results in Georgia — one of the states where Clark wanted the DOJ to intervene.” Oh, I see. All the best people then.
Well isn’t that just peachy: “Top Catholic bishop calls social justice movements ‘pseudo-religion’ ” Washington Post link
Archbishop José H. Gomez, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, railed against “new social justice movements” during a speech Thursday, decrying them as “pseudo-religions” that ultimately serve as “dangerous substitutes for true religion.”
Gomez, who heads the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, delivered the remarks in a video message sent to a meeting of the Congress of Catholics and Public Life in Madrid. The prelate argued that the United States, like Europe, has been subject to “aggressive secularization,” insisting that “there has been a deliberate effort in Europe and America to erase the Christian roots of society and to suppress any remaining Christian influences.”
He also lambasted “cancel culture,” contending that “often what is being canceled and corrected are perspectives rooted in Christian beliefs.”
But Gomez saved his most strident criticism for “new social movements and ideologies,” the influence of which, he said, accelerated after the murder of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.
Although Gomez noted that Floyd’s killing was “a stark reminder that racial and economic inequality are still deeply embedded in our society,” he suggested that the movements that inspired related demonstrations last year have been “unleashed in our society” and serve as replacements for “traditional Christian beliefs.”
Say what now? No need to make sense, I guess.
“With the breakdown of the Judeo-Christian worldview and the rise of secularism, political belief systems based on social justice or personal identity have come to fill the space that Christian belief and practice once occupied,” he said. “Whatever we call these movements — ‘social justice,’ ‘wokeness,’ ‘identity politics,’ ‘intersectionality,’ ‘successor ideology’ — they claim to offer what religion provides.” […]
Gomez, who recently tweeted that Catholics “are not activists,” did invoke Dorothy Day, a famous Catholic activist best known for her efforts to combat poverty in the 20th century. Day, Gomez said, was “an important witness for how Catholics can work to change our social order through radical detachment and love for the poor grounded in the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount and the works of mercy.”
The drugmaker Pfizer said Friday that clinical trials of its experimental Covid-19 pill have been so successful in preventing people from becoming hospitalized or dying from the virus, that it’s stopping the studies early in the hope that the general public might benefit.
Acceding to a storm of protest, the University of Florida abandoned efforts on Friday to keep three political science professors from testifying in a voting-rights lawsuit against the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Federal agents searched several locations belonging to current and former members of the conservative media company Project Veritas on Thursday in an investigation involving the possible theft of a diary belonging to President Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden, according to a statement from the group’s website and an FBI spokesperson. […]
In a statement Friday, Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe — known for producing “gotcha”-style undercover videos involving Democratic politicians, activists and the media — said his group had been approached by people claiming they had the Biden daughter’s diary, but they decided not to publish it.
“Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary” and “the tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary,” O’Keefe said. […]
We hope this is good news for the Census Bureau, which needs good leadership:
Robert Santos was confirmed Thursday as the next U.S. Census Bureau director, becoming the first person of color to lead the nation’s largest statistical agency on a permanent basis.
The Senate approved Santos, a third-generation Mexican American statistician from San Antonio, Texas, for the job overseeing a bureau that conducts the once-a-decade census, often described as the nation’s largest civilian mobilization, as well as surveys that create the data infrastructure of the nation.
The new director inherits a Census Bureau workforce recovering from the execution of the most difficult head count of U.S. residents in recent memory. The 2020 census was challenged last year by the pandemic, natural disasters, delays and attempts at political interference by the Trump administration. […]
The thousands of accounts censored by Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter collectively had hundreds of thousands of followers, and represented some of the biggest and most influential media outlets and organizations in Nicaragua, a relatively small country of 6.5 million people.
US Big Tech companies suspending all of these accounts mere days before elections could have a significant, tangible impact on Nicaragua’s electoral results.
The purges exclusively targeted supporters of the socialist, anti-imperialist Sandinista Front party. Zero right-wing opposition supporters in Nicaragua were impacted.
…
The Facebook report falsely depicting average Sandinista activists as government trolls was co-authored by Ben Nimmo, the leader of Meta’s “Threat Intelligence Team.” … [Nimmo was] a former press officer for [NATO] and paid consultant to an actual covert troll farm: the Integrity Initiative, which was established in secret by British military officers to run anti-Russian influence operations through Western media.
…
The head of security policy at Facebook, Nathaniel Gleicher, promoted Nimmo’s report, echoing his false claims.
Before moving to Facebook, Gleicher was director for cybersecurity policy at the White House National Security Council. He also worked at the US Department of Justice.
…
Facebook’s “director of threat disruption,” David Agranovich, also shared Nimmo’s false report.
Like Gleicher, Agranovich worked at the US government before moving to Facebook, serving as director of intelligence for the White House National Security Council.
The Biden administration is trying to meddle in Nicaragua again, and Silicon Valley is happy to spook up and provide the propaganda muscle.
Dropping by to share a great quote from Silvia Federici’s 2004 Caliban and the Witch (p. 115):
…[T]he power-difference between women and men and the concealment of women’s unpaid-labor under the cover of natural inferiority, have enabled capitalism to immensely expand the “unpaid part of the working day,” and use the (male) wage to accumulate women’s labor; in many cases, they have also served to deflect class antagonism into an antagonism between men and women. Thus, primitive accumulation has been above all an accumulation of differences, inequalities, hierarchies, divisions, which have alienated workers from each other and even from themselves.
…[M]ale workers have often been complicitous with this process, as they have tried to maintain their power with respect to capital by devaluing and disciplining women, children, and the populations the capitalist class has colonized. But the power that men have imposed on women by virtue of their access to wage-labor and their recognized contribution to capitalist accumulation has been paid at the price of self-alienation, and the “primitive disaccumulation” of their own individual and collective powers.
The House of Representatives of Friday night passed the bipartisan infrastructure package, sending the bill to Joe Biden’s desk to be signed into law.
The chamber is set to consider a procedural vote on the Build Back Better Act, the social spending package, but a vote on the bill itself was delayed by several moderate Democrats’ insistence that the bill first receive a Congressional Budget Office analysis.
[…] The infrastructure bill passed 228-206, with 13 Republicans in support and a handful of Democrats voting against it.
[…] A few minutes before the vote, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramilya Jayapal (D-WA), announced an agreement to vote on both the infrastructure bill and the procedural step for the Build Back Better Act after a handful of moderates, who’d demanded a CBO score for the BBB Act, agreed to vote on it no later than the week of Nov. 15.
beholdersays
@366 Lynna
Good news?
It reads like the sorry end of some half-assed political theater. The nominal progressives withdraw their only credible threat (hint hint, it’s to vote against both infrastructure bills), and unilaterally disarm after giving the right-wing Democrats what they want. The whole act was rotten from the start, and all it seems to show is that Biden successfully recruited the pseudo-left elements of the Democratic party to shill for his right-wing infrastructure agenda. For the progressives to cave now should be regarded as humiliating.
Betcha they’ll use it as a feather in their cap for re-election, before they get hosed by Republicans in the midterms.
A man who sustained life-altering injuries in 2017 from being violently struck by a car driven by the man who ultimately murdered Heather Heyer took the witness stand in Charlottesville on Thursday as part of an ongoing trial against “Unite the Right” rally organizers. Thomas Baker said he now lives with chronic pain and limited mobility as well as the emotional effects from the crash. Baker told attorney David Mills, who is part of a team representing plaintiffs in the Sines vs. Kessler case, that a book falling to the floor can trigger a panic attack and memories of the event.
Baker expertly handled cross-examination from the likes of Richard Spencer (who hasn’t fared so great as his own attorney) and Christopher “Crying Nazi” Cantwell, the latter of whom became visibly upset when Baker said he did not see swaths of “antifa” carrying out violent attacks that August weekend in 2017. It got to a point that Judge Norman Moon stepped in to reiterate that Baker hadn’t seen any counterprotesters carrying bats when repeatedly pressed by Cantwell.
Baker made it abundantly clear that he knew participants of the “Unite the Right” rally were racist instigators willing to parachute in and terrorize the city of Charlottesville without a single care for its residents. He categorized them as bullies but admitted the word likely was too weak a descriptor.
Baker recalled members of the neo-Confederate League of the South barreling through counterprotesters with their shields and striking people with flagpoles as they made their way to a park where no actual rally took place. League of the South members pelted the crowd with objects and repeatedly raced back and forth to continue attacking counterprotesters as their nonevent soon became labeled an “unlawful assembly.”
Perhaps the most alarming testimony came from League of the South co-founder Michael Hill, who was made to recite a racist pledge he made in 2016 and did so with aplomb. Hill also readily admitted that his opinion hadn’t changed about the outcome of the “Unite the Right” rally, either. […]
Hill never apologized to Heyer’s family or to anyone impacted by the rally and has no plans to do so. He’s consistently defended convicted murderer James Fields, who fatally struck Heyer with his car and was responsible for Baker’s injuries as well as dozens of other people. And he isn’t alone in being an unabashed Nazi hellbent on violence in a trial that hinges on proving “Unite the Right” rally organizers’ very explicit intent to harm anyone who stands in their way. The trial continues next week, with a break on Thursday for a holiday. Defendants are expected to provide an estimate on Monday of how many trial dates they need to keep digging their own graves.
Paul Ksays
@ 367 beholder
I agree completely with the facts as you state them, but I think this was unavoidable because of the political reality of the way our government works. I had hopes that things would be different, but here we are. When so much power rests in the hands of so few people, or even one person, to stop what even the vast majority of the people want, and when money and its influence are involved, then one greedy bastard can stop everything. My own view is that this can still lead to better things for at least some folks, which is all I ever expected. Which sucks, but is good news compared to the alternative of nothing. I hope that some kind of BBB bill passes, and that it does enough good that Dems can use it to beat the Nuts party in the mid-terms. It’s a slim hope, but better than despair.
[…] The result of those talks was a written commitment from five moderate Democrats — Reps. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Ed Case (Hawaii), Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), Kathleen Rice (N.Y.) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.) — to support the social spending package if the yet-to-be released cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is consistent with a White House analysis, no later than the week of Nov. 15.
[…] the moderates said they “remain committed to working to resolve any discrepancies in order to pass the Build Back Better legislation.”
The Congressional Progressive Caucus leader, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), issued a statement in turn affirming that her members would back the two measures on Friday.
[…] 19 Republicans backed the infrastructure measure in the Senate, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).
Heading into the day, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Democratic leaders had hoped to vote quickly not only on the infrastructure proposal, but also the Build Back Better Act. That plan hit a brick wall when a band of moderate Democrats raised concerns about deficit spending and balked at the idea of voting on the larger bill without a score from the CBO.
[…] the fate of the social spending package is still far from sealed.
Numerous provisions currently in the House bill are likely to be stripped out or amended once it reaches the Senate.
It’s not yet clear if provisions establishing temporary work permits and protection from deportation for certain immigrants will pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian, who determines whether the bill complies with arcane budget reconciliation rules that will enable Democrats to circumvent a GOP filibuster.
Before Friday’s fight over procedure and process, House Democratic leaders ironed out some final policy provisions late Thursday related to allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of certain prescription drugs and the state and local tax deduction.
[…] Friday’s votes marked the most significant progress House Democrats have made in almost two months on the two bills, which they’ve been trying to advance since late September. […]
The legislative plan may well change again, but in the meantime Democrats in the House plan to vote on the social spending (Build Back Better) bill before Thanksgiving.
The bipartisan bill includes $550 billion in new investments in roads, bridges, broadband and more. It is widely expected to create a lot of jobs.
[…] House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday secured passage of an approximately $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill to upgrade the nation’s roads, bridges, pipes, ports, broadband, and other public works.
[…] The infrastructure package contains $550 billion in entirely new investments, including money for electric-car charging stations and zero-emission school buses. The spending is mostly paid for — without raising taxes. The bulk of the funding comes from repurposing unspent coronavirus relief money and tightening enforcement on reporting gains from cryptocurrency investments. The bill would add about $256 billion to the debt, according to the Congressional Budget Office. […]
Charts and more details are available at the link.
In the “Transportation” section there are these guidelines for spending;
$110 billion on roads and bridges
$66 billion on railroads
$39 billion on public transit
$25 billion on airports
$17 billion on ports
$15 billion on electric vehicles
$11 billion on road safety
$1 billion for reconnecting communities
In the “Utilities” section there are these guidelines for spending:
$65 billion for power infrastructure
$65 billion for broadband
$55 billion for water infrastructure
$47 billion for resilience
$21 billion for pollution remediation
$8 billion for Western water infrastructure
Akira MacKenziesays
@371
Of course, that won’t even begin to fix anything in the shithole country.
tomhsays
@ #372
$1.2 trillion might begin to fix something. Or maybe, if we can’t fix everything we shouldn’t bother to fix anything.
NEW ORLEANS (CN) — A freelance Texas journalist who publishes her reports exclusively on Facebook will return to federal court after the Fifth Circuit revived her free speech claims against the officials who arrested her for asking questions of police.
Priscilla Villarreal has reported on everything from local crime to public corruption by officials in the border city of Laredo under the name La Gordiloca. Her reporting, which often includes colorful and unfiltered commentary, has led to investigations by the FBI and other agencies and gained her a Facebook following of over 190,000.
Villarreal’s 2019 federal lawsuit came after she was charged two years earlier with two felony counts of misuse of information after she published the names of victims in a suicide and car crash on Facebook before they were made public.
While Villarreal said she got the names from a Laredo police officer, Texas law makes it a Class 3 felony to seek and receive information from an official that has not yet been made available to the public. The statute was later found to be unconstitutional, and the criminal charges were dropped.
Monday’s 2-1 ruling from the Fifth Circuit renews the lawsuit Villarreal filed against officials in Laredo over claims that she was wrongly arrested and retaliated against in violation of her constitutional rights to free speech and protection from unlawful seizure.
A federal judge had extended qualified immunity to the officials, but the New Orleans-based appellate court ruled that “obvious violations of the Constitution” are not shielded by immunity.
“Priscilla Villarreal was put in jail for asking a police officer a question,” U.S. Circuit Judge James Ho, a Donald Trump appointee, wrote for the majority. “If that is not an obvious violation of the Constitution, it’s hard to imagine what would be. And as the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, public officials are not entitled to qualified immunity for obvious violations of the Constitution.”
[…]
“I’m obviously very happy with this decision,” Villarreal told her followers. “To be honest with you, I’m just freaking out right now. We won guys; we won in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. You know what that is called? That’s called [expletive] karma.”
A federal appeals court on Saturday stayed enforcement of the Biden administration’s private-employer vaccine mandate, contending it raises “grave statutory and constitutional issues.”
President Biden announced earlier in the week that certain employers must ensure their workers are fully vaccinated or tested weekly by Jan. 4, 2022, or face federal fines starting at nearly $14,000 per violation, according to senior administration officials.
The Texas attorney general, along with the attorney generals of Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah joined the petition, in addition to several companies and sought an emergency stay against the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which will enforce the COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard that affects about two-thirds of all U.S. workers.
A three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ released the unsigned and unpublished order, which contained no additional explanation for the stay.
Those judges on the panel included Edith Hollan Jones, nominated by Ronald Reagan, and Kyle Duncan and Kurt Engelhardt, both appointed by Donald Trump.
[…]
The Biden administration has until Monday at 5 p.m. to respond to the request for a permanent injunction.
As for this week’s election, it swept in a lot of progressive mayors of color. The most prominent was Michelle Wu, who won the Boston mayor’s seat as the first woman and first person of color. Elaine O’Neal will become Durham, North Carolina’s, first Black woman mayor, and Abdullah Hammoud will become Dearborn’s first Muslim and Arab American mayor. Aftab Pureval will become Cincinnati’s first Asian American mayor. Pittsburgh elected its first Black mayor, and so did Kansas City, Kansas. Cleveland’s new mayor is also Black. New York City elected its second Black Democratic mayor, and Shahana Hanif became the first Muslim woman elected to the city council (incidentally, New York City and Virginia have about the same population). In Seattle, a moderate defeated a progressive, which you could also phrase as a Black and Asian American man defeated a Latina. A lot of queer and trans people won elections, or in the case of Virginia’s Danica Roem, the first out trans person to win a seat in a state legislature, won reelection.
In Philadelphia, Larry Krasner, who in 2017 was the first of a wave of ultra-progressive district attorneys to take office across the country, swept to a second term with 69% of the vote. “I want to congratulate him. He beat my pants off,” said his Republican rival. In Cleveland, Austin, Denver and Albany, citizens voted in police-reform measures, and while a more radical measure in Minneapolis lost, it got a good share of votes. 2021 wasn’t a great election year for Democrats but it’s not hard to argue that it wasn’t a terrible one, and either way it just wasn’t a big one, with a handful of special elections for congressional seats, some state and local stuff, and only two gubernatorial elections.
It is true that the Democratic Party is large and chaotic with a wide array of political positions among its elected officials, which is what happens when you’re a coalition imperfectly representing a wide array of voters, by class, race, and position from moderate to radical on the political spectrum. It’s also true the US is a two-party system and the alternative at present is the Republican party, which is currently a venal and utterly corrupt cult bent on many kinds of destruction. It’s the party whose last leader, with the help of many Republicans still in Congress, produced a violent coup in an attempt to steal an election.
So, yeah, Youngkin won the governor’s race in Virginia. Now he has a trumpist base that is going to give him a lot of trouble:
Now that we won Virginia for Youngkin here’s our list of demands: 1) Audit the 2020 Presidential election and the 2021 governor’s election 2) Ban all CRT in grade school 3) Reverse all gun control 4) Strengthen election laws 5) Make “Let’s Go Brandon” the state motto 6) Make Let’s Go Brandon license plate
The text above is quoted from the right-wing Twitter-wannabe social media outlet, Parler Chronicles. (Reddit’s r/ParlerWatch subreddit.)
Commentary:
[…] “Let’s Go, Brandon,” of course, is the new conservative shorthand for “fuck Joe Biden,” because the “family values” church crowd has decided that profanity is actually okay as long as it’s directed at a Democratic president.
“Ban all CRT” is particularly choice, given their hysterics over “cancel culture.” Again, conservatives don’t care about being hypocritical, which is a powerful advantage in the culture wars. As long as something is hating on someone, it’s valid, regardless of any internal logic. [See PZ’s “Is it OK to lie in your election campaign?” for an excellent rejoinder to the madness and disinformation surrounding CRT.]
[…] Of course, remember that Democrats still control the state Senate, so there is a limit to what Youngkin can do, at least for the next two years. And he’ll need to keep those suburban voters happy by not being a monumental Trumpist asshole while keeping this Pepe base happy. It’ll be quite the balancing act. […]
Anyway, good luck to Youngkin, because he’s going to need it. As everyone knows, governing is already hard enough. And winning an election by flashing two different, diametrically opposed messages to win both the Trump rural areas and suburbs will inevitably lead to disappointment with all sides.
Youngkin’s rightwing supporters are also insisting that he remove mask mandates “from everywhere.” And, by “Strengthen election laws,” they mean suppress the vote of anyone who is not a rabid rightwing Republican. Youngkin’s base is already having a fit over the fact that Youngkin said he wants to fight antisemitism.
Why would Youngkin want to audit a race that he won?
[…] Everyone—simply everyone—is piling on Aaron Rodgers right now. Let me get in line […]
Friday on the The Pat McAfee Show, which sounds like the kind of place cowards scurry to when they don’t want to be challenged by people who actually know what they’re talking about, Rodgers trotted out loads of mealy MAGA bromides about personal preferences, “woke” mobs, worthless “research,” and oh-so-scary cancel culture to justify his decision to remain unvaccinated—and then lie about it to the media. What did I hear? “I don’t give a shit about anyone, especially the people I came into contact with who didn’t know my true vaccination status.”
I’ve had it with this pandemic. We all have. So when a remarkable vaccine came out that showed every potential to essentially end it—at least in the United States—the sense of relief was palpable. Unfortunately, because of people like Rodgers, untold thousands of Americans have died unnecessarily while armchair quarterbacks infectious disease experts have dithered and done their own “research.”
All these Facebook Ph.D.s have put us behind the 8-ball, endangering their fellow citizens, stunting our economic recovery, and dividing an already fraught nation in some truly frightening ways. I don’t care if I ever see Aaron Rodgers in a Packers uniform again. In fact, I hope I don’t—but that’s hardly up to me.
Personal choice is a great thing, and it’s part and parcel of an abiding American virtue. Freedom is precious, yes. But that includes the freedom to live in a safe and sane society. We’ve lost that amid a rancid stew of selfishness and fake liberty.
You don’t have the right to drive drunk, to wave a loaded gun around at a concert, or to spread your freedom phlegm to unwitting reporters who are just doing their jobs. You also have no right to lie to the people you’re endangering with your daft decisions. If you want to live dangerously, go skydiving, climb Mt. Everest, or bet on the Packers to win the NFC Championship. I prefer to stay alive and solvent, and that’s my choice. […]
A string of antisemitic attacks has taken place over the last few days across Texas and in Austin. In the latest incident, several people in an Austin neighborhood received hateful letters at their homes. The letters received by Jewish residents in Hays County were sealed in a plastic bag filled with small rocks, Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra said Sunday, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
The letters blamed Jewish community members for the novel coronavirus pandemic. “Every single aspect of the COVID agenda is Jewish,” the letters read. They also named Jewish scientists and pointed fingers at leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that are Jewish […]
According to the Anti-Defamation League in Austin, 17 antisemitic incidents have been reported in the past 10 days in Texas. This includes an incident in which Austin’s Congregation Beth Israel synagogue was set on fire Sunday night, While the damage was contained to the exterior of the building, fire officials said they are looking for a man seen carrying a five-gallon container then fleeing the scene in a car after starting the fire.
Additionally, in October about a dozen people displayed an antisemitic banner from the heavily trafficked North MoPac Boulevard overpass, and displayed similar posters in the East Sixth Street entertainment area, the Houston Chronicle reported. In the same week, an Austin school building was also vandalized with swastikas, homophobic slogans, and racist slurs.
Community leaders and others condemned the actions, including the Austin City Council and mayor.
“When we see acts of hate, they’re jarring. They’re hurtful, and they are scary. […] Austin Mayor Steve Adler said, according to the Houston Chronicle. “Because there are people who do hateful and horrible, wrongful things.”
[…] The Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—one of North America’s largest labor unions—announced its support for expanding the court in comments to the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States, urging that panel to restore the court’s legitimacy. Writing for the group, International President Mary Kay Henry represents the “union of approximately two million working women and men.” That’s two million workers who “stand in the unique position of being the targets of a long-running, coordinated, and well-funded effort to strip them of their organizing and other rights via federal-court litigation.” What’s more, Henry writes, “many SEIU members, as BIPOC citizens, are also targets of an additional campaign to strip them of their voting rights. That anti-voter campaign, like the anti-worker effort, has found success with this Supreme Court.”
“We firmly believe that this democracy rests on a razor’s edge and came, within the last 12 months, very close to falling apart,” Henry tells the commission, in large part because the “interests of poor and working people have been largely shut out from government and the law, feeding the rise of anti-democratic forces […] Henry pleads with the commission to “not forget where we have been in the last twelve months” and to “not get lost in all the academic talk and mundaneness of Zoom meeting rooms.”
Henry makes a powerful argument for substantive reform, for the commission to not do the thing most presidential commissions do: “Please be wary of meaningless gestures at reform and of resistance to change that is camouflaged as seemingly reasonable restraint, and please interrogate what may be even your own inherent biases against change.” Such gestures include a reform the commission seems to be considering, instituting term limits, which is nibbling around the edges of a 6-3 majority that is intent on rolling back decades of progress. Spending valuable time and political capital on such a limited effort, that could ultimately be rejected by that extremist majority anyway, puts that idea “in the category of apparent reforms that may achieve nothing.”
“We believe it is long past time to expand the size of the Court,” Henry writes on behalf of the SEIU. “You have an opportunity to lend your credibility to serious suggestions that can lead to real change. Please do not waste it.”
As of now, wasting this opportunity appears that’s what the commission is inclined to do, scheduled to finish its work with a final report on December 15. The commission should recognize within itself what Henry warns it against, that its members are “blessed by power, prestige, and expensive educations, […] very good at cloaking their arguments in what sound like high-minded principles.”
Meanwhile, the effort to build a coalition in Congress to do the job the commission doesn’t seem to want to take on continues and strengthens. There are now 40 House members cosponsoring the Judiciary Act of 2021 to expand the court.
“Saturday Night Live” unveiled a new cast member’s portrayal of […] Trump in the opening skit of the sketch comedy show’s latest episode.
James Austin Johnson, who joined “SNL” this year and is widely known for his Trump impression, parodied the former president doing an interview with cast member Cecily Strong as Fox News host Jeanine Pirro on “Justice with Judge Jeanine.”
Johnson’s Trump appeared with Strong’s Pirro to comment on last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Virginia. He was brought on screen after Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin (R), played by cast member Alex Moffat, said he was grateful to parents who helped him with the race without the help of Trump.
Johnson’s Trump continued speaking throughout the parodied television interview, going on rants about “Star Wars,” “Game of Thrones,” the new film “Dune,” Chris Pratt, the video game character Mario, Santa Claus and a number of other topics.
“Wow, you are impressive […] Strong’s Pirro [said]
The cold open also spoofed Green Bay Packers player Aaron Rodgers, played by Pete Davidson, amid his vaccine scandal, and Youngkin’s opposition to certain books in schools.
Here’s a link where you can watch the Aaron Rodgers parody.
[…] Strong’s Pirro introduced Davidson’s Rodgers as “an American brave enough to stand up and say ‘screw you science, I know Joe Rogan.’”
Davidson’s Rodgers said it was great to be on the program, adding, “Remember when I hosted ‘Jeopardy’?” referring to the NFL star’s successful run as the guest host of the popular trivia show.
Strong’s Pirro began the interview discussing Rodgers’s decision not to get vaccinated.
“Now Aaron, you’re not vaccinated. So what? Who the hell cares? It’s your body, your choice. And please never use that quote for any other issue,” she said, referring to the popular slogan used by abortion advocates.
Davidson’s Rodgers said it’s “my body and my COVID,” adding that the “woke mob” is coming after him. He said matters have gotten so bad that State Farm is no longer offering him the “Rodgers Rate,” referring to his commercials with the insurance company.
Asked if he ever lied about getting vaccinated, Davidson’s Rodgers said he did not, adding, “I took all my teammates into a huddle, got all their faces three inches away from my wet mouth, and told them ‘trust me, I’m more or less immunized. Go team.’”
He also told Strong’s Pirro that his record is seven and one, meaning “of the eight people I infected, seven are fine.”
“Call this guy ‘the bottom of the Snapple cap’ because he got facts,” Strong’s Pirro said while ending the interview.
Rodgers is already seeing fallout in the wake of his positive COVID-19 test. Last week, Prevea Health said its partnership with Rodgers would be terminated on Saturday. The NFL star has been a spokesperson for the Wisconsin-based health group since 2012.
Wonkette: Big Bird Got Vaxxed, And Ted Cruz, Usual Assholes, Being Usual Assholes About It.”
Last year, poor innocent Ted Cruz was deeply traumatized after the Twitter account for the Sesame Street Workshop sent out a tweet for Pride month. “Endless propaganda. This is a taxpayer-funded show targeted at pre-K children. It doesn’t need to be talking about sex or sexuality at all,” he wrote, referring to a sexually explicit picture featuring Elmo in full bondage gear.
Either that or it was a wholesome picture of all the Sesame Street muppets reaching their hands out to a rainbow heart. One of the two. […]
Anyway, the Sesame Street Workshop has gone and done it again, deeply upsetting Cruz and other conservatives by allowing Big Bird to tweet out that he got a vaccine — which they are claiming is “government propaganda” directed at children.
Here are just a few comments from the quote tweets.
“They are coming for your kids” […]
“Breaking news! Big bird is hospitalized with multiple blood clots and uncontrollable muscle spasms…the hospital is so full of vaxxed patients he has to share a room with the grinch who’s heart grew three times it’s normal size the day of his shot.”
“Time to go #hunting for some big yellow propaganda spewing birds.”
“This kind of propaganda is actually evil. Your children are not statistically at risk, and should not be pressured into a brand new treatment. Do Not Comply!”
Clearly, the Right does not believe muppets are entitled to free speech protections. Should Big Bird have checked with Ted Cruz before revealing his vaccination status, in order to avoid doing any inadvertent government propaganda that might go against the wishes of a person who literally works in the government?
Alt-Right mouthpiece and rape apologist Mike Cernovich was particularly upset, first replying “What’s the treatment for myocarditis in birds?” as if the risk for myocarditis isn’t several times greater with COVID than the vaccines. Despite this, the “His bird heart is going to explode!” rhetoric was one of the more popular responses to the tweet from the Right, even though that is not what myocarditis is. Myocarditis, for the record, is very rare and usually goes away on its own in a matter of days. COVID can wreck you for life.
He also asked, “Isn’t it illegal to advertise drugs to children?” We can only imagine the outrage when he finds out about Children’s Tylenol. […]
As Big Bird points out, this is not his first vaccine. He got vaccinated against something in 1972, way back when he was still six years old. As far as we know, no one freaked out about this. […]
While the Sesame Street Workshop is not actually “funded by taxpayers” (but rather primarily through donations and licensing) or literally brought to you by the letter B, it is a common occurrence for certain forms of “government propaganda” to be directed at children, particularly as it concerns health. That’s not weird. It’s just that only recently has “health” become such a partisan issue. […]
It’s also an odd complaint coming from people who believe children should be forced to say the Pledge of Allegiance, with the “Under God” part intact, […]
The Right loves government propaganda and has no problem pushing government propaganda on children, including literally demanding that they be allowed to use public schools and libraries to brainwash kids into believing that America is and has always been without flaw and that racism doesn’t exist here. Or even use them to convert children to Christianity through school prayer. All of that is far more insidious than a giant muppet bird getting an FDA-approved vaccine, just like Ted Cruz did.
There are few things in this world that make any kind of sense. But every so often, everything lines up so perfectly that you immediately exclaim to yourself, “Yes! Of course. How could it possibly be any other way?”
And so it is with the revelation that Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona is in cahoots with a whole bunch of multi-level marketing companies who are loading her up with cash, as she is their last great hope in continuing to screw over their legions of #bossbabes and hunbots. Sinema is the lone Democratic senator still fully opposed to the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which would make it more difficult for these totally-not-pyramid-schemes to classify their workers as “independent contractors.”
Via Politico:
The political action committee associated with Alticor, the parent entity of the health, home and beauty company Amway, gave $2,500 to the Arizona Democrat in late June, as did the PAC for Isagenix, an Arizona-based business that sells nutrition, wellness and personal care products. Nu Skin Enterprises, another personal care and beauty company [also mostly Mormon], gave $2,500 that month, as did USANA Health Sciences, which sells similar products. In April, Richard Raymond Rogers, the executive chair of Mary Kay, a Texas-based cosmetics company, gave $2,500 to Sinema. Herbalife, which also sells nutritional supplements, gave $2,500 in July. All are affiliated with the Direct Selling Association, a trade group that promotes multilevel marketing.
That is a lot of money for NuSkin, by the way. In 2017, only 473 of their 65,778 active distributors made more than than $2,500. 55,911 of those distributors made nothing. It sure is hard to see why anyone might want to regulate labor practices like that.
Now, you may say, “Oh, these companies donate to lots of politicians,” but that is not the case here! Sinema was the only senator to get money from Isagenix and NuSkin PACs, and Utah-based USANA Health Sciences only gave to Sinema, the two senators from their home state, and a Republican PAC. […]
Direct-selling companies have had a presence in Washington that dates back decades. A co-founder of Amway, Richard DeVos, was a major force in the Republican party; his daughter-in-law, Betsy DeVos, herself a big GOP donor, served as the Education secretary under former President Donald Trump. In fact, the small industry’s outsized influence on D.C. politics is notable, said William Keep, a professor at the College of New Jersey who has written about multilevel marketing and pyramid schemes. The industry has its own caucus of House lawmakers, known as the Direct Selling Caucus, that lists 40 members as of February and boasts its own super PAC.
[…] Sinema’s connection to the industry goes beyond the simple enjoyment of seeing workers get screwed over, by the way — her mother, it turns out, was a direct seller herself. […]
While it appears she is no longer practicing, it seems worthwhile to note that Sinema was raised in the Church of Latter Day Saints. Why mention this? Because there is a reason Utah is the land of MLMs. These companies specifically target Mormon women and other women who belong to conservative Christian religions. […] The idea is that they can earn a little extra money for their frequently large families without compromising the tenets of whatever absurdly sexist religious tradition they adhere to, but it rarely works out that way. Still, they’re very heavily ingrained in that culture, and rightwing Christian fundamentalist culture is heavily ingrained in many of those businesses.
Were the PRO Act to pass, these MLMs would be forced to treat their “downline” workers as actual employees — meaning that not only would they have to provide them with health insurance, they would actually have to pay their employees with actual money instead of those employees selling their breast milk or mortgaging their homes to pay the MLM in order to buy an absurdly large supply of essential oils that no one wants anyway, because of how essential oils are made of lies and are also occasionally toxic. The businesses would be subject to minimum wage laws and other labor laws that would basically make it impossible for those at the top of the totally-not-a-pyramid to turn a profit. As most MLM hunbots make less than 70 cents an hour, $7.25 an hour would be a pretty hefty pay raise.
The law would also allow for the huns to unionize, thereby creating the plot of the Lifetime movie of my dreams.
[…] These “businesses” are very clearly predatory. There are so, so many stories online from women who tried to become “boss babes” only to go broke and alienate everyone they’ve ever known in the process. It’s a horrible thing to do to people, and it is, quite frankly, completely bizarre that we have let this go on as long as we have. […]
Even Joe Manchin is signing onto the PRO Act, which kinda means it should not even be remotely controversial for anyone. If Sinema refuses after taking this money, it should be clear to one and all that she is not motivated by anything but money and chaos.
Eight people died and several were injured at a Travis Scott concert in Houston late Friday after a crush of concertgoers swelled toward the stage. An estimated 50,000 people attended the sold-out 2021 Astroworld Festival at NRG Park to see Scott, whose concerts have a reputation for being raucous.
Videos of the night show a chaotic scene in which concertgoers tried to yell for help but were drowned out by loud music. It’s not clear how many of the cries Scott heard, given that he was onstage and wearing in-ear monitors. The videos, mostly taken by members of the crowd, reveal a sense of panic that spiraled over the 70 minutes in which Scott performed his set.
The Washington Post reviewed dozens of videos from the night to understand how the mass-casualty event unfolded. The Post synchronized video from the audience with a live stream of Scott’s performance published by Apple Music. Key moments of synced videos display a tumultuous scene from the crowd’s perspective, which includes concertgoers receiving medical aid and others trying to stop the concert, as the show continues.
Scott takes the stage at around 9 p.m. to a roaring crowd. An overhead shot in a video live-streamed to Apple Music shows a massive, swaying crowd.
Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña said in a news conference following the event, “At approximately 9 o’clock, 9:15, the crowd began to compress towards the front of the stage and that caused some panic and it started causing some injuries. People began to fall out, become unconscious and it created additional, additional panic.”
Video from 9:12 p.m. showed a group of tightly packed people. “Help … please help!” can be heard in the recording.
At this point in the concert, Scott is still performing.
Roughly 21 minutes into his set, Scott pauses and hunches over. The crowd chants “Travis!” Scott straightens up and walks to the right side of the arena and points offstage. He asks for the lights. “Make some noise for my boy right there hanging in the tree.” In a video from Tré Pixley who was in the crowd at the same time, people wave at the stage shouting, “medic!” Scott tells everyone to put their middle fingers up in the sky “because they are ready to rage” and begins his next song.
At around 9:30 p.m., a concertgoer climbs up a ladder to a raised platform and tries to get the attention of camera operators. People in the audience are agitated, and the man points generally to the crowd and yells, “Shut the f— up. Someone’s in there. People are f—ing dying. I want to save somebody’s life. That’s somebody’s kid … I want to save them.”
[…] At around 9:42, Scott stops mid-song after noticing someone in the crowd passed out. “We need somebody to help him. Somebody passed out right here. Somebody passed out right here. Hold on, don’t touch him, don’t touch him,” he says. “Everybody just back up. Security, somebody help, jump in real quick, keep going … Somebody jump in, come on, come on, security get in there. Let’s get it in there, let’s get it in there, let’s get it in there, let’s get in there.” Video from the Apple Music live stream shows what appears to be security members in bright green jackets arriving to the area Scott points at.
Scott then continues to perform. […]
Another video from around 9:43 p.m. shows a group of people chanting in unison, “Stop the show, stop the show!” The video shows people waving their arms and pointing.
The concert stops roughly an hour after videos from the crowd showed concertgoers visibly in distress and yelling for help.
Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) said the dead ranged in age from teens to young adults. According to Peña, the causes of the deaths had not yet been determined. He added that at least 11 of the 17 people taken to the hospital were in cardiac arrest and required CPR.
For months, there have been warnings of the disaster that might befall Ethiopia if Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed could not reconcile with his foes in the rebel Tigray province. And for months, outside pressure, pleading, inducements and, from the United States, targeted sanctions have proved incapable of stemming the conflict’s escalation. Now, the disaster is at hand. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), based in a northern province of 6 million people, has effectively countered an offensive by Mr. Abiy’s forces and is driving toward the capital, Addis Ababa, in alliance with other armies linked to Ethiopia’s multiple ethnic groups. There is a real chance that the TPLF could seize power, as it did in 1991, or at least plunge the second most populous country in Africa — a once economically booming nation of 115 million people — into total civil war.
Mr. Abiy’s response has been to urge Addis Ababa’s population, in vitriolic terms, to take up arms. “We will bury this enemy with our blood and bones and make the glory of Ethiopia high again,” he said Wednesday. More worrisome are reports that Mr. Abiy’s minions, taking advantage of a newly declared state of emergency, are fanning out across Addis Ababa residential areas, arresting ethnic Tigrayans who live in the city. Though a gross violation of human rights, such behavior is consistent with Mr. Abiy’s general approach to the conflict, which has been to treat it as a war against all Tigrayans; hence, his policy of denying humanitarian aid to reach potentially millions of starving Tigrayan civilians in the countryside.
The TPLF’s hands are hardly clean in this war; its responsibility begins with the repression that accompanied its time in power before Mr. Abiy’s election in 2018, an event that stirred hopes of true democratic change. A year ago, the TPLF, angered that Mr. Abiy postponed elections due, he said, to the covid pandemic, provoked Mr. Abiy’s government by assaulting the central government’s military bases in Tigray. TPLF troops have committed their share of atrocities in the current counteroffensive. Nevertheless, Mr. Abiy should have sought dialogue at the outset of this conflict, as one might have expected from a man who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Abiy was recognized for settling Ethiopia’s long-running war with next-door Eritrea. […]
For the United States, the looming war in Ethiopia raises the prospect of a failed state where there was once an ally in its efforts to fight terrorism in the Horn of Africa. The Biden administration has reacted to the latest events by threatening to limit U.S. market access for Ethiopian exports under the African Growth and Opportunity Act as of Jan. 1, a benefit that affected roughly $150 million worth of goods in the pandemic economy of 2020. Perhaps that will sway Mr. Abiy, even though no other U.S. measure has. Something must cause him, and the rest of Ethiopia’s warring leaders, to change course, or else another bloodbath will engulf this long-suffering country.
House Republicans swiftly took aim at 13 of their colleagues who voted for the bipartisan infrastructure bill late Friday night, despite the legislation’s bipartisan passage in the Senate last August.
On Friday night, the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed 228-206, with 13 Republicans in support and six progressive Democrats voting against it after it was delayed by several moderate Democrats who insisted that the House wait for a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the bill. […]
Examples of online “statements” by Republicans are available at the link. Those statements tend to lean toward’s this: “House Democrats’ Infrastructure Bill/Pathway to Socialism.”
The Border Patrol … still more trouble, and yet more unethical behavior:
A network of organizations along the southern borderlands is calling on Congressional leaders to open an investigation into what they describe as possibly “the largest and longest-standing shadow police unit that is operating today in the federal government.” They say in a statement that Border Patrol’s Critical Incident Teams (BPCITs) have for years acted to cover up abuses at the hands of agents, with a “stated purpose is to mitigate civil liability for agents. There is no known equivalent in any other law enforcement agency.”
“The actions of these Border Patrol units to withhold, destroy, and corrupt evidence and to tamper with witnesses have gone unchecked for decades,” the Southern Border Communities Coalition (SBCC) says in the Oct. 27 letter to top Senate and House lawmakers. “It’s time for Congress to investigate them fully.”
“Known by many names, BPCITs have existed since at least 1987, and appear to be operating in many, if not all, Border Patrol sectors in the country,” lawmakers write, noting they operate “as shadow police units outside of federal law and without congressional authority. Their existence poses a threat to public safety by concealing agent misconduct, enabling abuse, and exacerbating impunity within the nation’s largest law enforcement agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection(CBP). Immediate investigations into BPCITs are imperative.”
SBCC notes the role of BPCITs in the cover-up around the 2010 killing of Anastasio Hernandez Rojas, a father of five U.S. citizen kids, at the hands of agents. He was hog-tied, beaten, and tased into unconsciousness, later dying in a hospital. Earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reported that as many as 17 agents were involved in his killing.
[…] the BPCIT failed to preserve video evidence,” the letter continues. “Over several weeks, in an act of deliberate omission that led to the destruction of evidence, BPCIT members repeatedly withheld video surveillance footage requested from SDPD and instead gave SDPD footage that did not pertain to the incident, while allowing the requested footage to be erased and taped over.” It’s intentional—federal immigration officials already have a history of deleting key video footage surrounding the deaths of immigrants.
[…] “The overreach of the BPCITs is profound,” SBCC tells legislators in urging an investigation. “The scale of their unlawful behavior jeopardizes public safety and public trust. And the fact that they have been able to operate for decades without scrutiny is alarming. As Border Patrol’s primary tool to shield agents from accountability, the BPCITs must be called into question by Congress.”
“The fact that no border agent has ever been successfully prosecuted in the nearly 100-year history of the Border Patrol is not accidental,” SBCC Director Vicki Gaubeca said. “It is by design, and for more than three decades has resulted in impunity directly due to the interference of unauthorized Border Patrol cover-up units that have protected agents rather than the members of the public harmed by them. This must end, and Congress can play a pivotal role. We call on Congress to investigate these cover-up units, assess the harm they have caused, and shut them down.”
The RNC spent much of the year telling voters there’s a direct line between White House policies and job numbers. That wasn’t a smart strategy.
In April, job growth in the United States wasn’t awful — more than a quarter of a million new jobs were created — but it fell short of expectations. The Republican National Committee, of course, wasted little time in blaming President Joe Biden.
A month later, the employment market bounced back — more than 600,000 jobs were created in May — but the RNC slammed the Democratic White House anyway.
This got a little weird in July, when the economy created more than a million jobs, and the RNC decided not to bother issuing any statement at all about the good news.
All of which helped lay the groundwork for Friday’s encouraging economic news, which the RNC struggled to criticize:
Today, Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Ronna McDaniel released the following statement on the October jobs report. “After months of failed policies and bad jobs reports, the one person who does not deserve credit for creating jobs is Joe Biden….”
LOL
First, the idea that we’ve seen months of “bad jobs reports” is curious. In September, for example, the RNC said job creation was “disastrous.” But based on the latest data, there were 312,000 new jobs created in September. In 40 of the 48 months that Donald Trump was president, the economy failed to generate this many jobs. Does the Republican National Committee see his presidency as having been “disastrous” for job creation?
A month earlier, the economy created 483,000 jobs. The month before that, it was over 1 million. The month before that, the total was 962,000. Where exactly are these months of “bad jobs reports” hiding?
Second, Republicans can’t have it both ways. The RNC has spent much of the year connecting Biden’s policies to job growth over and over and over again. The party effectively told the public that there’s a direct line between the White House’s agenda and U.S. job creation.
[…] The economy has already created nearly 6 million jobs this year, more than the first two years of the Trump era combined. And wouldn’t you know it, when jobs reports are fantastic, the Republican Party decides the connection between the presidency and the economy is severed […]
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut added, “I’ll save you some time. The RNC believes Joe Biden has 100% control of the economy when things go bad and 0% control of the economy when things go right.”
We’re left with a question for Republicans the party may struggle to answer: If the Democratic White House’s economic policies are so awful, how does the RNC and its allies explain the 5.8 million jobs created so far this year and the fact that the unemployment rate is down to 4.6 percent?
A quarter of a century after Newt Gingrich went after funds for public broadcasting, some Republicans are apparently ready for Round Two against Big Bird.
Shortly after Republicans made dramatic gains in the 1994 midterm elections, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich was eager to get to work on his plans to balance the budget. High on the Republican’s list was eliminating federal funds for public broadcasting.
The move was not well received. In fact, it led to headlines such as, “Are Newt and His Cronies Afraid of Big Bird?” When the Clinton White House prevailed in budget talks, and support for public broadcasting survived, there were related headlines such as, “Big Bird Taken Off Death Row.”
In other words, Republicans picked a fight with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — and Big Bird won.
A quarter of a century later, it appears the GOP is taking aim at the 8-foot, 2-inch Muppet again. NBC News reported yesterday:
Big Bird’s seemingly innocuous — and obviously fictional — announcement Saturday that he has been vaccinated against Covid-19 caused a stir online, as Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas accused the yellow anthropomorphic bird of tweeting “government propaganda.”
“I got the COVID-19 vaccine today! My wing is feeling a little sore, but it’ll give my body an extra protective boost that keeps me and others healthy,” Big Bird wrote on Twitter over the weekend. “Ms. @EricaRHill even said I’ve been getting vaccines since I was a little bird. I had no idea!”
The timing of the tweet was not coincidental: Children aged 5 to 11 are now eligible for the Pfizer vaccine. Big Bird, whose character is perpetually 6 years old, was clearly using social media to help inform kids about important public health information.
[…]A Republican congressional candidate in Pennsylvania suggested the vaccine might kill Big Bird while a GOP state legislator in Arizona called the Muppet a “communist.”
Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing for context that Big Bird has spent decades helping inform families about public health campaigns, including vaccination efforts. These efforts haven’t traditionally generated any partisan pushback — probably because political figures would’ve been embarrassed to complain publicly about a Sesame Street character promoting accurate, potentially lifesaving information.
What’s more, let’s pause to note just how weird 2021 has become with regards to Republicans and children’s entertainment. It started with the GOP’s fixation on Dr. Seuss, which was soon followed by complaints about Potato Head dolls […] Now, Big Bird is a new villain in some far-right circles.
I can only imagine how much better off we’d be if the GOP invested this much energy in actual governance.
But perhaps most important of all is the peek behind the rhetorical curtain. For many prominent Republican voices, there’s an official line: They’re not anti-vaccine, they’re anti-mandates. There’s no shortage of GOP officials at multiple levels of government that claim they’re on board with Covid-19 vaccinations, just so long as they’re entirely voluntarily and there are no consequences for those who refuse to do the right thing.
It’s a deeply flawed argument, to be sure, but the pushback against Big Bird suggests it’s not altogether sincere: The Sesame Street character simply helped get the word out about vaccines during a pandemic. For Republicans like Cruz, this was a step too far.
[…] Trump, still seething over his electoral defeat, was reportedly ready for some mutually assured destruction on Jan. 20.
According to an ABC News’ report on correspondent Jonathan Karl’s upcoming book “Betrayal,” Trump reportedly told Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel during his last Air Force One flight as president that he was leaving the GOP to start a new party.
It was a quest for revenge against a party that had failed to help Trump steal the 2020 election, Karlin wrote.
“You cannot do that,” McDaniel reportedly told Trump. “If you do, we will lose forever.”
“Exactly. You lose forever without me,” he responded, according to Karl. “I don’t care.”
The inevitable damage of him potentially leaving the party was what Republicans “deserve” for “not sticking up for me,” Trump reportedly told the RNC chair.
It wasn’t an empty threat, Karl wrote. Trump was “very adamant” that he was going to do it, a source told the reporter, and he considered it a done deal at that point.
But RNC leaders were actually prepared to strike back, according to the book.
They reportedly reminded Trump and his team that there were “a lot of things they still depended on the RNC for” — specifically, money.
LOL
For starters, the RNC would stop paying the mountain of legal fees Trump had racked up with his lawsuits in his crusade to overturn the election via the courts, RNC officials reportedly warned.
The RNC would also render the Trump campaign’s coveted email address list of forty million Trump supporters “worthless,” in Karl’s words. Trump had reportedly generated what RNC officials had estimated to be about $100 million by renting out the list to other GOP candidates.
The threat apparently worked: Trump reversed course five days after informing McDaniel of his plot, and he said he’d stay in the GOP, according to Karl.
McDaniel denied Karl’s account in a statement to ABC News, claiming that she’s “never” threatened Trump and that they have a “great relationship.”
[…] Trump predictably called the report “fake news” […] Karl’s account firms up a report by the Wall Street Journal at the time that Trump was privately discussing with his aides starting a new party called the “Patriot Party.” […]
Well, that was amusing (sort-of), frustrating, and… whatever: I haven’t accessed my bank account on-line since early this year, and when I tried to do it from my computer, the site insisted on not the heretofore usual SMS 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication), but using their app on my mobile to do the 2FA. Ok, excellent really, since SMS 2FA is easily hacked and notoriously insecure. So start up the app (which I also hadn’t done in about as long).
The app requires one passphrase to access it, a second passphrase to remotely access my account, and then — and this is what threw me — a third passphrase.† At first I was baffled, I could not remember ever entering a third passphrase, whose purpose (at that time) was not clear. Hum… decode, decipher, and consult my magic cheetsheet of secrets, and, er, nothing. Oh yeah, now I recall, I had deliberately decided to not enter banking secrets into that heavily-protected magic cheetsheet.
Er, well then, Ok, what is this mysterious third passphrase? Some digging through other material found an ciphered passphrase I didn’t recognise, in a context which suggested it had something to do with the app. Still didn’t remember ever entering it, but decided to give it a try. Yeah, it worked! Ok, 2FA passed, great. Then I recalled the main reason for having the app on my mobile in the first place — I’ve always tried to avoid having any banking or financial details on my mobile — is the bank had warned customers SMS 2FA would no longer be used due to regulations(? not sure if French, EU, PCI (Payment Card Industry), or others…), and that the third passphrase was specifically for 2FA.
So in addition to doing my banking business, I’ve now taken some additional precautions against “losing” (forgetting) certain vital related information. With secure backups (plural). Plus, this means I can now indeed do some on-line purchases, which is related to what started all this…
† Actually, there’s more than three authentications required. In addition to the three listed, the mobile must be unlocked (at least one more), and I must be logged into my computer (at least three more), and be trying-to login to the site (at least one more). So that’s eight or more electronic authentications (nominally passphrases), not to mention physical protections like the keys to the lair. All of which is fine by me, and rarely an issue. And yes, every passphrase is unique. I use various tricks to (usually) remember them, with things like my magic encrypted ciphered cheetsheet, securely backed-up, as a backup.
Akira MacKenziesays
@ 390
…they think they’re gonna take out demon hordes with their AR-15.
More likely they think they’re going to take out humans either willingly in league with Satan or are possessed by demons. Because NO ONE comes to leftist opinions on their own. Oh no! Socialism, civil rights, secularism, and public health are so abominable and diabolical on their face that only those under the thrall of the personification of pure evil would believe them.
[…] Half the people on Earth have now received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Out of those, 39% are fully vaccinated.
Granted, a sizable percentage were treated with vaccines that have since proven to be less effective than the top-of-the-heap mRNA vaccines. But we’re getting there, and at the recent G20 meeting, wealthy nations once again agreed to secure and distribute hundreds of millions more doses to less-wealthy nations.
Over at EndCoronavirus.org, there are now 26 entries on their list of nations that are defeating COVID-19, and another 55 nations have made the “almost there” list. That leaves the rest of the world—including the United States—on the list of countries that need to take further action. With U.S. cases having leveled off above 70,000 a day, that’s definitely true. Vaccinating children should help, but what would help even more is targeted use of mask mandates to keep community transition low. […]
Looking at a pool of over 780,000 veterans—just under 300,000 of them unvaccinated—the initial effectiveness of all the vaccines was just about as good as advertised. At the peak of protection—a week after the second shot (or a few weeks after the first shot, in the case of Johnson & Johnson)—the average level of protection against infection was 87.9%. However, eight months later, protection against infection had dropped to 48.1%. For Johnson & Johnson, that level of protection against infection was down to just 13.1%.
The news on protecting against deaths was much better. For veterans under 65, Pfizer-BioNTech provided an 84.3% improvement in the rate of death at the end of the study, Moderna was at 81.5%, and Johnson & Johnson was at 73.0%. For those over 65, the protection was 70.1%, 75.5%, and 52.2%, respectively.
[…] Looking at a pool of over 780,000 veterans—just under 300,000 of them unvaccinated—the initial effectiveness of all the vaccines was just about as good as advertised. At the peak of protection—a week after the second shot (or a few weeks after the first shot, in the case of Johnson & Johnson)—the average level of protection against infection was 87.9%. However, eight months later, protection against infection had dropped to 48.1%. For Johnson & Johnson, that level of protection against infection was down to just 13.1%.
The news on protecting against deaths was much better. For veterans under 65, Pfizer-BioNTech provided an 84.3% improvement in the rate of death at the end of the study, Moderna was at 81.5%, and Johnson & Johnson was at 73.0%. For those over 65, the protection was 70.1%, 75.5%, and 52.2%, respectively.[…]
There are good reasons for the CDC to recommend vaccine booster shots. I got my Moderna booster shot, (it’s 1/2 dose for the Moderna booster), and experienced about 12 hours of muscle and joint pain, along with some fatigue. All side effects were gone after 24 hours.
Iraqi officials are reportedly blaming an Iran-backed militia group for the assassination attempt of Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi.
Reuters reported on Monday, citing Iraqi security officials and militia sources, that the three-drone assassination attempt was carried out by Iran-supported groups that are angry about last month’s parliamentary elections, in which Iran-backed groups suffered the biggest losses and saw their power in parliament decrease.
Iraqi officials and analysts told Reuters that the attack was meant to show that the militias are open to utilizing violence if they are kept out of the government, or if their control over large swaths of the state is contested.
[…] Two regional officials told Reuters that Tehran was aware of the assassination attempt before it took place, but contended that authorities in the country did not call for the attack.
Militia sources told the news wire that the commander of the Quds Force, which is part of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, made a trip to Iraq on Sunday following the attack to communicate with paramilitary leaders and encourage them not to gin up any more acts of violence.
Sources and independent analysts, however, told Reuters that it is unlikely Iran ordered the assassination attempt because the country has been working to prevent violence on its western border.
[…] Three armed drones targeted al-Kadhimi Sunday morning, two of which were intercepted and downed by security forces. The third drone, however, struck the prime minister’s residence.
The prime minister was not injured, but six members of his personal protection team were. They were reportedly on the exterior of the prime minister’s residence in the Green Zone.
[…] President Biden condemned the attack in a statement, and said he ordered his national security team to offer “all appropriate assistance to Iraq’s security forces as they investigate this attack and identify those responsible.”
Yesterday, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene debuted her latest conspiracy theory on Twitter, about how this whole vaccine thing is really about purging the military, police force and other organizations of “patriots,” for the purpose of installing a communist dictatorship (which, by the way, is an oxymoron). This is just the latest front in her multi-pronged effort to find a narrative that tells the story she wants about vaccines and Democrats. […]
The absolute DRAMA of this woman. What is it even like inside her head?
Now, I understand that many people feel it is barely worth it to factcheck Marjorie Taylor Greene, as she is a ridiculous person, and that doing so is in fact harmful because “she just wants attention” and attention is magic, yadda yadda yadda. I happen to think that given the vast number of people who believe this kind of rhetoric is “based,” it’s worthwhile to do so every once in a while. Just to cover our bases.
First of all, Trump supporters are not being purged from any of these organizations. That’s not a thing. What is a thing are various studies — at least one of which was conducted by the Pentagon — showing how white nationalists and violent extremists have infiltrated the police and the military for the purpose of recruiting and getting training for their […] race wars. I would be the first to admit that there is a lot of crossover between Trump supporters and these types, and fully assume that the National Guard/Atomwaffen member referenced in the Pentagon study was a very big fan of DJT. However I am also fair-minded enough to understand that not all Trump supporters are there yet.
The unvaxxed are being “purged” from some of these organizations for the same reason the unvaxxed have been “purged” from these organizations since the very dawn of vaccines. Communicable diseases are a threat to national security and have always been considered as such. […]
I was unable to find posters encouraging servicemembers to get vaccines, because not getting a required vaccine has never been an option for servicemembers. George Washington even required that the Continental Army be inoculated against smallpox […] So all these people claiming they are the “three percent” who would have risen up against the British are 100 percent full of shit (as is that number; about 15 percent of the country actively served in the Revolutionary War). It would have been more like, “Oh gosh, I’d love to fuck with King George’s shit, but I’m pretty sure inoculation is the mark of the beast. Whoops!”
Greene hypothesized that the purpose of requiring vaccines in the armed forces, the police, and other agencies, is “weeding out those who would stop or rise up in the ranks against communist control.” […]
Is Marjorie Taylor Greene under the impression that, outside of this whole vaccination thing, the US Military is otherwise a major epicenter for individualism? Because a very big part of the job, in almost any military career, is “following orders.” It’s not really a “Hey, let’s just give all of these people guns and then let them do whatever they want” kind of situation. […]
But let’s revisit this part: “The purge is a critical piece to the Communist Revolution in America.” […]
The authoritarian demands are coming from inside the Republican party. Wanting to force people to work with and among people who are unvaccinated is authoritarian in nature.
[…] Pretty sure “real Patriots” are not selfish assholes who don’t care if their fellow soldiers live or die.
When the days come where the ruling regime, the propaganda media, and the elites declare that the American Patriot is the enemy and the intelligence agencies hunt Patriots because they are labeled domestic terrorists then every American should take heed bc communism will kill us.
Again, it is unclear how spreading a contagious virus, potentially threatening military readiness, is so fabulously patriotic. Or how preventing that spread, and thereby preventing deaths, is a form of communism that will kill us.
Perhaps ironically, all the agencies Greene is so upset “patriots” will be purged from are in fact socialist programs. They are paid for, by us, through our taxes, collectively. They are not owned by a private entity, but rather, technically, by the people. Despite the best efforts of the Right, the United States is still a mixed economy, meaning that it has both socialist and capitalist elements — not as many socialist elements as other countries have, but some. […]
So any “patriot” who doesn’t want to mess with socialism really shouldn’t be looking into employment in any field in which their salary is paid for by taxes. They may want to consider employment in the thrilling world of private security.
[…] I’d love to suggest that Marjorie Taylor Greene do a bit more reading about the history of why the United States military requires personnel to be vaccinated, or about “What is or is not communism,” but we know that’s never going to happen.
The Justice Department on Monday announced arrests and charges against hackers allegedly affiliated with the REvil ransomware group, which officials said has been involved in thousands of attacks.
The actions include the arrest of a Ukrainian national in Poland last month, and the announcement of charges against him and a Russian national, Yevgeniy Polyanin, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a briefing at the department.
The Ukrainian, Yaroslav Vasinskyi, allegedly was involved in an attack in July on Florida-based software firm Kaseya, according to court documents.
Vasinskyi hacked Kaseya and other companies, prosecutors said in an 11-count indictment that was unsealed in the Northern District of Texas on Friday and posted on Monday. Authorities arrested Vasinskyi on the Poland-Ukraine border on Oct. 8, and the United States wants him extradited from Poland, according to a court filing.
Vasinskyi conducted around 2,500 ransomware attacks where REvil demanded a total of $767 million, according to the filing. In all, hackers received around $2.3 million in ransom from the cyberattacks, prosecutors said. Victims included organizations in eight states including Texas.
The Justice Department also announced that authorities seized at least $6.1 million in funds allegedly linked to ransom payments received by Polyanin.
Ransomware is a form of malware that locks up computers by encrypting the data on them, and hackers demand often exorbitant payments to unlock the computers.
Earlier Monday, European law enforcement agencies announced the Nov. 4 arrests in Romania of two other hackers affiliated with REvil, one of the most notorious Russian-speaking ransomware groups. The two hackers arrested allegedly pocketed nearly $600,000 in ransom payments, Europol said.
The arrests were the result of a wider-ranging European and American criminal investigation. […]
An anti-vaccine propaganda call by leading religious figures, echoed by prominent politicians and social media, helps explain why Romania now has the world’s highest Covid death rate.
As a new wave of the coronavirus pandemic crashed over Eastern Europe last month, devastating unvaccinated populations, an Orthodox Church bishop in southern Romania offered solace to his flock: “Don’t be fooled by what you see on TV — don’t be scared of Covid.”
Most important, Bishop Ambrose of Giurgiu told worshipers in this small Romanian town on Oct. 14, “don’t rush to get vaccinated.”
The bishop is now under criminal investigation by the police for spreading dangerous disinformation, but his anti-vaccine clarion call, echoed by prominent politicians, influential voices on the internet and many others, helps explain why Romania has in recent weeks reported the world’s highest per capita death rate from Covid-19.
On Tuesday, nearly 600 Romanians died, the most during the pandemic. The country’s death rate relative to population is almost seven times as high as the United States’, and almost 17 times as high as Germany’s.
[…] Six ambulances carrying Covid patients needing urgent help waited outside for medical workers to find space inside overflowing wards.
What makes the surge particularly difficult, Dr. Streinu-Cercel said, is that it could have been easily avoided. A few who got shots fell seriously ill, she said, but this was because their immune systems had been compromised by treatment for cancer or other illnesses. “The only real reason anyone is here is because they did not get vaccinated,” she said.
Vaccine hesitancy, stoked by powerful forces online and in the real world, has left Romania with Europe’s second-lowest vaccination rate; around 44 percent of adults have had at least one dose, ahead of only Bulgaria, at 29 percent. Overall, the European Union stands at 81 percent, with several countries above 90 percent. Complicating matters, Romania has been without a government since last month, when a centrist coalition unraveled.
Bulgaria, too, has a very high Covid mortality rate, with already overwhelmed hospitals flooded by new patients. This past week, one of the big hospitals in the capital city, Sofia, issued a plea for medical students and volunteers to help.
Latvia, a tiny Baltic nation where vaccine hesitancy is particularly strong within its large ethnic Russian population, last month became the first E.U. member to go into a full lockdown since the early phase of the pandemic in 2020. Russia, where less than half of the adult population has been even partly inoculated, and Ukraine, where the rate is below one-third, have also reimposed sweeping restrictions amid surging cases. […]
For comparison: 44.16% of Idaho’s population have been fully vaccinated. So, yeah, that’s bad. I live among one of most anti-vaccine populations in the USA.
[…]
After being hospitalized for 28 days with Covid-19, a man returned to the Seattle hospital that saved his life — to apologize for not getting vaccinated.
Richard Soliz, a 54-year old graphic artist, developed blood clots on his lungs after contracting the coronavirus. Admitted to Harborview medical center in late August, he spent close to a month on a ventilator and heart monitor, as doctors worried one of his blood clots might transfer to his brain or his heart.
Soliz pulled through, and in October he returned to the hospital to thank the staff for saving his life — and to say sorry.
“I deeply regret, you know, not making the decision to get vaccinated,” Soliz told Dr James Town, a pulmonologist and director of the medical intensive care unit.
“No one blames you or judges you,” Town told Soliz. “Everyone is just happy that you are willing to share the story, I think. And happy that you’re better.”
When Soliz got sick, he assumed it was the flu. Then he started having severe headaches. Shortly after that, he came down with a fever and began experiencing shortness of breath.
“And I realized, ‘Hey, this is not the flu. It’s Covid,” he said.
[…]
Soliz said he had been confused by contradicting information about vaccines on social media, including debunked claims of microchipped vaccines and suspicions of government intentions.
Exasperated sigh and hitting head with desk…
[…]
He was now certain, he said, “that there is truth to this virus, and not being vaccinated leaves you vulnerable to the extent of possibly really taking a person’s life. I personally know that, because I was not vaccinated, I did not act, I wasn’t certain, and I nearly lost my life.
“It was just not knowing, and what I did know was confusing and contradictory, so when a person is not totally convinced of something and doesn’t have the proper information to determine a yay or nay, perhaps they’ll do what I did and do nothing.”
[Did]n’t have the proper information to determine a yay or nay, another exasperated sigh. And I need a new desk…
[…]
Soliz is now fully vaccinated but has been left with scarred lungs, which cause him to become winded even after slight physical activity. He has difficulty sleeping and struggles with a foggy memory and thoughts.
[…]
Congratulations to Mr Soliz on surviving, being a honest gent about it, and apologising.
Robert Koch Institute records Germany’s highest ever seven-day Covid incidence rate
Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) has been recording some of the highest numbers of cases that the country has seen since the start of the pandemic. Germany’s incidence rate — measuring the number of new coronavirus infections per 100,000 people over the last seven days — has risen to 201.1 today. This is the highest recorded by the RKI.
Agence France-Presse report that in the eastern state of Saxony, where the incidence rate is more than twice the national average at 491.3, unvaccinated people face new restrictions from Monday. […]
Here in France, in comparison, the national incidence rate is just over one third (c.73), albeit in my general area, it’s c.114, according the track-and-trace app (which is also the famous Health Pass). France’s R has crept up to slightly over one (not good), albeit in my area it’s lower than the national rate but still above one. President Macron will be addressing the nation tomorrow, at least partly due to the pandemic. I haven’t seen trailered any hints of anything he might announce, albeit I can think of two: A widening of eligibility for booster shots, and an extension (possibly with some tweaks) to the Health Pass. And maybe (pre-)authorising vaccinations for children? Currently, the Health Pass is due to expire next Monday (15th), albeit Parliament did pass the legislation necessary to allow for it to be extended or reimposed. One measure has already been announced, “face masks would again be compulsory from next[this] week for school children in 39 regional departments where infection rates are high” (Macron to address the nation on Tuesday as Covid-19 cases surge).
blfsays
Well, that worked surprisingly well… What started as an attempt to “use up” some elderly vegetables — a large carrot and large sweet potato (not a yam) — turned into possible accident, and wound up being delicious! Also, as it happens, essentially-veterinarian and almost-vegan (known non-vegan ingredients marked with § below — and all have reasonable substitutes).
In anticipation of making a soup or chowder, I’d purchased some garlic and fresh tomatoes. Whilst rummaging through the ‘fridge, I found the remains of a rice-and-maize(corn) risotto§†, and also of a cheesy§ guacamole — so the plan was to make a soup or chowder of the sweet potato & carrot, with tomatoes & garlic, and use the guacamole as a topping when serving. But I didn’t carefully check what I was putting in, the first ingredient into the cooking food processor was the guacamole. Oops.
After thinking about it, I decided it might work. So I added the rest of the ingredients plus some “Cajun” curry powder, a dash of both wine§† & soya sauce, and Arabian-style fermented milk§‡ (similar to proper churned buttermilk), let the machine do its thing (it smelled wonderful!), and… Yup! It (burp) worked (especially with some added pepper to taste).
Unusually, I’d pared the skin off the sweet potato (it was a bit elderly). Fortunately, it was a large one, so I didn’t have to discard too much.
(burp!)
† The risotto isn’t vegan because it was originally a lamb risotto with a metric feckton of butter. (Very tasty, but I made a bit too much!) There were no bits of lamb in the leftovers. The wine — which is both “natural” and organic — doesn’t claim to the vegan, which probably means it was filtered and/or fined with isinglass, gelatin, etc. (As far as I know, not all vegans object; Also, “natural” is not, as far as I know, defined either legally or technically — “low intervention” is another term — and specifically, does not mean “does not contain added sulfites” (some, including the the one I used, do (actually, all wines contain some sulfites as part of the, ahem, natural process)).)
‡ The only(?) non-organic ingredient. (The risotto’s lamb, which perhaps added some taste, also wasn’t organic.)
[…] “People in the far right are happy with contradictions,” [senior lecturer of politics at Bath University, Dr Aurelie] Mondon says. “People who are deeply anti-Semitic can ally with people who are Jewish because they share the same Islamophobia and that trumps it all.”
For the far right, being contrarian is a strength, not a weakness. “It shows that they are willing to go beyond these contradictions to win on the racialist agenda,” Mondon explains. “This is the end game for them.”
Zemmour is similar to fecker carlieson in the States, a nazi radio nutcase. He’s widely expected to make a run for the French presidency next year, much to the annoyance of Marine Le Pen, teh führer of the le penazis, since the presumption is he’ll split the nazi vote with the possible result teh le penazis won’t make it into the second around (against the presumed Macron). That’s not a bad thing, of course, but as the sensible left is currently staring at its own navel and arguing about how dust gets inside, Macron’s second-round opponent will possibly be right-wing. Hence, some speculate Macron may shift — or perhaps is shifting — (further) rightwing-ish.
A snippet from the end of the article about Zemmour (link embedded in above excerpt; France24 edits in {curly braces}):
While controversy has thus far increased Zemmour’s popularity, there are a few skeletons in an open closet that may prove to be problematic. In April, after a local official said online that Zemmour had forcibly kissed her, the investigative news site Mediapart published the testimonies of several women who alleged that he had subjected them, too, to unwanted sexual contact.
Zem[m]our has no real political experience, nor does he have the support of a party behind him, nor even a cadre of well-funded backers, as did Macron when building his fledging party. And while he’s full of criticism for the path France has taken since the 1960s, he has yet to delineate a path toward fixing what he believes to be the nation’s problems.
None of that may be enough to stop him from declaring his candidacy, as he believes that Le Pen has no chance at electoral success. Marine Le Pen would never win, and everyone in the National Rally [teh le penazis] knows it, he said on France 2 television. I think the French see that, and she knows it, and today a vote for Marine Le Pen is a vote for Macron. Because that’s what he is hoping for: to face her again {in the second round} and beat her.
Whilst I hope Zemmour, as quoted in the above excerpt, is correct about teh le penazis having no chance, he is an extreme rightwing nutcase, hence the eejit quotes, just on general principles.
Ted Cruz’s unprovoked attack on Big Bird has cost the Republican senator the support of a longtime backer, Oscar the Grouch.
In a rare press conference at his trash can, Oscar said that he had supported Cruz’s political career for years “to show solidarity with a fellow-monster.”
For Oscar, however, the dustup with the popular avian character raised concerns about further association with Cruz: “He could hurt my brand.”
“Don’t get me wrong—I can’t stand Big Bird,” he said. “His relentless sunniness, to me, is intolerable. But that’s no excuse for Ted Cruz to go off like an asshat.”
“It shows that they are willing to go beyond these contradictions to win on the racialist agenda,”
Hmmm. That’s exactly right. I’m surprised that this fact is presented as if were not really a bad thing. Yes, “people in the far right” are “willing to go beyond contradictions,” which just means that they are willing to do anything to win. Anything. And, it means that they really do not hold any principles at all, not even those they profess.
I wonder why the cognitive dissonance does not bother them more.
In other news, as reported by the Associated Press:
The U.S. fully reopened its borders with Mexico and Canada on Monday and lifted restrictions on travel that covered most of Europe, setting the stage for emotional reunions nearly two years in the making and providing a boost for the travel industry decimated by the pandemic.
Former President Barack Obama on Monday urged world leaders to ramp up efforts to combat climate change, lamenting what he referred to as ‘active hostility toward climate science’ from Republicans and the Trump administration.
Related information from The Washington Post:
Across the world, many countries underreport their greenhouse gas emissions in their reports to the United Nations, a Washington Post investigation has found. An examination of 196 country reports reveals a giant gap between what nations declare their emissions to be versus the greenhouse gases they are sending into the atmosphere. The gap ranges from at least 8.5 billion to as high as 13.3 billion tons a year of underreported emissions — big enough to move the needle on how much the Earth will warm.
A man who allegedly participated in the Capitol riot Jan. 6 and is wanted by the FBI is now seeking asylum in Belarus, the country’s state media reported Monday, presenting him as a “simple American whose shops were burned by Black Lives Matter activists.”
Just a few weeks before advising the White House on Donald Trump’s efforts to steal a second term as president, conservative lawyer John Eastman took part in an election simulation that imagined it would be left-wingers, not Trump supporters, attempting to destabilize the country through violence.
The simulation, recapped in a document called the “79 Days Report,” was flagged Monday by The Bulwark, and copies of it were still available Monday on the websites of the Texas Public Policy Foundation and The Claremont Institute. Eastman is a senior fellow at the latter organization, and is named as a participant in the exercise, which speculated with a high level of detail about the projected violence by left-wing groups intent on stealing the presidency. […]
Though the work is hypothetical, it contains several overlaps with Eastman’s now-infamous legal memos for Trump. Those memos spelled out ways for Trump to retain power, including the consideration that Congress, down to a vote by state delegation, could determine the next president, rather than the American public. In January 2021, that particular scenario almost became a reality.
According to the report, the October exercise culminated with a hypothetical Republican congressman, hospitalized by an attack amid nationwide rioting from Black Lives Matter and antifa groups, being brought onto the floor of Congress to cast the deciding vote for Donald Trump to remain president.
“As the House is returning to session to vote by state delegation, there is a massive and violent Antifa demonstration in D.C.” the report theorized. “In the confusion, a Republican member from an at-large delegation is attacked and sent to the hospital with life-threatening wounds. With only 25 state delegations in control, it looks like the Speaker might become temporary President on January 20 per the Succession Act pending the elevation of the Vice President or unless the House comes to agreement.”
“The critically injured Member of Congress, however, understanding what is at stake, demands to be transported to the House for the state delegation vote and arrives in a heavily guarded convoy. With IVs and blood transfusions being administered, the Member from (AK, MT, ND, SD, or WY) casts the deciding vote, giving Trump 26 state delegations and the needed majority.”
Mirror-Image Fallacy
The report was a response to a similar tabletop exercise from the Transition Integrity Project, a group of anti-Trump Democrats and Republicans who war-gamed potential pitfalls ahead of the 2020 election — spurring plenty of right-wing hysteria about a supposedly imminent left-wing coup.
Other listed participants in the 79 Days simulation include KT McFarland, Trump’s former deputy national security advisor, and Charles Haywood, who, the Bulwark noted, had written hopefully about an authoritarian ruler coming to power.
The Transition Integrity Project, according to the “79 Days Report,” suffered from the so-called “Mirror-Image Fallacy” — or assuming that others share one’s own faults. [Yep]
TIP, according to the conservative report, “assumed that Republicans under President Trump would routinely violate the law to win, […].” [prescient]
These actions, the report suggested, were more likely to be taken by those on the left. [Irony meter breakage]
[…] The irony in the 79 Days Report runs deep: In the days leading up to Jan. 6 in the hypothetical scenario, the conservative report imagined Capitol Police securing Congress with concrete barriers and other, more extreme crowd control measures “in anticipation of chaos after the vote.”
Similar efforts are undertaken at the state level — the hypothetical report mentioned Black Lives Matter and anti-fascist efforts to occupy the statehouses in Texas, Florida and Michigan “as a result of their electoral situations” — even though conservatives had already occupied statehouses, in real life, as part of COVID protests.
Blood Lust
Though much of the report focused on the imagined fallout from a close election, several pages went into great detail about the imagined arrests and police killings of left-wing activists and protestors.
In response to the nationwide rioting imagined in the report, for instance, participants described what would happen next: pretextual arrests of activists leaders in the name of public safety.
“Law enforcement in major cities coordinate with the FBI and other federal agencies to identify leaders and agitators within the groups associated with BLM, Antifa, Boogaloo, and NFAC,” the report read. NFAC refers to “Not Fucking Around Coalition,” a Black militia group whose leader now, in reality, faces federal charges.
“Operation Spearfish commences with over one thousand arrest warrants issued using federal and state statutes from RICO to disorderly conduct with coordinated pre-dawn warrant executions nationwide,” the report continues, describing the imagined crackdown.
Elsewhere, the report imagined a police sniper shooting one person in a crowd of would-be “Black Block” arsonists wielding Molotov cocktails.
“The Molotov Cocktail exploded when he dropped the bottle and covered several rioters in flames, three injured severely and one dead at the scene,” the report read. “The shot from the police sniper and the subsequent fires cleared the area for the time being.” [Sick fascist fantasy]
At times, the report seemed to devolve into pure fan fiction, with police chiefs and union leaders delivering sharp one-liners to clueless liberal politicians and reporters.
During an imagined press conference in the middle of election-inspired rioting in Chicago, the authors of the conservative simulation even gave the leader of the Chicago police union, John Catanzara, a stage direction in response to a reporter asking about incidents of excessive force.
“Really?” Catanzara told the reporter. “Take a look out that window there, you tell me, what the hell is excessive right now? (leaves podium).”
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg appeared in the White House press briefing room yesterday to help celebrate the bipartisan infrastructure package that will soon become law. A reporter asked about “the racism that was built into the roadways,” which the secretary had discussed in a separate interview yesterday morning.
Buttigieg replied, “I’m still surprised that some people were surprised when I pointed to the fact that if a highway was built for the purpose of dividing a white and a Black neighborhood, or if an underpass was constructed such that a bus carrying mostly Black and Puerto Rican kids to a beach — or that would have been — in New York was designed too low for it to pass by, that that obviously reflects racism that went into those design choices.”
The cabinet secretary added, “I don’t think we have anything to lose by confronting that simple reality. And I think we have everything to gain by acknowledging it and then dealing with it.”
Buttigieg’s willingness to confronting this simple reality sparked immediate pushback from the right. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz pried himself away from Big Bird complaints to mock Buttigieg’s assessment. “The roads are racist,” the Texan wrote sarcastically on Twitter. “We must get rid of roads.”
The problem — one of them, anyway — is that Buttigieg was right. The story he told was and is true. As a Washington Post analysis explained yesterday:
The secretary was referring to a story from Robert Caro’s “The Power Broker,” a book that is generally recognized as one of the premier examples of journalism in modern American history. It centers on Robert Moses, a mid-century New York City official who set out to reshape how the city’s residents moved — mostly successfully. In that book, Caro describes one particular goal of Moses’s: keeping poor Black people from busing to Long Island’s Jones Beach.
Moses quite deliberately, and for entirely racist reasons, created a system to discourage Black and Puerto Rican kids from visiting Jones Beach, in part by building parkway bridges so low that buses couldn’t fit below them. What’s more, as the Post’s report added, “buses needed permits to enter parks, permits that were often denied to those bringing Black residents to Jones Beach.”
To his credit, Buttigieg has spent months talking about the problem of racism built into the nation’s transportation system, and while much of the right has pushed back, reality is on the secretary’s side.
NPR reported in April, “Planners of the interstate highway system, which began to take shape after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, routed some highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through Black and brown communities. In some instances, the government took homes by eminent domain.”
Around the same time, The Tampa Bay Times added, “In city after city, highways of the Interstate era and before have prompted the demolition or fragmentation of Black neighborhoods — due, historians say, to a combination of racism, lower acquisition costs for real estate, and weaker political muscle to oppose the projects.”
Two years earlier, historian Kevin Kruse examined Atlanta’s congested system for The New York Times and explained, “In Atlanta, as in dozens of cities across America, daily congestion is a direct consequence of a century-long effort to segregate the races. For much of the nation’s history, the campaign to keep African Americans ‘in their place’ socially and politically manifested itself in an effort to keep them quite literally in one place or another.”
In 2015, a Washington Post analysis documented similar racism in transportation infrastructure in several major American cities, including Pittsburgh, Hartford, Tampa, Shreveport, Kansas City, St. Louis, Buffalo, Detroit, and Milwaukee.
When the Transportation secretary talks about this, it apparently makes some conservatives uncomfortable. That does not, however, make Buttigieg wrong.
Over the summer, as the bipartisan infrastructure package cleared the Senate, Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio came up with a curious pitch. The Ohioan, who’s retiring at the end of next year and who helped negotiate the bipartisan deal, tried to suggest — both in the media and on the Senate floor — that Donald Trump deserves at least some credit for the legislation.
It was, to be sure, a comical argument. But as we discussed in August, Portman’s rhetoric seemed to include an implicit recommendation: The senator was effectively telling the former president, “Stop attacking the infrastructure compromise and start pretending it was your idea.”
Trump, not surprisingly, ignored the advice and worked furiously to try to derail the bill — not because it was flawed, but because he didn’t want President Joe Biden to get “a big and beautiful win” that might benefit Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections.
As it turns out, Portman wasn’t alone in trying to shift credit to Trump. Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York — one of 13 GOP House members who supported the bipartisan package — appeared on CNN yesterday morning and was asked why Biden was finally able to get an infrastructure bill through Congress after Trump tried and failed to do the same thing. The congresswoman replied:
“Well, I think at the end of the day, look, President Trump laid the groundwork for this infrastructure to pass. He also wanted $1 trillion in spending into America’s infrastructure…. So, I’m happy and I’m appreciative to President Trump for being one of the first to really talk about the need for infrastructure.”
[…] the argument is impossible to take seriously. The former president sought an ambitious infrastructure package, but he failed spectacularly and abandoned his own plan […]
Similarly, the idea that Trump was “one of the first to really talk about the need for infrastructure” is quite laughable, since policymakers have been talking about infrastructure investments long before the former president rode down the escalator in 2015.
But perhaps most important is the motivation behind the rhetoric: Malliotakis likely hoped to defend herself against a possible far-right backlash by suggesting that she and Trump were somehow on the same side of the issue.
The former president, however, doesn’t want credit for the bill. On the contrary, he appeared at an event with House Republicans last night and reportedly condemned both the legislation and the members who helped pass it.
Malliotakis was in attendance last night and was reportedly not pleased with Trump’s rhetoric. If she thought he might give her a little cover by pretending he was responsible for Biden’s success, the congresswoman probably came away disappointed.
Rep. Paul Gosar did not need a new controversy. The Arizona Republican had already earned a reputation as one of Congress’ most notorious members, having been condemned for his associations with white nationalists, his praise for insurrectionist rioters, and his anti-election efforts.
It’s against this backdrop that NBC News reported late yesterday on the GOP congressman’s latest misconduct.
Gosar shared an altered video Sunday evening in which he and other Republican lawmakers, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, are depicted as heroes from the Japanese anime series “Attack on Titan.” The post-apocalyptic series revolves around a small civilization that lives in a bordered-off city to protect itself from giant human-like creatures called Titans.
In the altered animation, Gosar’s character kills a character with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s face and attacks a different character with President Joe Biden’s face.
Twitter added a warning label to the Republican’s tweet, describing it as “hateful content.” The congressman’s office acknowledged that it was responsible for the creation of the video.
Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu of California characterized Gosar’s actions as “sick behavior,” adding, “In any workplace in America, if a coworker made an anime video killing another coworker, that person would be fired.”
[…] it’d be a mistake to focus attention solely on the Arizonan. Just as important is the House Republican leadership, which can either ignore Gosar’s scandals or take action to address them.
For her part, Ocasio-Cortez predicted last night that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy would do nothing except cheer Gosar on “with excuses.” A great many other Democratic lawmakers also condemned Gosar’s video and demanded action from his party.
[…] McCarthy could endorse Gosar’s expulsion, support a censure resolution, strip the Arizonan of his committee assignments, announce that the NRCC will not support Gosar’s re-election campaign, etc.
[…] Maybe releasing a video about a murder fantasy against a sitting member of Congress will be the thing that pushes McCarthy to finally give up on Gosar — the way McCarthy gave up on Iowa’s Steve King a few years ago.
[…] my best guess is that the House GOP leadership will say something mild and meaningless about the “tone” on Capitol Hill, before waiting for the story to fade away, at least until Gosar’s next outrage.
The more McCarthy tolerates his members’ radicalism, the more radicalism our system will be asked to endure.
The D.C. federal judge overseeing […] Trump’s lawsuit against the House Jan. 6 select committee quickly rejected Trump’s latest attempt to block the National Archives from handing over White House records to the committee.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan for the District of Columbia shot down an emergency request filed by Jesse Binnall, Trump’s attorney, late Monday night asking that the judge preemptively put an “administrative stay” on her ruling in the case – even though she hasn’t issued it yet.
Binnall argued that a stay would give Trump time to appeal her decision (which, again, she hasn’t issued yet) given that the National Archives is expected to release the documents by Friday. Otherwise the documents will be released “before President Trump has had the opportunity to be fully and fairly heard,” Binnall claimed.
The lawyer also threatened to take the case to the appeals court if Chutkan didn’t issue her ruling on the lawsuit by Wednesday.
Chutkan dismissed the request as “premature” shortly after midnight, adding that she “intends to rule expeditiously” in Trump’s suit.
The entire exchange took place within two hours, according to Politico.
Last Thursday, Chutkan heard the arguments in the court battle between Trump and the House over the records. The ex-president is attempting to throw out the Jan. 6 panel’s subpoenas for White House documents related to Trump’s activities before, during and after the Capitol insurrection.
At the end of that hearing, the judge promised to issue her ruling “expeditiously.”
Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) on Monday revealed that he received a threatening voicemail days after he broke ranks, alongside 12 other Republicans, to help pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week.
CNN aired the threatening voicemail during an interview with Upton on Monday night, in which a caller told the GOP congressman that he is a “f**king piece of sh*t traitor.”
“I hope you die. I hope everybody in your f**king family dies,” the caller is heard saying in the voicemail.
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said that Upton’s office indicated that the threatening voicemail was not an isolated incident. Upton said that he began receiving threats after one of his colleagues — appearing to allude to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) — tweeted the phone numbers of the 13 House Republicans who voted for the bill.
Upton also pointed out that the voicemail CNN aired appears to be from someone who’s not his constituent, but is from South Carolina. Upton noted that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of former President Trump’s top allies, was among the 19 GOP senators who voted for BIF earlier this year.
Upton then expressed concerns for his staffers who take calls that contain “very disturbing, adult language.”
[…]
Donald Trump’s expanding legal worries stemming from investigations in New York and Scotland have received much attention in recent months. But one Trump case, in which his 2016 inauguration committee and the Trump Organization were accused of a million-dollar grift, has been proceeding for almost two years without drawing much notice, and this week, a judge issued a major ruling indicating the case is likely heading to trial. And that could mean that Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who have each been deposed in this civil case, could end up on the stand and questioned about their involvement in an alleged brazen rip-off of nonprofit funds.
In January 2020, Karl Racine, the attorney general of Washington, DC, filed a lawsuit against the Trump Organization and the Presidential Inaugural Committee (Trump’s inauguration committee, a nonprofit known as the PIC). He alleged that the PIC misused charitable funds to enrich the Trump family. As Racine put it, “the Inaugural Committee, a nonprofit corporation, coordinated with the Trump family to grossly overpay for event space in the Trump International Hotel… The Committee also improperly used non-profit funds to throw a private party [at the Trump Hotel] for the Trump family costing several hundred thousand dollars.” In a way, Racine was saying that one of the first post-election actions of the Trump gang was to illegally use the inauguration to make a buck—a lot of bucks.
The case has focused on several of the key players in Trumpworld. Racine has taken depositions from Tom Barrack, the investor and Trump pal who chaired the inauguration committee (and who was arrested and charged this summer with illegally lobbying for the United Arab Emirates); Rick Gates, the committee’s former deputy chair, who subsequently pleaded guilty to two charges stemming from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation; and two of Trump’s adult children: Ivanka and Donald Jr.
According to Racine’s investigation, both Ivanka and Donald Jr. were involved in deliberations related the alleged misuse of funds. The lawsuit alleges that Ivanka knew the PIC was overcharging the Trump Hotel in Washington, D.C., for event space during the inauguration in January 2017. Filings show that during the organization of the inauguration, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a lead producer of the event, raised concerns with the president-elect, Ivanka, and Gates that the Trump Hotel was over-charging the inauguration committee for events to be held there. Gates ignored the warning, the lawsuit notes, and the committee struck a contract with the Trump Hotel for $1.03 million, an amount the lawsuit says that was far above the hotel’s own pricing guidelines.
Racine also alleges that Gates, with Ivanka’s knowledge, “allowed the [PIC’s] nonprofit funds to pay for a private after-hours party for the Trump family at their Hotel, even after [the PIC’s] staff initially canceled this event over concerns of improper use of funds.” In a legal filing in the case, Racine alleged that Donald Jr. also played an instrumental role in the purported misuse of charitable funds for this private Trump bash: “Attendance was by invitation only, and guests were limited to friends and family of the President-elect and guests of the Hotel.” And Racine adds, “Incredibly, the final decision to proceed with the event was not even made by the [inauguration committee], but by Donald Trump, Jr.” The event, according to Racine, cost $288,367. In legal filings, the attorney general has pointed out that Trump, Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric Trump each profit from Trump Hotel revenues. […]
Gaige Grosskreutz is the only survivor from Kyle Rittenhouse’s vigilante rampage last summer in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Grosskreutz testified Monday for the prosecution, obviously, but rightwing media seems to think he “blew up” the state’s case and will ensure that Rittenhouse will walk out of court a free man. It was like the climax to a “Matlock” episode.
See, Grosskreutz admitted on the stand that he was carrying a gun and that he pointed it at Rittenhouse, who’d just fatally shot someone with his much larger gun. Obviously, Rittenhouse had reason to fear for his life. When people see you gun down someone, they can become downright unreasonable.
Gaige Grosskreutz, a trained paramedic, told jurors he hadn’t planned to shoot Rittenhouse even though he believed the teen to be an active shooter. Having seen Rittenhouse already kill one man, he assumed he would be next.
“I was never trying to kill the defendant,” Grosskreutz said. “That was never something I was trying to do. In that moment, I was trying to preserve my own life. But doing so, also, taking the life of another is not something I am capable or comfortable of doing. It goes against almost a lifelong ethical code in regards to medicine.”
Grosskreutz is the literal “good guy with a gun” whom the National Rifle Association always invokes whenever there’s a mass shooting. NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre held a defiant press conference a week after a gunman slaughtered children at Sandy Hook Elementary. He declared: “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
The flaw in this plan is how do you know who’s the good guy with the death machine? Supposed good guys with guns have almost shot other good guys with guns at the sight of active shootings. It’s very hard to tell the “good guys” and “bad guys” apart, probably because no one agrees on who’s wearing the white or black hat.
[…] the defense wants Kyle Rittenhouse to receive the same legal grace as a police officer, whose job requires that they get involved in potentially life or death situations. Cops don’t have the option of staying home when there’s public unrest. However, it’s strongly recommended that minor teens do so. They certainly shouldn’t travel out of state and patrol the streets with a gun they aren’t legally allowed to possess. The two deaths and a maiming are the direct result of Rittenhouse’s deliberate and illegal actions.
Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo remarked today:
New legal doctrine in the Rittenhouse trial. If you just start shooting people you may be guilty of the first homicide. But since people freak out that you just shot someone you may feel threatened. So the subsequent homicides are thrown in as freebies or like a volume discount.
Grosskreutz disputed the defense’s claim that he chased Rittenhouse. He did reach for Rittenhouse’s AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle just before the killer shot him in the arm. I think it’s reasonable to disarm a teenager who’s already shot two people, but that’s probably why I’ve never made it onto a jury.
Unlike Rittenhouse, Grosskreutz actually went to the protests to help the situation. He’d organized a medical corps with a friend to provide assistance to people during demonstrations in Milwaukee after George Floyd’s murder, and he’d traveled to Kenosha on August 25 to offer his services to protesters after Jacob Blake was shot and paralyzed. When he encountered Kyle Rittenhouse that night, he was wearing a hat with “paramedic” printed on it. The defense wants the jury to believe that Rittenhouse was the one who should’ve feared for his life.
There’s no evidence that Grosskreutz was a “rioter” or a “looter,” so the defense will have to find another way of smearing him.
“I thought that the defendant was an active shooter,” [Grosskreutz] said. “Anytime you add a firearm into the equation the stakes are so much higher and a person could be in danger and killed.”
As he ran down the street, Rittenhouse tripped and fell to the pavement. While the teen was on the ground, 26-year-old Anthony Huber hit him with his skateboard and Rittenhouse fired a fatal bullet into his chest.
At one point in his testimony, Grosskreutz accused Rittenhouse of “murdering” Huber, and the judge instructed the jury to disregard the comment. At least one juror nodded.
There’s video of Grosskreutz approaching Rittenhouse with a cellphone in one hand and his pistol in the other. He said he was trying to “surrender,” but Rittenhouse “turned his rifle over as if to examine it, a move Grosskreutz said he took to mean the teen would load the next bullet into the chamber.” Grosskreutz assumed that Rittenhouse wasn’t accepting his surrender. Although he was prepared to fire if necessary, it’s not what he wanted.
“It’s not the kind of person I am,” Grosskreutz said. “It’s not why I was out there. It’s not why I was out there for 75 days prior to that. Why I, up until that time, spent my time, money, my education providing care for people. It’s not who I am. And definitely not somebody that I would want to become.”
On the video, Grosskreutz then took a step forward, his left arm stretched out and the hand holding the gun pulled back. Rittenhouse fired a bullet into his arm and “vaporized” his right bicep, the witness testified.
His upper arm “shredded,” Grosskreutz screamed in agony and called for help. While he’s certainly luckier than Rittenhouse’s other victims, after several surgeries, he still has no sensation below his right elbow. He’s only 28.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone believes this testimony is exculpatory but we live in strange times.
Remember how crazy everything was for four straight years? Remember when every single day there was a HOLY SHITBALLS story coming out of the White House? Do you miss it?
LOL, just kidding. Anyway, take whatever you read at the time, triple it, and still it won’t match the level of batshittery going on in the Trump administration, particularly during the final few months. Case in point, Trump’s body man turned head of the Presidential Personnel Office (PPO), Johnny McEntee, known to readers of Your Wonkette as “Hot Johnny.”
It was all fun and games when Hot Johnny was getting derp walked off the premises in 2018 for having undeclared gambling winnings. But after a brief stint with the Trump campaign, he returned to the White House in January 2020 ready to burn it all down.
ABC’s chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl published an excerpt in The Atlantic from his forthcoming book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, and it is bugfuck.
Soon after his return to the White House, Trump tapped McEntee to lead the PPO, giving him authority over 4,000 political appointees.
“People have been telling me I should do that for a long time,” McEntee told the supervisor who gave him the good news. “I didn’t feel ready before, but I am 29 now and I’m ready,” adding later, “I’m the only person around here that’s just here for the president.”
Which may or may not have been true, but the former college quarterback was certainly not “here” for good, functional government. He quickly staffed up his office with what one official described to Karl as “the most beautiful 21-year-old girls you could find, and guys who would be absolutely no threat to Johnny in going after those girls.” One had literally been a Rockette in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade the year before and had no experience other than as a dance instructor and White House intern.
As reported at the time by Politico, McEntee fed the president a steady stream of nonsense about a supposed fifth column of officials sabotaging the Dear Leader, then promised to fix the problem by embarking on a loyalty purge of the executive branch. And so in June of 2020 the PPO informed every senior official in every executive office in the land that they’d have to sit down and re-interview for their own jobs, answering questions like “Do you support the policies of the Trump administration and, if so, which ones?”
He also parked spies cum “liaisons” at the agencies to ensure absolute fealty to Trump. HHS employee Heidi Stirrup was dispatched to the Justice Department where she marched into Attorney General Bill Barr’s office and handed him a list of people she wanted him to hire because “The election is being stolen. You need better people doing these investigations.” Barr eventually locked her out of the building after catching her rooting around in confidential legal files.
Over at Homeland Security, Josh Whitehouse, the 25-year-old minder, had a violent temper, constantly screaming at people, threatening to fire them or even inflict bodily harm.
Two people who worked with Whitehouse on the second floor of DHS headquarters told me his mood swings were so wild that they worried he could get violent. He was overheard screaming things into the phone such as, “If they don’t do this, I will literally go to their house and burn it down.” (Whitehouse said the quote sounded “exaggerated” and he didn’t think he had said it.) As one DHS official told me, “I was legitimately worried he was going to come and kill us.” When I asked Whitehouse about this comment, he told me, “They need help.” He added: “I can’t imagine anybody should be afraid of another person working there if they are in it for the right reasons and aligned with the agenda.”
Apparently unbothered by this behavior, McEntee next dispatched Whitehouse to the Defense Department to work his magic there. Karl writes that Whitehouse drafted memos on senior Pentagon officials to fire for various acts of disloyalty, including Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
The memo on Esper, never before made public, provides remarkable insight into the degree to which McEntee’s team was calling the shots. It includes bullet points outlining Esper’s sins: He “bars the display of the Confederate flag” on military bases; “opposed the President’s direction to utilize American forces to put down riots”; “focused the Department on Russia”; was “actively pushing for ‘diversity and inclusion'”; and so on. The memo recommended that Esper be fired immediately after the election and replaced by Christopher Miller, then the director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
And indeed Esper was fired six days after the election and replaced with Christopher Miller, in accordance with the dictates of a 25-year-old with exactly zero defense policy experience.
But it was on the subject of elections where McEntee did his best — read craziest — work. To wit, Johnny Good Hair and his legal team (no word on whether they were Rockettes or merely cheerleaders) came up with a memo proving that all the DOJ and White House lawyers were wrong wrong wrong when they said that Vice President Pence couldn’t unilaterally overturn the election results. As Karl points out, McEntee managed to be comically, hilariously wrong about both law and facts in the 135-word “legal” memo texted to Pence’s chief of staff on January 1.
But the Trump White House was never really a law and facts kind of joint. And so Hot Johnnycakes hung on to the very bitter end.
[…] Evan Neumann, 48, one of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol complex on January 6th.
He was no bit player. He made it to the FBI’s Most Wanted list for assaulting Capitol Police officers during the storming of the Capitol. Over the weekend Neumann showed up on state-run Belarus 1 TV channel seeking asylum in the former Soviet republic, as a victim of persecution in the US.
I first heard of Neumann’s story in The Moscow Times. And it’s been picked up in various publications over the last day or so. Neumann apparently first relocated from California to Ukraine. But not long after that he claims he found out he was being surveilled by Ukrainian security services. (This is not impossible. He’s wanted in the US, which is the government of Ukraine’s most important ally.) This purported surveillance led him to travel on foot it seems – through swamps, forests filled with feral hogs – to Belarus where he’s seeking asylum.
What jumped out at me was the commentary from the Belarus news report and interview with Neumann. They read much as Russian reports about the contemporary US did through the last four or five years: thoroughly Trumpish and filled with rightist nationalist concepts and talking points about life in the US. They give you a sense or confirm why Trumpworld and Russian nationalists are so tight.
The Belarus report said Neumann had been charged with a crime because he “sought justice and asked uncomfortable questions” about the 2020 election. “But [he] lost almost everything and is being persecuted by the US government.”
“Judging by his story,” said the Belorussian news presenter, Neumann “is the same type of simple American whose shops were burned by Black Lives Matter activists.”
As I said, it’s the kind of stuff you might read in a Trump fundraising email.
Donald Trump didn’t just lose his case demanding secrecy for his Jan. 6 materials, he did so in dramatic fashion.
[…] The federal judge seemed wholly unimpressed with Team Trump’s legal arguments, explaining in her ruling that the former president “does not acknowledge the deference owed to the incumbent President’s judgment. His position that he may override the express will of the executive branch appears to be premised on the notion that his executive power ‘exists in perpetuity.’ But Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.
“He retains the right to assert that his records are privileged, but the incumbent President ‘is not constitutionally obliged to honor’ that assertion. That is because Plaintiff is no longer situated to protect executive branch interests with ‘the information and attendant duty of executing the laws in the light of current facts and circumstances.’ And he no longer remains subject to political checks against potential abuse of that power.”
Chutkan concluded, “Accordingly, the court holds that the public interest lies in permitting — not enjoining — the combined will of the legislative and executive branches to study the events that led to and occurred on January 6, and to consider legislation to prevent such events from ever occurring again.”
[…] it was several weeks ago when the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack requested extensive materials from the White House, prompting Trump to demand absolute secrecy.
In fact, the former president and his team have tried to exert “executive privilege” to block the select committee’s requests. As NBC News recently noted, as a matter of tradition, sitting presidents have shielded White House materials at the request of their predecessors. But not this time: President Joe Biden and his team concluded that there are “unique and extraordinary circumstances” surrounding the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol.
[…] Rep. Bennie Thompson, the Democratic chairman of the Jan. 6 investigatory committee, issued a written statement applauding the ruling. “The Select Committee appreciates the Court’s swift and decisive ruling on the former President’s lawsuit, which I consider little more than an attempt to delay and obstruct our investigation. The presidential records we requested from the National Archives are critical for understanding the terrible events of January 6th. […] And in my view, there couldn’t be a more compelling public interest than getting answers about an attack on our democracy.”
Oh well, fiddlesticks, there’s been another grievous loss in the war for freedom, and it’s also an update on former Newsmax idiot White House reporter Emerald Robinson, who managed to get canned from Newsmax for being too anti-vax batshit. She was just pretty sure THEY had put glow-in-the-dark magic devil juice called “Luciferase” in the COVID vaccines, and that THEY would be using that to track people, because what else would you do with something in a vaccine that is named after DEVIL?
“Dear Christians: the vaccines contain a bioluminescent marker called Luciferase so that you can be tracked. Read the last book of the New Testament to see how this ends,” wrote Emerald Robinson, with her serious face.
That got her canned from Newsmax, and it also got her temporarily suspended from Twitter. As the Daily Beast reports, Robinson came back from her suspension, and forthwith got banned forever for literally immediately hopping back on like “AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT ALIENS PUTTING DEVIL VACCINES IN OUR BUTTS?” Or however she said it. […]
Apparently she just kept promoting her Substack, where (WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE) Twitter would never be able to suss out that she was skirting their rules and providing links to her very important writings about 5G Satan Gravy or whatever the goddamn fuck.
Seriously, this is what she’s writing on her blog:
“One more thing: the new COVID-19 antibody test is called SATiN and it uses Luciferase. No, I’m not kidding,” she wrote. “It’s not an accident that they’ve given this name to this test. It’s a warning.”
Good God.
Anyway, now she is banned from Twitter forever, which means she will likely run for Congress from an extremely safe Republican district before too long, after which point she and Marjorie Taylor Greene will be free to run around like Ghostbusters who were especially chosen by God to find, respectively, all the shimmering devil salad dressing in the vaccines, and also the Jewish space lasers. […]
[…] NBC News reported this week that the president is “deploying top Cabinet officials as part of an all-out push to promote his infrastructure bill.” A White House official said the sales pitch will take administration officials “to red states, blue states, big cities, small towns, rural areas, tribal communities and more to translate what this deal means for real people across the country.” That effort will begin in earnest today, with Biden traveling to the Port of Baltimore.
There’s reason to believe the White House’s message will land on fertile soil. A newly released Monmouth University poll found:
The president’s large spending plans remain broadly popular. Support for the Bipartisan Infrastructure deal (BIF), which passed Congress last week […] stands at 65%, down just a few points from prior polls. Support for the still-pending Build Back Better (BBB) plan to expand access to health care, college, paid leave and other services remains steady at 62%. Furthermore, 60% of Americans support the climate change funding part of the BBB bill.
The poll was conducted between November 4 and 8, which means it was in the field immediately before and immediately after it passed the House.
[…] The American mainstream may not be enamored with Democrats right now, but Biden’s domestic agenda is popular anyway.
What’s more, there’s no reason to see the poll as an outlier. Circling back to our earlier coverage, Monmouth’s results are roughly in line with recent polling data from Quinnipiac, Morning Consult, the Pew Research Center, Data for Progress, Fox News, and Suffolk. All of these surveys show both parts of the White House’s domestic agenda enjoying fairly broad support — with Biden’s proposals remaining even more popular than Biden.
As for why this matters, there are a few relevant angles to keep in mind.
[…] Republicans have taken a political risk by forcefully rejecting a popular infrastructure package that’s backed by roughly two-thirds of the country. Indeed, GOP officials set out to make the plan less popular, and all available evidence suggests they failed. If the party was waiting for a public backlash, it hasn’t materialized.
[…] whether Republicans are aware of this is unclear. Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, for example, was asked last month about the Democrats’ Build Back Better agenda. The GOP senator replied, “[T]he American people have figured out that what they’re trying to do is institutionalize socialism.”
If that’s true, institutionalized socialism is a lot more popular than I thought it’d be.
Similarly, conservative media figure Meghan McCain recently said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Biden’s proposal is “not polling well.” Actual polling suggests otherwise.
And third, the polling should offer a map for Democrats unsure of the party’s best course. In the wake of disappointing results in Virginia and New Jersey, many Democrats — who are already predisposed to panic — wondered whether to curtail the party’s legislative ambitions.
The latest polling suggests those instincts are backwards. Americans support this agenda. Democrats will not benefit from abandoning their own popular plans.
Donald Trump yesterday threw his support behind Idaho Lt. Gov. Janice McGeachin and her Republican primary campaign against incumbent Gov. Brad Little. The far-right lieutenant governor has argued that Little has taken the pandemic too seriously.
OMFG. Janice McGeachin is the worst of the worst.
From past reporting in October:
[…] McGeachin, claiming to be the acting governor, issued a sweeping executive order to prevent all schools in the state from requiring vaccinations or mandatory Covid-19 testing. She also reportedly contacted the Idaho National Guard about activating troops and sending them to the U.S.-Mexico border. […]
Well that figures. DeSantis’s pick for surgeon general is a liar. He mischaracterized his experience treating Covidd-19 patients, for example.
Several former colleagues of Dr. Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s new surgeon general, say he misled the public about his experience treating Covid-19 patients. The four former colleagues worked with Ladapo at UCLA, where for several years he was an associate professor in the division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, before being tapped as Florida’s top public health official.
While at UCLA, Ladapo wrote multiple opinion pieces in the early months of the pandemic arguing against lockdowns and mask usage in the United States. In two of those articles, written between March and April of 2020, he specifically claimed to have treated Covid-19 patients. On March 24, 2020, for example, he wrote an opinion piece for USA Today making an argument against lockdowns based on his own experience “taking care of patients with COVID-19 at UCLA’s flagship hospital” the previous week. Sixteen days later, on April 9, 2020, he wrote an almost identical piece for The Wall Street Journal where he also talked about his experience “caring for patients with suspected or diagnosed Covid-19 infections at UCLA.”
Dr. Ladapo’s characterization of his work is contradicted by the sources who worked at the same UCLA flagship hospital. They spoke to MSNBC on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record, but their credentials were independently verified. These sources, all of whom had experience treating Covid-19 patients, say that Ladapo’s numerous op-eds greatly mischaracterized the type of work he was doing during the pandemic. In addition, they do not believe Ladapo treated Covid-19 patients at UCLA until after July 2020 or even later.
“I was part of the team that was taking care of Covid-19 patients in the beginning of the pandemic and Dr. Ladapo was not part of that team. There were two separate groups, General Medicine and ICU, plus a volunteer program to take care of Covid-19 patients. Ladapo was not part of either,” said one of the sources who was part of UCLA’s Covid-19 task force. “It was a small group of people, a task force. Everyone knew everyone. He was not there,” the person added.
In addition to that statement, MSNBC obtained scheduling documents from the time that Dr. Ladapo was working at UCLA. They show the schedules for dozens of doctors who were also working in the Internal Medicine Unit alongside him. These documents span a period from June 2019 to September 2021. While those documents show that numerous doctors were assigned to work in the “COVID” unit, at no point was Dr. Ladapo scheduled to treat Covid-19 patients during that time. “He was not assigned to Covid hospital shifts and he was not part of the task force, so unless he saw patients privately, I do not think he cared for patients with the virus here at UCLA,” said one of the sources familiar with the schedule.
[…] Another one of Dr. Ladapo’s public actions has raised scrutiny.
In July 2020, a group of doctors wearing white embroidered lab coats stood on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington. They called themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors,” a name that suggests that they were either working in hospital emergency rooms or had experience treating Covid-19 patients. During the press conference, the doctors downplayed the risks associated with the virus and pushed hydroxychloroquine as a cure, a statement that directly contradicts medical findings about the efficacy of the drug against Covid. “I put them on hydroxychloroquine, I put them on zinc, I put them on Zitromax and they are all well,” said Stella Immanuel, one of the doctors at the press conference that day. Behind her stood Dr. Joseph Ladapo.
The sources consulted by MSNBC said that Ladapo’s participation in that press conference ignited deep conversations inside UCLA about the credibility of his work and how his actions were affecting the reputation of the academic institution. […]
The medical professionals who spoke with MSNBC also indicated that inside the hospital Ladapo’s opinion pieces became a “source of embarrassment,” especially those written for The Wall Street Journal, one of the largest papers in the United States. According to one of the sources, UCLA asked the WSJ to add a disclaimer next to Ladapo’s pieces clarifying that his views were his own, to no avail. […]
“A lot of people here at UCLA are glad that he is gone because we were embarrassed by his opinions and behavior. At the same time, we don’t wish this on the people of Florida. They don’t deserve to have someone like him making their health decisions,” said one of the UCLA sources. […]
Since taking the job as Florida’s surgeon general, Ladapo has made headlines for his stance on school mask mandates and more recently for his refusal to wear a mask while meeting with a state senator who was later revealed to have been diagnosed with breast cancer. “As a physician, I’m honestly concerned that Dr. Ladapo’s actions around the pandemic thus far have been not just unhelpful, but dangerous,” said Bernard Ashby, a Miami cardiologist who signed the letter voicing his concern with Ladapo’s nomination.
This was not always the case.
Ladapo, who graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2008 and has a PhD in health policy, was well respected by his UCLA peers when he first joined the academic institution in 2016. “I found him to be bright, with a rich educational background. Always nudging people to make better decisions for themselves,” said one of the sources. “Everybody is just surprised. He was smart, respected and even admired,” said another.
Some of his former colleagues genuinely think Dr. Ladapo does not believe behind closed doors what he is willing to say in public. “He knows his statements [regarding Covid-19] are not accurate; he knows better.” The shock has led them to speculate whether Ladapo was willing to sacrifice his medical reputation over career ambition. “He has become a right-wing media darling. He might like the attention,” one of the sources contacted by MSNBC said. “What hurts me the most is that those in Florida that hired him cite his work at UCLA as a point of admiration… but he is everything this hospital and this institution is not,” said another. […]
“Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics or will we look away from the danger and the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?”
Rep. Liz Cheney took a risk when she became one of the Republican Party’s most vocal critics of Donald Trump and his anti-democracy efforts. […] the Wyoming congresswoman has paid a price for doing what few others in her party have been willing to do.
Cheney was kicked out of her leadership post in the House Republican Conference; she’s seen several primary rivals launch campaigns against her; and the House Freedom Caucus has expressed interest in stripping Cheney of her party affiliation on Capitol Hill altogether.
She’s not, however, changing course. Over the weekend, the congresswoman appeared on Fox News and said, “I think the only way the Republican Party can go forward in strength is if we reject the lie, if we reject what happened on January 6th, if we reject the efforts that President Trump made, frankly, to steal the election, and if we tell voters the truth.”
Yesterday in New Hampshire, Cheney went a little further. The Associated Press reported overnight:
Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming said Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is at war “with the rule of law and the Constitution” and that GOP lawmakers who sit by silently are aiding his efforts. Cheney, a Trump critic who is vice chair of a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, said the challenge now is whether citizens will do their duty and “defend the Constitution and stand for truth.”
“Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics or will we look away from the danger and the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?” Cheney asked. “There is no gray area when it comes to that question, when it comes to this moment. There is no middle ground.”
The congresswoman added, “We are also confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before — a former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.”
[…] Cheney told Fox News that many of her fellow Republicans are thanking her for standing up to Trump, though they’re not willing to do so in public.
[…] The trouble is, the party has already embraced the lie. Three-quarters of GOP voters have embraced Trump’s Big Lie as if it were true — and the number has grown steadily over the course of the year, even as our electoral reality has become more obvious.
[…] The congresswoman seems eager to offer an alternative vision inside a party that doesn’t want one.
Interesting. A defeat, at least temporarily, for anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy.
This week, Daily Kos won a stunning (albeit preliminary) victory in a California court over Nazi-cavorting anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy is suing Daily Kos, trying to force us to reveal the identity of one of our community members. We’re telling him to go pound sand. Lawyers are involved. […]. The great folks at Public Citizen are providing that community member with pro bono legal services.
This is a big deal, and a real challenge to not just our free speech rights, but your ability to engage in the political process without the fear of being persecuted in your community, workplace, or social circle. We have asked you to help fund the expensive legal process, which spans two states (New York and California), and you’ve delivered. Together, we’re not going to let Kennedy’s unearned wealth violate your rights.
To summarize where things stand, Kennedy sued us in a New York state court. The trial judge allowed Kennedy to issue a subpoena for the identity of our community member, a decision we believe to be grossly in error and have just appealed. Pending appeal, we asked for a stay on the subpoena, but the New York court has so far refused.
Kennedy’s problem is that New York courts can’t enforce a subpoena against a California company. And we sure as hell weren’t (and aren’t) about to volunteer the information. Therefore, Kennedy had to sue us in California court to enforce that subpoena.
After months of legal wrangling, the California court finally issued its decision, and it was essentially one big “nope” to Kennedy, for now.
In short:
1) the subpoena is stayed pending the resolution of the New York appeal (in other words, it’s currently unenforceable),
2) the California court will take notice of the legal standard used by the New York court in making its decision,
3) if New York doesn’t use the same standard that California courts use or something similar (giving anonymous speech a high degree of First Amendment protection) and rules for Kennedy, then:
4) the case will still need to be litigated in California, and Kennedy will have to show that the subpoena the New York court allowed to issue is actually enforceable in California against a California company. ]…]
The end result is that New York has become just the first hurdle to Kennedy’s effort to dox our community member. Even if Kennedy wins in New York, he will still need to persuade a California judge to enforce the subpoena, and he’ll have to do it under legal standards specifically developed by California courts to protect constitutional rights and guard against the kind of harassment that Kennedy is attempting.
As a practical matter, there’s zero reason for Kennedy to continue this case, except that we know that there’s nothing rational about this case to begin with. Kennedy claims it’s about being defamed, but he hasn’t sued any of the other media organizations that reported on his attendance at the Berlin Nazi rally. He hasn’t sued Daily Kos for repeating, over and over again, that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cavorted with Nazis at an anti-vaxx rally that was organized and promoted by fascist right-wingers. This has always been about unmasking an online critic and nothing more.
I’ve appended the full California decision below. We’ve been able to fight this (ongoing) battle because you’ve had our back, helping fund this litigation. Furthermore, Public Citizen has stepped up to defend pro bono the community member Kennedy is trying to unmask. As always, I urge you to donate to Public Citizen […]
Jacob Chansley puffed out his chest, howled like an animal, and paraded his half-naked, horn-adorned body onto the Senate floor during the insurrection at the Capitol. For his obstruction to Congress’ efforts to certify the 2020 election, prosecutors have recommended a sentence of four years in prison.
In a memo issued late Tuesday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, prosecutors say Chansley, who also goes by the name Jake Angeli, effectively made himself the “public face of the Capitol riot” when he stormed into the complex wielding a six-foot-long spear-tipped flagpole, marauded through the chambers, and began hollering that then-Vice President Mike Pence was “a traitor.”
The 33-year-old was among some of the first people to breach the building on Jan. 6.
Chansley “[riled] up other members of the mob with his screaming obscenities about our nation’s lawmakers and flouting the ‘opportunity’ to rid our government of those he has long considered to be traitors,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves and assistant U.S. attorney Kimberly Paschall wrote in the 28-page sentencing memo.
The recommendation of 51 months from the Justice Department, or just over four years in prison, is the harshest one yet for defendants tied to the insurrection. The only other felony Capitol riot defendant that has been sentenced so far is Paul Hodgkins. The U.S. requested 18 months for Hodgkins, but he received an eight-month sentence instead. […]
Children in New York talk about getting the vaccine:
[…] June Hilgers, six, first grade.
Can you tell me what happened today?
They put alcohol on my skin, and then they shot it over the alcohol—which was like a really big pinch. It kind of stung a little bit, but it wasn’t, like, super-bad.
Are you happy that you got your shot?
Yes. And I just feel, like, O.K., now I’m waiting for the next one so I can go see my cousins on Christmas.
Millie Viteri-Cornejo, eight, third grade.
When did you find out you were going to get the shot?
On Friday. My mom told me because our principal told all the parents that kids were able to get the vaccine here. She seemed excited.
Why do you think she was excited?
Because now I could get the vaccine. If you get covid-19, it actually helps you to fight it.
Were you scared of covid?
At the beginning.
But not lately?
No. Because I got the shot, and it’s not going to be that bad now.
Finch Mathison, eight, third grade.
Tell me about getting the shot today.
It just felt really weird. Like something’s pointing into your skin. It feels like a really sharp pine cone.
Have you been stabbed by a pine cone before?
I’ve touched it on my finger. The points are really sharp, and the vaccine’s really sharp. So it feels like a pine cone.
Sam Rohr, ten, fifth grade.
Did you have to wait in a line?
Sam: Yes. My parents had to fill out a form. Then we had to wait on line to get our vaccine shot. When I got the vaccine shot, I felt absolutely nothing.
Did your parents tell you anything about the vaccine?
Sam: Yes. They were just saying some stuff about taking these masks off and stuff.
When will you get to take them off?
Sam: When I’m fully vaccinated. But everybody has to be vaccinated so we all can take our masks off.
[Now that’s a realistic kid.]
Catalina Monsanto, ten, sixth grade, and Gigi Monsanto, eight, third grade.
How did it go?
Catalina: We were a little nervous. I held Gigi’s hand because she was really nervous, but it went well.
Your dad told me that now that you’re vaccinated, you’re going to go see a Broadway show! What are you going to see?
Gigi: We’re going to see “Wicked.”
Are you excited?
Gigi: Yes! Everybody in our family is coming, excluding our dog.
Catalina: I think Gigi’s going to be obsessed with the songs, and she’s going to sing them at home.
Matthew Harrell, eight, third grade.
Did your dad give you advice before you got your shot?
If he did, I didn’t hear it. I was so distracted. Normally, if I’m distracted, I can’t hear anything.
Honestly, I’m the exact same way.
What? I couldn’t hear that.
You’ve got a great sense of humor! What’s your favorite joke?
My favorite joke is about banana peels. What do you call a banana that doesn’t peel?
Good news: “California Lettuce Workers Are Vaccinated AF”
For a genuine feel-good story in this second autumn of our COVID hellscape, take a few minutes to read this lovely story from nonprofit reporting outfit — dare we call it a collective? — Zócalo Public Square, about the astonishing success of vaccination efforts among agricultural workers in California’s Salinas and Imperial valleys. Reporter Joe Mathews starts with this statistic: In the small town of Gonzales, California (population 9000), 98 percent of eligible residents have had at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. That number may dip for like five minutes this week while the town gets all the five- to eleven-year-olds vaccinated.
Gonzales is a bit of an overachiever in vaccination rates, but other parts of California’s Lettuce Belt […] aren’t far behind, with far higher vaccination rates than the state average:
The city of Salinas, the de facto capital of the lettuce-growing valley, also boasts a vaccination rate above 90 percent, well above the statewide average and the vaccination rate on the whiter, wealthier Monterey Peninsula. Meanwhile, Imperial County, along the U.S.–Mexico border, is the most vaccinated place in the southern part of the state, as CalMatters first noted. Imperial boasts an 86 percent vaccination rate (at least one dose) — 10 points higher than L.A., Orange and San Diego counties, and 20-plus points higher than San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
By comparison, a lot of other rural parts of California are far below the state vaccination average, and have seen hospitals crowded with unvaccinated people during the recent surge in Delta variant infections. Also too, as Mathews notes, there’s a pretty notable demographic character to these highly vaccinated communities:
[Both] the Imperial and Salinas valleys have large populations of younger Latinos working in agriculture and essential industries—the very demographic other parts of the state are struggling to vaccinate.
Mathews explains that the two areas, some 500 miles apart, aren’t just agricultural regions, but that there are a lot of connections between them — they’re almost like one community in two places, sharing
networks of companies, mechanics, and workers who operate in the Salinas Valley through summer and fall, and the Imperial Valley (and neighboring Yuma, Arizona) in winter. It’s not uncommon to find agricultural workers with residences in both places.
The farmworker community in California was hit hard by the first wave of COVID last year, much as immigrant workers in Midwest meat processing plants were, with patchy provisioning of personal protective equipment and testing. The rates of infection were as much as three times those in the population overall. But lessons got learned, and — here’s the secret sauce — labor and growers and healthcare systems and local governments worked together to coordinate fixing that:
In the Salinas Valley, the Grower Shipper Association, an agricultural industry group, and Clinica de Salud, a community health clinic, shared an award for their joint efforts to protect workers. Together, they provided workers with personal protective equipment and quarantine housing, and, in 2021, they helped organize mass vaccination campaigns in the fields and at well-known sites like the Salinas Sports Complex. While the growers offered time off and transportation for vaccination, the clinics provided the doctors and nurses to do the jabs.
Sort of makes you wonder what the Fox News viewership in those areas thinks, too. People working together to tackle a public health crisis, with nobody marching on the county courthouse shouting about Liberty while toting AR-15s? […]
In the Salinas Valley, the joint vaccination effort even applied for and received its own supply of the vaccines from the federal government, moving things along without the state government needing to be a middleperson. Also too, both valleys had already done community organizing around protecting workers from dangerous pesticide use, and for the 2020 Census.
In the Imperial Valley and Yuma, a similar ethic of collaboration prevailed, getting vaccines to people in the tiny towns where they were, and even sending vaccination teams to border crossings, since many ag workers live in Mexico and commute (yes, legally, if there are any trolls visiting) to farms on the US side.
Another big difference from other parts of the US: The two regions valued their community health workers and hired more of them, instead of marching and shouting obscenities outside their county health officials’ homes in the middle of the night. Maybe there’s something in the water. And those health workers took the “community” part of the job seriously. These next paragraphs, specifically about the effort in Gonzales, made me a little bit misty, and even more, made me jealous of what can happen when good people demand good government:
These community health workers went door to door, and into apartment buildings, schools and businesses, to build relationships with residents. They brought free food boxes, from three local food pantries that the city set up early in the pandemic, to quarantined residents. They also became certified COVID-19 testers. This helped them reach vaccine holdouts, who, after testing negative for COVID-19, were quickly registered for vaccine appointments.
The city’s vaccination campaign has been relentless—with many organizations partnering to host over 20 mass vaccination clinics since February at the high school, the small and independent Gonzales RX Pharmacy, and the local Catholic church. To make sure there were always enough people in town who could give shots, the city had five Gonzales firefighters certified in administering COVID-19 vaccines. In addition to these personnel, nursing students from nearby Hartnell Community College and pharmacy staff also handled inoculations.
“It’s very hard for people to say no, with the accessibility and ease of the process,” Carmen Gil, Gonzales’ director of community engagement, told me.
The trick to making that work in more places, it seems, is to find ways to get institutions and stakeholders (ugh, put a dollar in the management buzzword jar, Dok) who can really work together and bring disparate groups, interests, and resources together.
Easier said than done, but as far as we can tell, it’s mostly a matter of organizing and doggedness, not of having better people, more money, or any magic communitarian fairy dust. It almost sounds … what’s the word? … revolutionary.
The congresswoman added, “We are also confronting a domestic threat that we have never faced before — a former president who’s attempting to unravel the foundations of our constitutional republic, aided by political leaders who have made themselves willing hostages to this dangerous and irrational man.”
And yet, not one word about the real threat… millions of armed, angry, bigoted, largely-whites willing to commit murder for whoever is going to protect their white Christian privilege.
[…] Earlier this week, there were reports that the GOP House members who voted for the bipartisan bill may soon find their committee assignments at risk. Stripping sitting lawmakers of their committee assignments is usually reserved for dramatic and serious transgressions, but in contemporary Republican politics, the infrastructure vote counts.
But for many of the individual members, that’s just the start. NBC News reported yesterday:
Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan received a profanity-laced voicemail threatening his life and that of his family and staff, criticizing his support for the bipartisan infrastructure bill last week. In the voicemail, obtained by NBC News from his office, a caller told Upton, “I hope you die. I hope everybody in your f—— family dies,” while labeling him a “traitor.”
Other pro-infrastructure Republicans have had to deal with similarly vile reactions. A New York Times report added, “One caller instructed Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to slit his wrists and ‘rot in hell.’ Another hoped Representative Don Bacon of Nebraska would slip and fall down a staircase. The office of Representative Nicole Malliotakis of New York has been inundated with angry messages tagging her as a ‘traitor.'”
Remember, at issue is a popular and bipartisan infrastructure plan. Given the ferocity of the reactions from the far-right, one might think the Republicans being inundated with abhorrent messages had endorsed Biden’s re-election, rather than simply vote for a good bill.
But for much of the GOP and its base, this is, as a Washington Post analysis put it, “the latest Republican purity test.” To be a Republican in good standing as 2021 nears its end is to be an opponent of domestic infrastructure investments.
Nearly as notable as the violent rhetoric directed at perceived GOP heretics is a nagging detail: The infrastructure package’s detractors haven’t gotten around to finding flaws in the legislation. […]
the Republicans’ case against the infrastructure bill fails to include a case against the infrastructure bill.
What the GOP partisans know but don’t want to say is an unpleasant truth: Republicans were supposed to vote against the infrastructure legislation, regardless of merits, because of the president’s party affiliation.
Donald Trump spoke this week to the National Republican Congressional Committee and touted his affection for the House GOP minority. The former president quickly added, however, “I say it with a heavy heart: No ‘thank you’ goes to those in the House and Senate who voted for the Democrats’ non-infrastructure bill…. You gave Biden a victory.” [So fucking typical of Trump.]
By this reasoning, elected officials shouldn’t prioritize the public’s needs. The goal, the argument goes, is to hurt the president politically.
It’s a twisted vision for how our political system is supposed to work, but it’s also an animating principle for much of the contemporary Republican Party.
[…] That decision cleared the way for the National Archives, which houses presidential records, to release the relevant materials to the bipartisan committee this week. Yesterday, Trump and his lawyers asked the same judge for an emergency injunction, blocking enforcement of her ruling while the matter is appealed. As NBC News reported overnight, she declined.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request for an emergency injunction filed by Trump’s lawyers a day after she ruled against Trump, who was trying to stop a House committee from receiving scores of White House documents from the Trump administration pertaining to the Capitol riot. Trump has argued that the files are protected by executive privilege.
“This court will not effectively ignore its own reasoning in denying injunctive relief in the first place to grant injunctive relief now,” Chutkan wrote.
Well, at least that part of Trump’s farcical demands did not result in a significant delay. Trump’s game is to delay proceedings until the 2022 elections put Republicans in power in the House (he hopes). But so far, his tactics have caused delays of only a few days. Judge Chutkan acted quickly.
[…] it was several weeks ago when the bipartisan House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack requested extensive materials from the White House, prompting Trump to demand absolute secrecy.
[…] Trump and his team sued both the committee and the National Archives, which houses presidential records. This week, at least at the district court level, that lawsuit failed, clearing the way for lawmakers to access everything from call logs to handwritten notes, internal emails to draft presidential memoranda.
So what happens now? In theory, the former president could simply accept the ruling and allow the bipartisan investigation to continue. In practice, Trump and his team have already indicated they’ll take the matter to an appellate court and make another plea for an emergency injunction, which would block the National Archives from cooperating with Congress, while the merits of the case are litigated further.
If the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declines, it’s a safe bet the Republican will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
In all likelihood, the former president will eventually lose this fight. […]
Trump and his attorneys very likely know this. They’re nevertheless hoping to drag the process out as long as possible — trying to run out the clock is a go-to move for the former president — in the hopes of catching a break. The more the court fight is extended, the more likely it becomes that Trump can keep the documents secret until his party has a chance to reclaim the U.S. House majority and shut down the investigation.
But while the process unfolds, the political realizations are plain: Trump appears about as desperate to hide these Jan. 6 materials as he is to hide his tax returns.
About 900,000 children ages 5 to 11 are estimated to have received their first Covid-19 shot within the first week of eligibility, the Biden administration announced Wednesday. Approximately 700,000 more have appointments to get their first dose, Jeff Zients, the White House Covid-19 response coordinator, said during a press briefing.
Colorado has seen such a big increase in Covid cases that the hospital system in that state is now using crisis standards of care. Hospitals are allowed to prioritize staff for emergencies and reduce the level of care provided for non-emergencies.
Good news: Abbott’s ban on masks has been blocked:
On Wednesday evening, a U.S. District Court judge in Austin blocked Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on mask mandates at schools. According to the ruling from Judge Lee Yeakel, Abbott’s actions violate federal law because they present a special danger to students who are at high risk due to preexisting medical conditions. Because of this, refusing to allow schools to institute mask mandates, according to Yeakel, is a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
“The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs. Children with certain underlying conditions who contract COVID-19 are more likely to experience severe acute biological effects and to require admission to a hospital and the hospital’s intensive-care unit.”
Yeakel makes a series of very simple, and easily defensible, points in his ruling:
Students with special health concerns are at higher risk.
Schools say that mask mandates will help protect those students in a way that voluntary mask use will not.
Evidence supports the idea that near-universal mask-wearing helps slow the spread of COVID-19.
Forcing kids at higher risk to participate in classrooms without a mask mandate puts them at higher risk than their peers.
If this ruling holds up, it could affect not just mask mandates in Texas, but in multiple states were Republican governors, legislatures, and attorneys general have attempted to prevent schools from requiring masks.
Throughout the entire pandemic, it seems that Republican governors have been scrambling to one-up each other on how willing they are to endanger their citizens. A whole series of steps have become de rigueur […] That’s included stripping power from local officials to institute their own social distancing rules, taking away authority from state and county health officials, punishing businesses that seek to keep employees safe, punishing employees who seek to avoid unsafe workplaces, fining schools that attempt to keep students safe, and making it illegal for anyone—private or public—to require vaccination.
[…] there has been some outstandingly awful behavior from governors such as South Dakota’s Kristi Noem and Tennessee’s Bill Lee. However, few governors have dueled for the title of Most Willing To Kill Citizens for Political Points the way that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott have gone at it.
DeSantis often grabs the headline for his habit of treating each downturn in the rate of new cases as an excuse to claim that his policies have worked—while ignoring Florida’s top 10 status in both the rate of cases and of deaths. But Abbott has matched his Florida rival almost step for step when it comes to punishing everyone with good intentions.
[…] Texas is almost certain to appeal Yeakel’s ruling, especially since Paxton is, in almost every measurable way, worse than Abbott when it comes to reflexive attacks on reasonable policies. However, for the moment, not only can schools in Texas feel safer while making kids safer, there are implications that go way beyond one state and way beyond schools.
If a ban on mask mandates is a violation of the ADA, then this is true not just in Texas, but in Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee, and every other Republican-controlled state that has moved to block these mandates. And if this is true for schools, it must be true for everywhere else as well, in public and private space.
Abbott’s own executive order makes it clear that mask mandates have value, because he exempts hospitals, nursing homes, and jails from the ban on such mandates. This is easily recognized as giving value to such mandates.
[…] it seems dead simple to extend this ruling to support the idea that cities, counties, government facilities, and private businesses of all types cannot be banned from issuing mask mandates.
It would be funny if it did not also convince some parents to reject vaccination for their children:
Newsmax host Eric Bolling has found a home on the bleeding edge of right-wing reality television. Bolling left Fox News in disgrace after an investigation revealed he was sending unsolicited graphic photos of male genitalia and text messages to female employees. Good times! Since then, Bolling has joined fellow unhinged right-wing personality Grant Stinchfield in berating everyone not conservative enough to drink the fascist Kool-Aid Trump and the GOP are pushing these days.
What is the “bleeding edge” of conservatism these days? Big Bird from Sesame Street is a communist and Big Bird is trying to trick your kids into getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Sen. Ted Cruz has been on the frontlines of this new “culture war” and Eric Bolling used his Tuesday show to point out that he has always known that the Muppets and other Jim Henson creations were secret commies. Don’t believe an adult man would say that on video while not performing on a comedy sketch show?
[…] lest you believe this is a new thing for the educational show’s puppets, Eric Bolling is here to remind you that Sesame Street has always been a bastion of feel-good commie sentiment.
ERIC BOLLING: Not the first time these little felt communists tried to infect the minds of our youngest and most vulnerable children, a decade ago, way back in 2011, I called out Kermit, that cute little green monster commie.
[…] He proceeded to show an appearance on Fox News’ The Five, where he took a Kermit puppet and demanded he debate him about the Muppets’ “anti-capitalist” leanings. He then continued his decade-long battle with the Muppets, showing a clip of Miss Piggy holding a press conference talking about how silly Bolling was—in 2011.
Back to 2021 and Eric Bolling: “Guess what? The invite’s still open Ms. Piggy, if you or your emasculated frog boyfriend, Kermit, ever wanted to join this desk, it’s free. So yeah, at first I thought they were mere ideologues and now I think they’re just stuck on stupid.”
Shouldn’t the National Republican Congressional Committee have been able to create an honest ad?
Republicans were already feeling optimistic about their electoral fortunes. The Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill are tiny, and given that the White House’s party nearly always loses seats two years after a presidential election, GOP leaders effectively started measuring the drapes a while ago.
After last week’s elections in Virginia and New Jersey, Republicans’ confidence reached new levels — to the point that the National Republican Congressional Committee crafted and launched a new attack ad. Axios reported this week:
The National Republican Congressional Committee will run a one-day, nationwide ad campaign today — one year out from the 2022 midterm elections, targeting Democrats over rising prices, crime and the border…. The ad will air Monday on Fox News, Newsmax and One America News Network.
[…] the commercial’s flaws are notable.
For one thing, Republicans have an unfortunate habit of misleading editing. An MSNBC host said over the summer, “If Democrats want to know what they are going to be facing, let’s talk about it right now. Because if I were a Republican running, I would say: Democrats can’t protect us across the world, Democrats can’t protect our street, and Democrats can’t protect us at the border.”
The NRCC ad took this quote and removed the part in which the host said, “If Democrats want to know what they are going to be facing, let’s talk about it right now. Because if I were a Republican running, I would say….”
But even more important is some of the footage used in the Republicans’ new ad. A CNN report explained:
A new national television ad from House Republicans’ campaign arm deceptively uses images of events that occurred during former President Donald Trump’s time in office to attack President Joe Biden’s tenure.
CNN’s list wasn’t even comprehensive: The Washington Post found an additional instance in which the NRCC’s ad included footage from before Biden’s term, which the party nevertheless blamed on the incumbent president.
In other words, Republicans created an ad intended to tell the public that the United States is a chaotic mess and it’s the Democratic president’s fault. But some of the evidence of violence and social unrest included in the ad occurred during Trump’s term — suggesting the NRCC blames former Republican president for creating a chaotic mess.
After the NRCC’s Mike Berg promoted the ad via social media, White House Rapid Response Director Mike Gwin responded in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way: “Mike, I want to sincerely thank you for reminding Americans of the chaos we inherited from Trump: A flatlining economy. COVID out of control. Record crime. It’s remarkable how much progress we’ve made since. Much appreciated. Keep up the great work.”
That’s funny, but I’m also struck by the fact that the National Republican Congressional Committee needed to play fast and loose with the facts in the first place. […] shouldn’t the truth be good enough?
With all this talk lately about how we are brutally murdering all of the masculinity and not letting men be manly anymore — a thing they apparently need our permission for — it seems like an opportune time to check in on our old friend Lori Alexander, the Transformed Wife. For the unhip, Lori Alexander is a Christian Tradwife blogger who is a very big fan of submitting to one’s husband, beating one’s children, and marital rape and not a very big fan of women voting (other than herself).
When last we checked in on Lori, she was railing against the horrors of Satanic feminism. What is she doing now? Also railing against the horrors of Satanic feminism. This is apparently a very big issue for her at the moment.
While you might assume that Satanic feminism at least involves some cool outfits, maybe some heavy metal, some nice-smelling candles at the very least, or that it might even involve some actual feminism, Satanic feminism is, according to Lori, being a regular human woman who doesn’t subscribe to her very stringent ideas of what a woman is supposed to be.
Well, technically, it is according to some anti-feminist pastor named Anthony Wood, whom she quotes as saying, “Satanic feminism inverts the order. Fallen women crave power. Fallen women lead the charge. Fallen women flaunt their beauty. Fallen women dominate the men.”
Doesn’t Satanic feminism sound exquisite?
Lori writes:
Godly women don’t crave power. They don’t want to rule their husbands. They don’t want to be CEOs, political leaders, or even the president. They know that God’s created order was for men to be the ones in leadership. They don’t want to be Pastors nor Elders in the churches. They don’t need to get their own way. They don’t need attention. They know who they are in Christ. They know His ways are perfect. They love His ways. They want to obey Him in everything, since He alone is the one with absolute power.
Strange how someone who doesn’t crave power would write a whole ass blog telling other women what to do and what they’re allowed to want and how they’re allowed to feel. Especially one who doesn’t need attention or to get their own way.
Godly women don’t lead the charge. They don’t want to be in charge of their marriage. They don’t want to be in charge of anyone else except for the children the Lord blesses with and their homes. They understand that this is the role the Lord has given to them, and they are thankful. They love being keepers at home, and they work hard in their homes. They understand that the work they do in being help meets to their husbands, mothers to their children, and keepers at home are all storing beautiful treasures in heaven. They live with the end in mind. Eternity is always in their vision. They want Christ to be in charge of their lives and allow their husbands to lead the charge as commanded by God.
Well, I don’t get a lot of religious stuff, but it seems weird that God would bother with giving women free will if there was only supposed to be one type of woman — the Lori Alexander type — and that woman was supposed to do literally nothing but serve her husband. Like, why not just give men free will and then create an army of Lori Alexander Stepford Wives to serve their every whim? Seems like it would save a lot of time and effort.
Godly women don’t flaunt their beauty. They pursue meek and quiet spirits instead. They dress and act modestly. They know that true adorning and beauty comes from the inside, so they work more on this rather than on their outward beauty. They want to be known for their kindness, gentleness, and goodness instead of on how they look. The want to dress and act in a way that pleases their Savior.
This is the same woman, by the way, who has written several blogs about how it is her godly duty to insult people for being overweight. Or is she just mad at fashion? Like, “insulting people for being fat is fine, but earrings are not allowed!”
Godly women don’t dominate men. They don’t want to dominate their husbands nor any other men in their lives. They won’t use manipulation nor emotional outbursts in order to get their way. They live in submission to their husbands. They also live in submission to the elders in their churches. They respect the contribution that men have made in their lives. They appreciate them. They don’t give into the feminist agenda of fighting for “equality” which actually means women want to be superior. They know this isn’t God’s will for women, since women are the weaker vessel and more easily deceived. They accept God’s perfect will for them instead.
If “equality” really means “superior,” why are they separate words that mean different things? Lori is just full of puzzles, and it’s best not to hurt yourself trying to suss it out. And just putting this out there — if women “are more easily deceived,” how does Lori Alexander know that she’s not being deceived herself? Maybe it’s actually Satan who wants women to live in submission to everyone? Or maybe it is Lori Alexander. Maybe Lori Alexander is just a super religious person with a kink she wants to believe is simply “God’s will” for not just her, but every other woman on earth.
During the Republican National Convention in 2016, Newt Gingrich sat down with CNN’s Alisyn Camerota, who asked the former House Speaker about Donald Trump’s many false claims. […]
The anchor noted that violent crime rates nationwide fell during Barack Obama’s presidency, despite Trump’s claims to the contrary. Gingrich said the evidence was irrelevant.
“The average American, I will bet you this morning, does not think crime is down, does not think they are safer,” the Georgia Republican said. Camerota responded, “But it is. We are safer, and it is down.” Gingrich, incredulous, said, “No, that’s just your view.”
The two went back and forth for a while, with the CNN host pointing to actual data, and the Trump surrogate arguing that facts and reason are less relevant than false opinions. “As a political candidate,” Gingrich concluded, “I’ll go with how people feel.”
It was emblematic of an absurd school of thought: Credible evidence is fine, as far as it goes, but verifiable crime statistics are no match for what unprincipled politicians can get people to believe.
[…] This year’s increase in Americans’ belief that there is more crime in their area than a year ago is mostly explained by a surge among Republicans, rising 29 points from 38% in 2020 to 67% today.
Gallup published a helpful chart in its report, showing partisan attitudes on crime over the last couple of decades. It shows relative stability among Democratic and independent voters over the last several years on local crime perceptions, but wild swings among Republican voters.
But these swings are not without explanation. When White House control shifted from Bush to Obama, Republicans’ crime fears jumped from 40 percent to 51 percent. When White House control shifted from Obama to Trump, GOP voters’ perceptions about crime plummeted, falling from 54 percent to 36 percent. It remained low for four years.
And when the presidency shifted from Trump to Joe Biden, Republican voters’ beliefs about crime spiked by nearly 30 points. It’s easily the largest one-year spike, from any party affiliation, since Gallup started keeping track.
[…] A casual observer might see the Gallup report and think Americans are seeing increased crime in their communities, but that’s not what’s going on here. Rather, a Democratic president was elected, conservative media outlets shifted their crime coverage, and GOP voters responded with increased fear, right on cue.
Dr. Simone Gold, of America’s Frontline Doctors Who Should Really Have Their Medical Licenses Revoked, is just outraged. For the first time in her whole entire life, she is hearing about pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions! Not ever! Not even once!
“NEVER before have Pharmacists violated the patient-doctor relationship or refused to fill legitimate prescriptions,” she tweeted. “It’s one of many scandals in this health crisis. Those who violate their oaths will soon be exposed.”
The retweets and replies are full of equally outraged wingnuts who have also never, ever, ever heard of this happening, and who are very sad about pharmacies — CVS pharmacy in particular — refusing to prescribe their Ivermectin. Many of them were also very excited at the idea of seeing them “exposed” for violating their oath.
As it turns out, there actually is an official Pharmacist’s Oath, and you will be shocked to discover that nowhere does it say that they are legally bound to fill every prescription no matter what.
It reads:
I promise to devote myself to a lifetime of service to others through the profession of pharmacy. In fulfilling this vow:
I will consider the welfare of humanity and relief of suffering my primary concerns.
I will apply my knowledge, experience, and skills to the best of my ability to assure optimal outcomes for my patients.
I will respect and protect all personal and health information entrusted to me.
I will accept the lifelong obligation to improve my professional knowledge and competence.
I will hold myself and my colleagues to the highest principles of our profession’s moral, ethical and legal conduct.
I will embrace and advocate changes that improve patient care.
I will utilize my knowledge, skills, experiences, and values to prepare the next generation of pharmacists.
I take these vows voluntarily with the full realization of the responsibility with which I am entrusted by the public.
Now, there are actually lots of instances in which a pharmacist can refuse to fill a certain prescription — often if they know the patient is allergic, that there will be a bad interaction with another drug they are taking, or if the prescribing doctor is currently under investigation for overprescribing painkillers or something similar. That’s sort of the point of having a pharmacist, a person with an actual doctorate, fill prescriptions.
The DEA also holds pharmacists responsible for prescriptions they fill, to a degree.
The responsibility for the proper prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances is upon the prescribing practitioner, but a corresponding responsibility rests with the pharmacist who fills the prescription.
In this particular case, the pharmacy boards of several states have deemed prescribing or filling prescriptions for off-label use of Ivermectin to be a violation of professional conduct. Thus, it is highly unlikely that the pharmacists refusing to fill those prescriptions are going to be held responsible for anything […]
The really insulting thing here, however, is seeing a bunch of Republicans act shocked and outraged over pharmacists refusing to fill their Ivermectin prescriptions, claiming this is the very first time they’ve ever heard of this happening. Mainly because they’ve spent the last 20 years trying to make it legal everywhere for pharmacists to refuse to provide birth control, Plan B, the abortion pill, etc., or to provide hormone-related prescriptions to trans people.
They have implemented so-called “conscience clauses” in several states that actually do allow them to do just that — Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, and South Dakota.
“True! We are in the reddest county of the reddest State, and not one pharmacy in town will fill the doctor’s prescription for HYD [presumably hydroxychloroquine] or IVM for Covid use.” tweeted someone calling themselves “Granny Bee.” They said the directive is from corporate, and they’ll be shut down.”
[…] Personally, I hope that some pharmacist actually does claim that providing conspiracy-based prescriptions is a violation of their moral conscience (which seems fair) — then maybe we can be rid of some of those terrible laws.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko opened another potential front against Europe on Thursday, threatening to choke off gas supplies amid a deepening crisis that has brought migrants surging to E.U. borders and Western leaders planning to retaliate with more sanctions.
Lukashenko’s warning jolted energy markets and further suggested his authoritarian regime still had the backing of its key ally Russia, whose natural gas pipelines — including one crossing Belarus — are critical for European supplies.
It is also Russian President Vladimir Putin who would decide whether Lukashenko could follow through with threats to turn off the Belarus pipeline, which supplies about 20 percent of Europe’s Russian gas, according to analysts. So far, Russia has insisted it has no part in Lukashenko’s growing feud even as it declines to rein him in.
“It’s clearly a very serious threat and the next step is to watch what Russia says or does about this,” said Nigel Gould-Davies, a Belarus analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a former British ambassador to Belarus.
In another display of Moscow’s support, two Russian strategic bombers flew near Belarus’s border with the European Union for the second day Thursday. On the ground, meanwhile, thousands of migrants from the Middle East and elsewhere huddled at the heavily guarded Polish border — the latest flash point after Lukashenko has for months opened routes from Minsk to E.U. frontiers. [Those migrants are outdoors, in the freezing cold, without adequate shelter or firewood.]
Lukashenko — often called Europe’s last dictator by his foes — has steadily escalated his fight with the E.U. and its allies since elections last year that handed him victory but were widely viewed by Western leaders and others as riddled with fraud.
His threat over gas supplies comes as E.U. officials plan new sanctions as early as next week, with other possible measures to follow by the United States, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday after talks in Washington with President Biden. […]
A federal appeals court on Thursday granted a request from […] Trump to temporarily block the National Archives from turning over his White House records to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
The committee had been set to receive the first batch of documents, which lawmakers say is key to their investigation, on Friday. In papers filed Thursday, lawyers for Trump asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to temporarily delay the turnover and to “maintain the status quo” while they push ahead with an expedited appeal.
In a brief unsigned order with no noted dissents, a three-judge panel of the appeals court granted Trump “an administrative injunction” late Thursday and set arguments for Nov. 30.
The order was issued by Judges Patricia Millett, Robert Wilkins and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all of whom were appointed by Democratic presidents. Millett and Wilkins were appointed by former President Barack Obama. President Joe Biden appointed Jackson.
Courts often issue such injunctions to allow more time to consider the underlying issues. The order was not a ruling on whether Trump or the House committee has a stronger legal argument.
“The purpose of this administrative injunction is to protect the court’s jurisdiction to address appellant’s claims of executive privilege and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits,” the judges wrote Thursday. […]
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request from Trump’s team to “maintain the status quo” this week, saying “the status quo in this case” is that the National Archives will disclose the documents Friday “absent any intervening court order.” The ruling was one of three she issued in the past week refusing Trump’s demand to keep his records secret. […]
It was early last year when the United States launched a drone attack that killed a powerful Iranian general, Quasem Soleimani. Days later, Iran retaliated, launching a massive ballistic missile attack on U.S. troops stationed at the Al Asad Air Base in Iraq.
Fortunately, there was enough good intelligence about the impending strike that Americans were able to get to bunkers before the missiles hit, and no U.S. troops were killed in the attack. In fact, Donald Trump, starting his final year as president, also assured the public at the time that “no Americans” had been “harmed” in the attack.
That wasn’t true. As regular readers know, a week later, the administration clarified that 11 U.S. servicemembers had been transported to two hospitals for treatment for brain injuries. Soon after, that number was revised, climbing from 11 to 34. The tally was then revised again, from 34 to 50. By late January, the total number climbed once more, from 50 to 64. A month later, it was up to 109.
An NBC News report explained that a lot of TBI symptoms develop late and manifest themselves over time. […]
There was, however, a related problem: Trump refused to back off from his false claim. In fact, when pressed for some kind of explanation for why he’d said “no Americans were harmed” when that wasn’t true, the then-president downplayed the troops’ brain injuries. The Republican went so far as to tell reporters that he’d heard that some of the servicemen and women had experienced “headaches,” but he didn’t “consider them very serious injuries.”
Remember, we’re talking about troops whose brain injuries were considered serious enough that the military airlifted them to hospitals.
It’s possible Trump didn’t want to admit he was wrong. It’s also possible he couldn’t bring himself to admit that his Iran policy had led to American troops’ injuries. It’s also possible the guy just didn’t know what he was saying.
Whatever the explanation, the Veterans of Foreign Wars denounced Trump’s dismissive attitude toward the troops’ brain injuries and called for a presidential apology. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America soon followed with a similar message of its own. The then-president ignored them.
Four months later, 29 of the U.S. soldiers who were injured in the attack were awarded Purple Hearts, despite their commander in chief at the time downplaying their injuries. But dozens of other Americans were also hurt. What about their Purple Hearts?
USA Today reported yesterday:
A soldier who suffered a brain injury and an official who surveyed the damage described the missile attack as intense and a miracle that it didn’t kill any troops. But it has left the soldier and others with injuries that linger nearly two years later. Both the soldier and official say commanders discouraged wounded troops from filing paperwork for the Purple Heart.
Wait, wounded American troops were “discouraged” from filing paperwork for the Purple Heart? […] if the article is correct, and commanders recommended that servicemen and women — who’d otherwise be eligible for the military honor — not seek the Purple Heart while the then-president downplayed their injuries, that would be an important revelation.
It’s important to emphasize that the same USA Today article that these soldiers are no longer being discouraged and the Army “now anticipates receiving 39 more submissions for Purple Heart medals and will process them under existing regulations.”
That’s a big step in the right direction — those Americans earned their medals — but it doesn’t answer the questions about what happened in 2020.
In fact, USA Today isn’t alone on this story. CBS News ran a related report today, quoting servicemembers on the record, describing what they heard at the time. Retired Captain Geoffrey Hansen, for example, said in reference to the Purple Heart paperwork, “The messaging I was getting was just the political situation wasn’t going to support more approvals.”
[…] “The soldiers CBS spoke with said after the attack, there was pressure to downplay the growing injuries to avoid a further escalation with Iran and avoid undercutting former President Trump.”
In other words, Trump downplayed the seriousness of American injuries, which led to pressure within the military not to contradict the president who was wrong.
Trump’s presidency is over. The number of Trump scandals continues to grow.
Now that’s a Veteran’s Day story we need to remember.
Republicans still want to let their colleagues get away with the worst behavior, including posting fantasies about killing Democrats:
As congressional Democrats move forward with plans to censure Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, much of the attention in recent days has been on House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who has options for dealing with the far-right Arizonan, but who’s instead said nothing.
[…] As for the rest of the GOP conference, it would be an exaggeration to say literally no Republicans have spoken up. Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, for example, who recently announced that he isn’t running for re-election, this week lamented Gosar’s misconduct and urged his party to “condemn this proactively.”
Yesterday, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney made similar comments to the Associated Press, not only endorsing Gosar’s censure, but also pressing Republican leaders to step up and do the right thing.
“It’s a real symbol of his lack of strength, the lack of leadership in our conference right now, and the extent to which he and other leaders seem to have lost their moral compass,” the congresswoman said. Cheney went on to marvel at the fact that McCarthy “will not stand against” an “avowed white nationalist in Rep. Gosar who has posted a video advocating the killing of another member.”
But Kinzinger and Cheney are the exceptions among House Republicans. Of the 213 members of the House GOP conference, we can count the number of Republicans who’ve publicly criticized Gosar this week on one hand. The AP report helped summarize why this matters:
Less than a year after former President Donald Trump’s supporters staged a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in an effort to halt the peaceful transition of power, the GOP’s refusal to broadly and forcefully condemn more recent examples of disturbing rhetoric and behavior suggests an unsettling shift. One of the nation’s two major political parties appears increasingly tolerant of at least some persistent level of violence in American discourse, or at least willing to turn a blind eye to it.
[…] The AP’s report went on to note Republicans’ “reluctance to crack down on — or even mildly criticize — violent rhetoric” in their own ranks.
The political calculus should be obvious: The more Republicans accept extremists in their ranks who tolerate political violence, the more dangerous the political conditions become for all of us. […]
“Outside of his very active imagination,” the White House said, “Donald Trump is no longer president and doesn’t have any ‘envoy ambassadors.'”
There was a strange moment in early August when former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows seemed to suggest that Donald Trump was still in a position of power and authority. In context, the North Carolina Republican appeared on a conservative media outlet and was asked about the former president’s plans.
Meadows responded by describing Trump as “a president who is fully engaged, highly focused, and remaining on task.” The former chief of staff added, in apparent reference to Trump and his team, “We met with several of our cabinet members tonight.”
Note, this was in August 2021, not August 2020. As we discussed at the time, Meadows’ comments appeared to describe some alternate reality in which Trump still had a post-presidency cabinet.
All of this came to mind again yesterday when the president issued a written statement, sharing some insights related to international affairs. It read in part:
“The great people of Serbia and Kosovo have overcome tremendous obstacles in their pursuit of economic normalization. The agreements my administration brokered are historic and should not be abandoned, many lives are at stake. The region is too important and the people have waited too long for this work to be cast aside. Today, my Envoy Ambassador Ric Grenell visited the Kosovo-Serbia border to highlight this important agreement.”
First, there’s no such thing as an “Envoy Ambassador.”
Second, even if such a position existed within the United States’ government, former presidents don’t get their own international diplomatic teams.
Third, when Trump was in office and officials from the Obama administration met with foreign officials, Trump publicly characterized this as criminal activity — which he believed should be literally prosecuted by the Justice Department. Evidently, he’s changed his mind.
But perhaps most memorably, the actual president’s team found all of this worthy of a response. “Outside of his very active imagination, Donald Trump is no longer president and doesn’t have any ‘envoy ambassadors’ representing the United States,” a White House official said.
As a rule, President Joe Biden and his team say very little about their Republican predecessor. It was entertaining to see them make an exception.
When I interviewed Trump for “Betrayal” and asked him about his supporters chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, he didn’t condemn them, he defended them. Here’s a clip from the interview. More audio from the genuinely shocking interview will air Sunday on @ThisWeekABC
[…] the ins and outs of open carry nonsense aren’t what I want to discuss here. It’s rather the trajectory from that to Rittenhouse’s double murder to his expected acquittal. To most of us it is pretty obvious that it’s not good for society to have lots of people walking around in public settings carrying loaded firearms. Open carry activists and ‘gun rights’ supporters generally say that’s all wrong. The problem isn’t guns. The issue is when someone decides to commit a crime with one. If someone shoots someone that’s a crime and it should be punished.
This flies in the face of human nature, common sense and the fact that laws are intended not only to punish crimes but make them less likely to happen in the first place. But let’s take this argument at face value. No one is physically injured by these yahoos strutting around with their AR-15s. The moment that changes we have laws that cover that. Those laws carry severe penalties. So far so good.
But the Rittenhouse case shows how that is not really true. Permissive self-defense laws allow a Rittenhouse to have his aggression double as self-defense. You intentionally go into a chaotic situation. You travel across state lines, highly and visibly armed, allegedly to ‘protect’ people who haven’t asked for your protection. Then you feel threatened, which seems likely to happen in a chaotic place when you show up, chest puffed out with a military style weapon. Your perception of danger entitles you to murderous violence, which you arrived locked and loaded to pursue in the first place. In Rittenhouse’s case part of his perception of threat came when people freaked out after he’d shot and killed the first person. And of course only other people get hurt or killed because you’ve got the over-the-top firepower and they don’t.
If you operate within the chain of reasoning here you see the perverse connections. Self-defense laws exist because we as a society believe you are entitled to defend yourself with what would ordinarily be criminal violence if you face imminent, grave bodily harm to death. If someone breaks into your home and is threatening to kill you you have the right to kill them first. But if you created the dangerous or deadly situation the calculus changes. Or at least it should. Rittenhouse likely broke some laws being there with the gun in the first place. He was under 18 for instance. But the basic argument here is that Rittenhouse wasn’t doing anything wrong by just carrying around an AR-15. Wisconsin’s an open carry state. The inherent aggression and menace of carrying around high caliber weapons, which we’re told is only a problem for squeamish libs, becomes a path for the person carrying the fire arm to themselves feel threatened and decide they need to use the gun.
The aggression carries the seeds of justification within it. You show up looking for trouble on yet another of these right wing murder safaris like Rittenhouse, with his mother chaperoning, was taking part in. You’re looking for trouble and when you find it that’s your justification for taking the next step. That’s not how self-defense is supposed to work. But we can see in this case how the interplay of open carry and permissive self-defense statutes do just that.
Paul Krugman: “History Says Don’t Panic About Inflation”
Back in July the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers posted a thoughtful article to its blog titled, “Historical Parallels to Today’s Inflationary Episode.” The article looked at six surges in inflation since World War II and argued persuasively that current events don’t look anything like the 1970s. Instead, the closest parallel to 2021’s inflation is the first of these surges, the price spike from 1946 to 1948.
Wednesday’s consumer price report was ugly; inflation is running considerably hotter than many people, myself included, expected. But nothing about it contradicted C.E.A.’s analysis — on the contrary, the similarity to early postwar inflation looks stronger than ever. […]
And here’s what you need to know about that 1946-48 inflation spike: It was a one-time event, not the start of a protracted wage-price spiral. And the biggest mistake policymakers made in response to that inflation surge was failing to appreciate its transitory nature: They were still fighting inflation even as inflation was ceasing to be a problem, and in so doing helped bring on the recession of 1948-49.
[…] the classic story of inflation resulting from an overheated economy, in which too much money is chasing too few goods. Earlier this year the rise in prices had a narrow base, being driven largely by food, energy, used cars and services like air travel that were rebounding from the pandemic. That’s less true now: It looks as if demand is outstripping supply across much of the economy.
One caveat to this story is that overall demand in the United States actually doesn’t look all that high; real gross domestic product, which is equal to real spending on U.S.-produced goods and services, is still about 2 percent below what we would have expected the economy’s capacity to be if the pandemic hadn’t happened. But demand has been skewed, with consumers buying fewer services but more goods than before, putting a strain on ports, trucking, warehouses and more. […] So we’re having an inflation spurt.
On the plus side, jobs have rarely been this plentiful for those who want them. And contrary to the cliché, current inflation isn’t falling most heavily on the poor: Wage increases have been especially rapid for the lowest-paid workers.
So what can 1946-48 teach us about inflation in 2021? Then as now there was a surge in consumer spending, as families rushed to buy the goods that had been unavailable in wartime. Then as now it took time for the economy to adjust to a big shift in demand — in the 1940s, the shift from military to civilian needs. […]
But the inflation didn’t last. It didn’t end immediately: Prices kept rising rapidly for well over a year. Over the course of 1948, however, inflation plunged, and by 1949 it had turned into brief deflation.
What, then, does history teach us about the current inflation spike? One lesson is that brief episodes of overheating don’t necessarily lead to 1970s-type stagflation […] we really should have some patience: Given what happened in the 1940s, pronouncements that inflation can’t be transitory because it has persisted for a number of months are just silly.
Oh, and for what it’s worth, the bond market is in effect predicting a temporary bump in inflation, not a permanent rise. Yields on inflation-protected bonds maturing over the next couple of years are strongly negative, implying that investors expect rapid price rises in the near term. But longer-term market expectations of inflation have remained stable.
Another lesson, which is extremely relevant right now (hello, Senator Manchin), is that an inflation spurt is no reason to cancel long-term investment plans. The inflation surge of the 1940s was followed by an epic period of public investment in America’s future, which included the construction of the Interstate Highway System. That investment didn’t reignite inflation — if anything, by improving America’s logistics, it probably helped keep inflation down. The same can be said of the Biden administration’s spending proposals, which would do little to boost short-term demand and would help long-term supply.
[…] people making knee-jerk comparisons with the 1970s and screaming about stagflation are looking at the wrong history. When you look at the right history, it tells you not to panic.
As New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s advantage grows as more votes are counted, Republican Jack Ciattarelli will reportedly concede defeat today.
[…] in Alabama, Donald Trump has thrown his support behind far-right Rep. Mo Brooks to succeed retiring Sen. Richard Shelby. The senator, however, is reportedly prepared to spend $5 million of his campaign funds to help elect his former chief of staff, Katie Britt.
[…] Caught up in a campaign-finance controversy, Republican Sen. Mike Braun of Indiana has said he can’t fully respond to the Federal Election Commission’s questions because his former campaign treasurer “vanished.” As it turns out, it only took The Daily Beast five minutes to find him.
[…] In New Hampshire, Republican Senate hopeful Don Bolduc claimed this week that he drove Gov. Chris Sununu from the 2022 race. At the same time, Bolduc, a retired brigadier general, also shared a variety of strange conspiracy theories, including the idea that the Republican governor is a “Chinese Communist sympathizer.” […]
On Nextdoor I jokingly committed myself to smelling Joe Biden if I ever met him because it’s fair. Now I’m wondering about any actual symbolic usefulness of such an act.
[…] A triplet of potential crises have cropped up in Russia’s relations with its neighbors to the West. Some Biden administration officials fear that Russia may be stoking the tensions as a prelude to another incursion into Ukraine, while others think that it’s part of a larger leverage game.
The events have been bizarre and confusing, involving an airlift of migrants from the Middle East and armored military divisions moving towards Ukraine. Part of the action has occurred in Belarus, a Russian client state.
[…] Senior U.S. diplomats have met with Russian officials. CIA Director Bill Burns flew to Moscow earlier this month, where he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
That sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity between Europe and the U.S. CNN reported last week that after Burns’s trip, American diplomats began “massive outreach” to Europe about a potential Russian threat. […]
The tensions are taking place in two geographic areas: the Ukraine-Russia border, and Belarus’s border with Poland and Lithuania.
It’s all unfolding with the issue of natural gas and the coming winter heating season as a backdrop.
Russia remains the key source of natural gas for Europe. The pipelines go through Belarus, Ukraine, the Black Sea and, recently, through the North Sea.
The fact that it provides a gas supply for the winter heating season has historically allowed Russia to exert leverage on Europe and on transit countries like Ukraine that reap fees from the gas flow. Right now, Europe is debating whether to certify the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which offers Russia a direct gas transit route to Germany passing under the Baltic Sea.
Tensions began to ramp up in October as Russia held back gas supplies to Europe, causing already-high prices to spike further as temperatures start to drop and usage goes up.
Later in October, Russia began to amass troops near its border with Ukraine. Satellite photos showed makeshift barracks and armored divisions being set up near the frontier.
The weirdest and most alarming escalation of tensions has been playing out along Belarus’s border with Poland and Lithuania.
It’s a region known to NATO planners as the Suwalki corridor — a narrow stretch of land that comprises the sole border between Poland and the Baltic states, buttressed by the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on one side and Belarus on the other.
Belarusian dictator Aleksandar Lukashenka has ordered the country’s military to escort refugees to the border area, as Russia has sent nuclear-capable bombers to circle overhead.
It’s not clear exactly what Lukashenka is up to, but Belarus maintains close ties with Russia, with the two countries keeping a military alliance and allowing each others citizens to travel back and forth freely. Belarus receives massive subsidies from Moscow which have allowed it to stay afloat but also grant Russia extensive influence over its policy-making.
[…] the route many of the refugees travel, paying traffickers who have deals with Belarusian embassies […] Flights from Beirut, Damascus, and Amman to Minsk have increased in recent weeks, according to Germany’s foreign ministry, conceivably allowing more refugees to make the trip.
From there, the Belarusian military reportedly escorts the migrants to camps along the border.
[…] Those stranded on the border are fleeing violent places and face a horrible situation. But their placement there, and the false promise that Belarus could serve as an easy access point to the European Union, fueled anti-immigrant protests in Warsaw this week. Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia, have all asked for EU funding to build walls along the Belarusian border.
Lukashenka, for his part, dared Poland this week to seal the country’s border, and threatened to cut off the country’s gas pipelines to Europe.
“You imposed sanctions against me, against Belarusians,” he said. “You launched a hybrid war against Belarus. And you, scoundrels, madmen, want me to protect you, from migrants?”
Some analysts think of Lukashenka as a Kremlin stooge, while others regard him as a loose cannon whose behavior drags Moscow into situations it would rather avoid.
Reports suggest that some in the Biden administration fear another Russian incursion into Ukraine, while others see it as part of a leverage game against Europe over the gas trade and part of Moscow’s campaign to destabilize its western neighbors.
The Russian government, for its part, has taken its usual tack of only partly admitting to what’s going on.
One Russian foreign affairs journal, known for being close to the Kremlin, likened the situation to an “invasion from the north” via an analogy to Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”
“It wasn’t always that migrants came to Europe from the south — there were time that they came from the north,” the journal’s authors wrote on the publication’s Telegram channel. “So look for yourselves, when was it better: then or now?” […]
Facebook again! Fucking Facebook is hosting hundreds of groups that pump up rage against masks and against Critical Race Theory, … and ultimately, against public schools.
It’s not news that Facebook is a key organizing tool for angry conservatives, but the scope of it is still dizzying. Media Matters has identified “at least 860 right-wing parents and school-related groups that are active, with at least 717,000 combined members,” with topics ranging from “critical race theory” (read: any teaching that could be interpreted as anti-racist) to mask and vaccine mandates to the whole cocktail of right-wing positions on schools.
The 860 groups Media Matters found include six networks with anywhere from 23 to 135 groups each, many of them private. When you’ve got networks running dozens of groups apiece, that’s a sign that something is going on beyond an organic uprising of frustrated parents. […] other hints including the Fox News full-court press to create school-related culture wars, statements from Republican politicians doing the same, Glenn Youngkin’s entire campaign for governor in Virginia, and books being pulled from school libraries around the country.
Yep. It’s organized. And there’s conservative big money behind it.
But the Facebook groups help show how the organized, top-down right-wing campaign reaches hundreds of thousands of people and mobilizes them to show up at school board meetings to yell and scream or complain about books in school libraries. Media Matters found:
125 anti-mask groups.
116 groups opposing critical race theory.
34 anti-vaccine groups.
21 groups opposing vaccine mandates.
17 groups opposing comprehensive sex education.
13 groups that were focused on reopening schools.
While those may be the organizing principles of the groups, there’s a lot of crossover. Media Matters found numerous cases of anti-mask, anti-vaccine, and anti-sex ed posts on Parents Against Critical Race Theory, for instance, as well as anti-CRT posts in groups officially dedicated to opposition to masks or vaccines.
For Republicans, these issues are connected to a broader attack on public schools as a public good. It’s not just about masks or vaccines, or anti-racism. It’s not even just about getting Republican voters worked up about those things, using the culture war angle to get them to the polls. It’s about saying that public schools should be subservient to the whims of individual parents rather than serving all children equally. That there should not be a baseline of safe, healthy education that all kids have access to, but rather a fragmented system in which funding goes via vouchers to private and in many cases religious schools, or to charter schools that can siphon off private profit from public education money. That the government has no interest in the education of the population of the United States. That the education kids get should be directly related to their families’ access to resources and entirely constrained by what their parents are willing for them to learn—and that public schools should be forced into following the most restrictive demands of any parents. Or at least, any conservative white parents who start shouting.
And, of course, Facebook is all too happy to provide these organized groups with a platform to spread racism and anti-vaccine messaging.
Steve Benen comments: “The last time Bannon was indicted, he got a presidential pardon. I have a hunch that won’t happen now that he’s been indicted by federal prosecutors again.”
It was last summer when federal prosecutors first filed criminal charges against Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former campaign strategist and White House aide. In that case, the political operative was accused of participating in an alleged wall-building scam.
On Jan. 20, with just hours remaining in his presidency, Trump pardoned Bannon before prosecutors could bring the case to trial.
Today, as NBC News reported, federal prosecutors announced a new indictment for Bannon — and this time, if he’s counting on a presidential pardon, he’ll likely be disappointed.
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury Friday, charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions from the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The indictment is a first. No one has ever been prosecuted before for contempt of Congress when executive privilege was asserted.
According to the Justice Department’s written statement, Bannon has been charged with one count of contempt and another involving his refusal to produce documents, despite a congressional subpoena.
Each count carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $1,000.
[…] The one thing everyone involved in the process can agree on is that Bannon has important insights related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He was in communications with Donald Trump in the runup to the insurrectionist riot, and he reportedly told the then-president, “[I]t’s time to kill the Biden presidency in the crib.”
The day before the attack, Bannon seemed to know quite a bit about what was likely to happen, telling his podcast listeners, “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow. Just understand this: All hell is going to break loose tomorrow…. [A]ll I can say is: Strap in. You have made this happen, and tomorrow it’s game day.”
With this in mind, it hardly came as a surprise when the bipartisan House committee investigating the attack issued subpoenas in late September, seeking information from key Trump insiders — and Bannon was at the top of the list.
He refused to comply with the subpoena, insisting he was bound by Trump’s executive privilege claim. (Bannon was a private citizen, not a member of the then-president’s team, in January.) For Congress, that wasn’t good enough: Congressional subpoenas are not supposed to be optional. They are not casual invitations. The more people feel they can ignore these legal commands from federal lawmakers — at the behest of a former president who is now a private citizen — the more difficult it is for Congress to do its job.
And so, the House dis something it generally doesn’t have to do: Members voted three weeks ago to approve a resolution finding the GOP operative in contempt of Congress. As part of the same process, the Democratic-led chamber referred the matter to the Justice Department for possible criminal prosecution.
It was an open question as to whether federal prosecutors would pursue the matter. Today, that question has been answered.
In terms of what happens now, NBC News’ report added, “Like anyone charged with a crime, Bannon will now go through the normal process in federal court. He will be arraigned and will enter a plea. Unless he pleads guilty, the judge will set a trial date. A conviction, however, would not require him to testify before the House committee. It would simply constitute his punishment for refusing to do so.”
There’s also a larger context to consider: The select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack has issued several batches of subpoenas, and many people in the former president’s orbit have questioned whether to cooperate. Indeed, just this morning, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows refused to honor the panel’s subpoenas.
Some may be willing to risk Congress’ ire, assuming that the Justice Department won’t actually go to the trouble of pursuing charges against those who ignore the committee’s legal commands. Bannon’s indictment should change that calculus.
Or as NBC News’ report put it, “The fact that the Justice Department was willing to charge him with criminal contempt, despite an assertion of executive privilege, may help persuade other reluctant witnesses to agree to cooperate with the committee’s investigation.”
Followup to comment 451.
From the Justice Department, the indictment:
Stephen K. Bannon was indicted today by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress stemming from his failure to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Bannon, 67, is charged with one contempt count involving his refusal to appear for a deposition and another involving his refusal to produce documents, despite a subpoena from the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol. An arraignment date has not yet been set in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
“Since my first day in office, I have promised Justice Department employees that together we would show the American people by word and deed that the department adheres to the rule of law, follows the facts and the law and pursues equal justice under the law,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Today’s charges reflect the department’s steadfast commitment to these principles.”
“As detailed in the indictment, on Sept. 23, 2021, the Select Committee issued a subpoena to Mr. Bannon,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “The subpoena required him to appear and produce documents to the Select Committee, and to appear for a deposition before the Select Committee. According to the indictment, Mr. Bannon refused to appear to give testimony as required by subpoena and refused to produce documents in compliance with a subpoena.”
In its subpoena, the Select Committee said it had reason to believe that Bannon had information relevant to understanding events related to Jan. 6. Bannon, formerly a Chief Strategist and Counselor to the President, has been a private citizen since departing the White House in 2017.
Each count of contempt of Congress carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $1,000. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Akira MacKenziesays
Each count of contempt of Congress carries a minimum of 30 days and a maximum of one year in jail, as well as a fine of $100 to $1,000. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
None of this matters. Bannon is a man of wealth and power and they slide out of trouble with a wink and a nod. If he didn’t already take an unlisted flight to some fascist-run shithole without extradition, he’s going to.
Even if he was punished, the president dictator installed after Biden will just pardon him… again.
CBS News reported in August that at least 34 Afghan children were classified as “unaccompanied minors” after being evacuated to the U.S. without parents. In the months since the Biden administration evacuated tens of thousands of refugees as part of Operation Allies Rescue, the number of unaccompanied Afghan children here is now approximately 1,300, Health and Human Services (HHS) tells Reuters.
“Many of the Afghan minors were unintentionally separated from their parents in Kabul, […] Among them was 10-year-old Mansoor, who is currently living with relatives in Washington state. He was separated from his family while the Kabul airport was under attack.
[…] When the military rushed to shut the gates, Mansoon was caught inside, his parents and siblings outside. Mansoor was thankfully not alone, because a relative, Shogofa, had also made it inside the airport. They waited for Mansoor’s family for several days, but eventually had to evacuate.
“Shogofa ended up on a U.S. military base in New Jersey with her own two young children, Mansoor, and other relatives. After several weeks, they joined her sister, Nilofar, who lives in the Seattle area,” the report said. “Mansoor’s parents are currently in hiding in Afghanistan because of his father’s former position in the Afghan government.”
Even though Mansoor traveled with a relative, he’s classified as an unaccompanied minor because that relative was not a parent. Reuters reports that, while the vast majority of Afghan unaccompanied minors have been released from HHS custody to relatives already here, 266 Afghan children currently remain in custody because they have no family here. “The children will likely have to find legal help to navigate the complex immigration system.”
[…] the weeks of uncertainty around the status of parents “is causing huge amounts of stress and trauma for the children, said Jennifer Vanegas, supervising attorney with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.”
[…]15-year-old Sadam is staying with his uncle, also in Washington state. Sadam was similarly separated from his family at the Kabul airport when he went to go find water. “When Sadam came back with the water, his family was gone.” Soldiers then told him to board a plane, but he still wasn’t able to find them. Sadam does appear to be socializing with his cousins here, but the report said he regularly asks when he’ll see his parents. “I don’t know,” his uncle replies.
Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which has also advocated for Central American children fleeing to the U.S. for safety, last month issued guidance for protecting unaccompanied Afghan kids, writing they “have experienced extreme trauma in their flight from harm.” […] “What the United States and other nations do now will determine the trajectory of these children’s lives. The United States has a responsibility to get this right.”
Here’s some good news: Democrats and moderate Republicans thwart South Dakota conservatives on new redistricting plan.
In a fascinating development, a group of Republicans in the South Dakota House banded together with Democrats on Wednesday to pass a new legislative redistricting plan over the objections of a sizable bloc of conservative GOP dissenters. All seven Democrats present voted in favor of the map, along with 30 Republicans, while 31 Republicans were opposed, meaning Democrats provided the winning majority. The plan, which originated in the Senate, easily passed the upper chamber 30-2, with all three Democrats likewise in favor.
The Republican objectors complained that the map would double-bunk some of their members and undermine their ability to elect far-right legislators. But at issue as well was the matter of Native American representation. In particular, the new map places the northern parts of Rapid City, which are home to a large Native population, into a single legislative district, a move that Democratic state Sen. Red Dawn Foster said would enhance the community’s voice.
In addition, the map preserves two districts that are split in half to give Native voters a better opportunity to elect their preferred candidates,[…] Normally, South Dakota legislative districts elect two representatives and one senator each (both chambers use the same map), but two House districts are divided into separate sections that elect one member each. At least one plan backed by conservatives would have done away with this approach.
The map now goes to Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, who has not yet indicated whether she will sign it into law.
A group of protesters gathered outside the Washington, DC, Courthouse on Wednesday holding signs emblazoned with “Free Them All” and “Care Not Cages” to demand the release of detainees at the DC jail, many of whom have been awaiting trial for several months. “Our loved ones and our family members have been kept in that jail in feces and in urine. They’re being held in inhumane conditions […]
“The DC jail is 87 percent Black and the moment that a white person enters into that jail, they want to make change. Shame!”
Johnson was referring to a new wave of public scrutiny and outcry over the jail’s dismal conditions that she and other activists say was prompted not by the long-standing mistreatment of people of color and efforts of advocates such as herself, but rather in response to complaints from a much smaller and whiter detained population: the January 6 Capitol insurrection defendants and one of their most outspoken champions, controversial Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
In mid-October, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth called for a Department of Justice investigation into the potential violation of the detained rioters’ civil rights and held jail officials in contempt of court for failing to turn over medical records that were necessary to approve surgery for Christopher Worrell, a defendant and member of the Proud Boys from Florida who has cancer and is being held on charges of pepper-spraying law enforcement officers, to which he has pleaded not guilty. Judge Lamberth has since ordered Worrell, whose many claims of medical mistreatment have been characterized by the DOJ as “unsubstantiated,” to be transferred to a different jail or released on home detention, calling the conditions at the jail deplorable.
Shortly after, the US Marshals Service for the District of Columbia conducted an “unannounced inspection” of two DC Department of Corrections (DOC) jails. They found that conditions at the Central Treatment Facility (CTF), where roughly 40 January 6 defendants are currently being held awaiting trial, didn’t call for a transfer for detainees. But according to the US Marshals assigned to the case, the Central Detention Facility, informally known as the DC jail, had “evidence of systemic failures” and didn’t meet minimum standards of confinement. The CDF has a total population of roughly 1,200, the majority of whom are Black, and are being held pretrial or serving time for misdemeanor offenses. Among the main findings were an “overpowering” smell of urine and feces, meals served cold and congealed, routine water shutdowns, and DOC staff “antagonizing detainees.” As a result of the inspection, the Marshals announced 400 people would be moved to a facility 180 miles away in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.
In other words, the white detainees were already being held in a better part of the prison, the treatment facility.
“I am disappointed but not surprised,” Johnson told me after the rally. “It took one white person in a facility that houses 80 percent Black people for them to complain and for their voices to be heard. And now Black people are going to suffer because they’re going to be moved away from their families and from their lawyers. That’s a punishment.”
[…] Other issues those detained for their violence at the Capitol have raised include being force-fed “CRT propaganda” and “anti-White Racial messaging,” and having haircuts, religious services, and visits denied for the unvaccinated. “Even in jail, in prison, unvaccinated people are treated like second-class citizens,” Greene said on Fox News. She apparently also took the opportunity to review religious reading materials available at the jail, finding “common ground” with Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam newspaper for its opposition to vaccine mandates. […]
So Marjorie Taylor Green went on Fox News and proposed that unvaccinated people should be allowed to visit prisoners. [head/desk]
“DC jail has always been way too big. DC jail has always been way too Black. DC jail has always been too expensive,” Patrice Sulton, founder and executive director of the DC Justice Lab, said. “We’ve been making noise about this for a long time. It’s never been humane, it’s never been acceptable, it’s never been right. And it’s never been problematic for the council until they put a handful of white people in there.”
A Los Angeles court has ended Britney Spears’s conservatorship, bringing to a close the 13-year legal arrangement the pop star has ripped as “abusive” […]
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny ruled Friday that the conservatorship would come to an end immediately, […]
Spears’s situation has drawn national scrutiny and increased attention to similar legal conservatorships.
[…] singer had been under the conservatorship, previously controlled by her father Jamie Spears, since 2008, following public mental health struggles.
But she began publicly speaking out about the arrangement in June, when she gave a scathing testimony in Los Angeles, alleging she has been “traumatized” by its control over her life and medical health.
Among the many accusations she leveled, Spears, 39, said that under the arrangement she could not marry her boyfriend and was forced to undergo nonstop psychiatric evaluations, as well as take birth control.
“I would like to progressively move forward, and I want to have the real deal. I want to be able to get married and have a baby,” she said. “I was told right now on the conservatorship I’m not able to get married or have a baby.”
[…] The recording artist’s legal arrangement has drawn the attention of lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in Washington and sparked changes to California’s conservatorship system.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed legislation in early October that imposes financial penalties on professional conservators who a court finds have abused their conservatee. Such conservators could also have their licenses sanctioned.
The legislation would also require the court at certain hearings to consider ending a conservatorship and would authorize circumstances under which the arrangement can be modified.
I have always thought that the courts would never have imposed a conservatorship on a male pop star in similar circumstances.
Wonkette: “Steve Bannon Plays Stupid Games, Wins Stupidest Prize”
[…] Yesterday a grand jury in DC indicted the former Trump campaign manager on two counts of contempt of Congress: one for failure to show up and testify, and one for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents. Each charge is subject to a maximum one-year prison sentence and a $100,000 fine. And it couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy.
A whole lot of Trumplanders got subpoenaed by the House January 6 Select Committee, but none has given such an energetic “fuck you” to Congress as Ol’ Three Shirts. Mark Meadows came close, since he also refused to show up or turn over any subpoenaed documents. But his claim to executive privilege, at least as it pertains to his White House communications, is basically in the neighborhood of colorable. Bannon hasn’t been a government employee since 2017, so his claim of executive privilege covering his communications with Trump, much less his activities leading up to the January 6 Insurrection, was aggressively ridiculous.
And yet he refused to engage with the Committee at all, other than to accept the subpoena and have his attorney Robert Costello send a couple of letters claiming that his client’s hands are tied because the former president has invoked privilege.
“It is therefore clear to us that since the executive privilege belongs to President Trump, and he has, through his counsel, asserted those executive privileges enumerated above, we must accept his direction and honor his invocation of executive privilege,” Costello wrote on October 7, the day before subpoenaed documents were due. “As such, until these issues are resolved, we are unable to respond to your request for documents and testimony.”
On October 13, the eve of Bannon’s scheduled testimony, Costello chided Committee Chair Bennie Thompson, telling him that “your use of the word ‘defiance’ is inappropriate” and reiterating that his client wouldn’t even show up to invoke privilege without a court order.
As the DOJ wrote in the indictment:
By 6:00 p.m. on October 18, 2021, BANNON made no substantive submission for the Select Committee’s deliberations, did not produce documents and communications, did not provide a log of withheld records, did not certify that he had conducted a diligent search for responsive records, did not appear for a deposition, and did not comply with the subpoena in any way.
That is NOT. HOW. THIS. SHIT. GOES.
Jeffrey Clark, the former DOJ attorney of Keystone Coup fame, has terrible judgment, and that guy knew he had to show up and say he wasn’t going to answer questions because of executive privilege. Bannon didn’t show, and he didn’t even pretend to produce the subpoenaed documents that had nothing to do with the White House at all, such as transcripts of his own podcast where he exhorted listeners to come to DC on January 6. He all but dared the Justice Department to indict him pursuant to the Committee’s referral for contempt of Congress, and now he’s got his wish.
[…] The case has been assigned to US District Judge Carl John Nichols, and Reuters reports that Bannon will be expected to “self-surrender” on Monday to be arraigned in DC. It’s not Bannon’s first rodeo, although this time he’ll be spared the ignominy of being arrested by the mailman. And unlike last time, there’s no one in the White House to bail him out with a well-timed pardon.
[…] The intact cavern-cum-barracks contains munitions, books, cigarette holders and animal bones, and it was once teeming with Austro-Hungarian troops. They staked out on Mount Scorluzzo, almost 3,000 meters (about 9,800 feet) above sea level, on the Italian-Swiss border, now part of Italy’s Stelvio National Park territory.
“These places were literally frozen in time,” Giovanni Cadioli, historian and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Padua in Italy, told The Washington Post.
Now, he added, climate change is playing a “pivotal role” in their discovery, as warming temperatures have led to the melting of glaciers and permafrost, revealing a “time capsule.”
Amid the backdrop of the COP26 global climate change summit in Scotland, Cadioli underscored that the impressive findings were bittersweet: “We’d really rather not have retreating glaciers.”
The artificial caves were made back in 1915 by blowing up parts of the mountain and transforming them into makeshift barracks and shelters to house hundreds of European troops.
The barracks — along with the machine gun emplacements, sheltered walkways and tunnels — were held by Austro-Hungarians who were fighting Italian troops. They vacated their position on Nov. 3, 1918, in line with retreat orders, just days ahead of the armistice agreement on Nov. 11, which ended World War I.
From 1915-1918, European soldiers were stationed in the extremely harsh mountain terrain, facing punitive climatic conditions year-round. Nature, frostbite, falls and avalanches ultimately claimed more lives than enemy fire, Cadioli said.
[…] The goals of the excavations are to secure the area and preserve organic traces conserved in the ice, which, through historical and scientific research, will shed light on “alpine warfare” and the lives of the soldiers, Cadioli said. The various projects involve about 40 researchers in disciplines such as botanicals, cartography and glaciology, and they are supported by Stelvio National Park and the University of Padua. […]
Researchers even found frozen mounds of hay that soldiers used to sleep on, containing seeds that were preserved so well that they were put in the sun to dry and were later planted. They are now growing 100 years later.
It was midmorning when the messages started pinging on the phone of a group assisting migrants along the Polish-Belarusian border — the focus of Belarus’s latest gambit to use some of the world’s most vulnerable people in its battle with the European Union.
[…] “We need help.”
It was from a group of Syrians stuck in the forest. They tapped out their appeals, sometimes in broken English: They hadn’t eaten for days, they needed water, some needed a doctor.
“Do not bring us to Bilarussia plise.”
“They are very bad people.”
The missives reaching activists with Fundacja Ocalenie, a Polish group that offers humanitarian and legal aid to refugees, offer a glimpse of the desperation of those caught inside a treacherous game of international brinkmanship by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. The migrants’ accounts also expand claims that Lukashenko’s military and others have key roles in moving people to the border — and can punish those who don’t manage to cross or are sent back.
Lukashenko’s regime — which is under E.U. sanctions — has eased entry requirements for arrivals from the Middle East and elsewhere who pay for Belarus-organized packages including visas, flights and hotels in Minsk before getting in taxis or buses to the border with Poland, an E.U. member state.
There, Belarusian border guards assist migrants to get though the border fence and into Poland, according to interviews with more than a dozen migrants detained in Poland or stuck in the forests along the border.
They described Belarusian forces pulling down or cutting through barbed wire and shuttling migrants up and down the 250-mile border — now heavily guarded and fortified by Poland — to find the best places to cross.
Some migrants say Belarusian forces beat them if they fail to cross into Poland, turning them back toward the border and refusing them food or water or stealing what they have. They also accuse Polish guards of harsh treatment, including smashing their phones before sending them back to Belarus.
It’s a cycle that has seen some people bounced between the borders and sleeping in the forest for weeks — a plight that’s becoming increasingly dangerous as nighttime temperatures drop below freezing. Polish police said Saturday that the body of a young Syrian was found near the border. There were unconfirmed reports in Polish media of the death of an Iraqi teen on the Belarusian side a day earlier. [Map available at the link.]
The migrants messaging the activists in Sokolka, about 10 miles from the border, made it outside of the border “emergency zone” that Polish authorities say is off limits to aid groups and journalists. That means the migrants can be reached. The activists prepared flasks of hot water, warm clothes, heating pads and soup to take to the group stranded in the forest.
The aid workers eventually find the migrants cowering under a group of trees. One woman is curled up on the forest floor in pain. She said she was six weeks pregnant and had suffered a miscarriage.
People in the group are terrified and jump at every movement. “No police, no police,” they implore. They said they came on a direct flight from Damascus, Syria, and spent three days at the “camp” that Belarusian forces built at the border. They were given no food or water and were beaten, they said. […]
A new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that prices rose in October and are hovering at a notably high point has triggered a full-on Democratic panic attack over the fate of the reconciliation bill.
While those two things may seem unrelated — spoiler alert: they are — one man binds them together: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).
He tweeted Wednesday that the inflation spike is not temporary and is, instead, “getting worse,” prompting a bout of furious tea leaf reading. Democrats speculated in public and in private that the West Virginia senator will use the inflation levels as an excuse to slow down or kill the reconciliation package (also known as Build Back Better, or BBB). He has cited inflation fears before, when enumerating his objections to a bigger reconciliation package. Republicans are glomming on to the talking point, which they see as handy to both imperil the bill and boost their midterm chances.
I have said before that I think Joe Manchin has been searching for a way to kill the Build Back Better bill all along. Occasionally, he pretends otherwise, but then he always reverts to spouting Republican talking points. His fossil-fuel-related donors also want him to kill that bill. Don’t buy Joe Manchin’s bullshit.
While there are multiple valid theories about why this current inflation spike is surprisingly high and when it will subside, economists told TPM that there is overwhelming consensus that the reconciliation package will not cause inflation.
“That claim has zero merit,” Josh Bivens, research director at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, told TPM. “Whether or not BBB passes will not move the inflation rate up or down over the next year.”
Inflation is a measure of increasing prices of goods and services, often caused when a surge in demand means that customers are willing to pay those higher prices.
Bivens pointed to the fact that the package is not deficit spending, but entirely or almost entirely financed by taxes. It’s also, simply, not a stimulus package meant to inject a ton of money into the economy all at once.
“BBB is about public investment and safety net stitching,” he said. “It’s gonna come online at a much slower rate.”
It’s crafted differently, and has a different purpose, than the American Rescue Plan (ARP) President Joe Biden signed in March, which was front-loaded with money to throw people a financial lifeline. Some have argued that ARP contributed to the current inflationary spike by giving people more money to spend, increasing demand while supply remained low.
Many economists told TPM that they don’t buy this theory about ARP, or at least don’t buy that the law was enough to cause this inflation on its own. They point to other factors, including a drastic shift in consumer spending away from face-to-face services (gyms, concerts, doctor appointments) to durable goods (couches, pants, sourdough starter kits), overburdened and snarled up supply lines and an enduring pandemic that hasn’t let either of those things return to normal. Additionally, inflation rates are high worldwide, weakening the theory that one country’s fiscal policy is to blame, said Austan Goolsbee, economics professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
That’s a good summary, and a good explanation.
But regardless of ARP’s impact on inflation, the reconciliation bill functions differently. The components of the bill that do put money in Americans’ pockets pay out much more slowly, and at predictable times.
“One of the good things about government planning and investment is that people know what’s gonna happen and prepare,” Lauren Melodia, deputy director of macroeconomic analysis at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute, told TPM. “The issues we have right now are because businesses did not anticipate the disruption they’d see this year.”
Some even argue that the bill could have a dampening effect on inflation across the 10 years it runs, since it contains proposals to make childcare more affordable, which would free up more people to join the workforce and expand the economy’s capacity, and invests in clean energy production, which would shift the country away from the wild volatility of fossil fuel prices.
[…] Partisans flinging “but inflation!” at bills they don’t like is not exactly a new tactic.
“Inflation is always the boogeyman people try to throw against expansionary policy in general,” said EPI’s Josh Bivens. “It’s proving more effective this time because the inflation rate has actually increased, for nuanced reasons.”
[…] The Federal Reserve can bring down inflation by raising interest rates and sparking a recession — a “pretty dangerous” move for an economy that still hasn’t recovered from the pandemic, said John Horn, economics professor at the University of Washington St. Louis’ Olin Business School.
But if the cause for the current spike is indeed the combination of pandemic-changed spending habits and pandemic-hobbled supply chains, the key to dropping inflation rates is … ending the pandemic. […]
Satchel Paige was a baseball player who pitched in what were, at the time, referred to as “the Negro Leagues.” In the early 1900s, separate professional baseball leagues existed for African Americans and Latin Americans due to segregation. In a Veterans Day speech at Arlington National Cemetery, President Joe Biden started to refer to Paige as “a great Negro League pitcher,” but then paused and shifted to saying “at the time, pitcher in the Negro Leagues.” That night, Fox News’ Sean Hannity made a big show of being aghast that Biden used the term “Negro,” even though that was what the leagues were literally called.
On Friday, morning show Fox & Friends took things a step further. The show edited the video to eliminate any reference to the Negro Leagues in order to make it appear that Biden just randomly and insensitively used an out-of-date and racist term.
Fox News then proceeded to make this the top story throughout the day, though the network later gave up on the attempt to force outrage after it was viciously mocked for editing the video.
In case there’s any doubt about the dishonest editing of the Fox and Friends version in the second tweet, note that Biden’s hand disappears, along with his actual words, at the 11-second mark. [Video is available at the link.]
The network tried to save face when confronted by the Associated Press, of course, blaming a ticking clock instead of its political goals for the unforced error.
When editing video, journalists have an obligation to keep statements in the context they were delivered or explain to viewers why a change was made, said Al Tompkins, faculty member at Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank. In this case, the edit is not at all clear, he said.
A Fox spokesperson noted that the full remark was used when the story was repeated two other times on “Fox & Friends,” and said the one-time edit was made because of time constraints.
Sure, unnamed spokesperson, that’s the ticket. Notably, as of Saturday morning, Fox News still has a story up about the supposed “gaffe,” and a quick glance at the comments shows the story is having the desired effect on the Fox audience.
Fox News, of course, is no stranger to altering photos or video in order to serve its goal of attacking Democrats and real journalists. Hell, they’ve been doing it for decades. No real, ethical news outlet would ever allow such a thing, but Fox isn’t a a real, ethical news outlet, is it?
Countries formally reached a deal at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, on Saturday, providing a punctuation mark on a two-week global conference that stretched into the weekend.
The agreement calls for countries to step up their ambitions on climate change over the next year by strengthening their 2030 climate targets by the end of next year. It specifically calls for global carbon dioxide emissions to be cut 45 percent by 2030 when compared to 2010 levels.
Developed countries also agreed to at least double their collective financing for assisting developing countries to adapt to climate-related harms by 2025.
For the first time, the agreement will include explicit mentions of coal and fossil fuels, but after objections from India and Iran, the language surrounding coal was weakened at the last minute.
India proposed an amendment changing language that had previously called for a “phase down” of unabated coal rather than a “phase out,” which was ultimately added into the final language.
Unabated coal is that which uses technology to capture its emissions. A previous draft that was not adopted would have called for a phaseout of all coal, so the latest language comes after the language was already softened previously.
The agreement also calls for countries to eliminate “inefficient” fossil fuel subsidies. A draft from earlier this week had called for the elimination of all fossil fuel subsidies, but on Friday, the language was changed to add the qualifying adjective.
Global leaders also reached an agreement on the rules for carbon offset markets, in which countries can get credit against their emissions for financing climate cooling activities.
Delegates from other countries fumed over India’s move, which also came after Iran raised objections to the original coal provision. But, they said, it wasn’t worth jettisoning the entire agreement.
“What was just read out to us is a further disappointment, not because we want to be right, but because we know that the longer you take to get rid coal, the more burden you put on our natural environment, but also, the more burden you put on your economy,” European Union climate leader Frans Timmermans said of India’s proposal.
“Having now expressed my disappointment, I want to reiterate what I said in my earlier intervention, this should not stop us from deciding today on what…I have to say, is a historic, historic decision,” he added. […]
During the Trump administration, it was one exhausting scandal after another. We never had to stretch a scandal out for more than a day and we never had to struggle to turn a non-story into a story — not that that’s our jam anyway. It is, however, very much the jam of Fox News and other right-wing networks and websites. We all recall the Obama years, during which conservative commentators would frequently spend a whole month talking about how he ordered Grey Poupon or wore a tan suit somewhere.
Now they are trying again, desperately, to make scandals out of anything Joe Biden and Kamala Harris do, after pretending there was nothing wrong with any of the completely absurd shit Trump got up to during his tenure. As such, conservative commentators have spent the last several days blowing their gaskets over Kamala Harris supposedly slipping into a French accent during two separate public appearances in France.
Their evidence? She pronounced “the” as “thee” instead of “tha,” as a means of emphasizing things she was talking about. This is a thing English-speaking people do all of the time and also sounds nothing at all like a French accent. [video available at the link]
Yeah. That’s not even sort of a French accent. I don’t know what these people think a French accent is, but that is definitely not one. […]
Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer, appearing on The Faulkner Focus insisted that she was definitely trying to speak French by speaking English in a French accent, suggested that it was weird and she should not do things that are weird because she’s not popular enough?
[…] And the problem for Kamala Harris is when she’s had so few successes as vice president and her popularity is so low, you don’t do things that are weird. You don’t do things that are odd. To coin a phrase we just talked about, it’d be better if she was just normal.
Kamala Harris could throw on a beret and start singing Je Ne Regrette Rien in the style of Edith Piaf and it would not come anywhere close to anything Trump did, insofar as weirdness is concerned.
Additionally, should anyone from the Bush administration be coming at anyone for pronouncing a word differently? I mean … starting with “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?” and “Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across the country,” “nucular” and moving forward.
In another segment, this time on Hannity, Mike Pompeo — former Secretary of State for the Trump administration Mike Pompeo — also had the gall to claim that Harris saying “thee” instead of “the” is “embarrassing on the world stage.” […]
And let me just remind you of what happened when Trump went to France for the 100th anniversary of the First World War.
Via The Daily Beast:
Clearly upset about the disastrous trip—which included having his idea of “nationalism” criticized to his face by French President Emmanuel Macron—Trump went on the offensive Tuesday morning. He mocked Macron’s approval rating and France’s unemployment rate, and criticized the tariffs it charges for French wine. But in the comment most likely to upset the French and all veterans, he ridiculed its losses in the World Wars. “Emmanuel Macron suggests [the EU] building its own army to protect Europe against the U.S., China and Russia,” he wrote. “But it was Germany in World Wars One & Two – How did that work out for France? They were starting to learn German in Paris before the U.S. came along. Pay for NATO or not!” He also dubiously added that the reason he couldn’t attend a remembrance service in France—which was initially explained away as being due to bad weather—was that “zero visibility” meant his helicopter couldn’t fly—an explanation which many have doubted to be true.
Honestly, it’s pretty clear that what all of these people are mad about is the fact that this trip and a lot of others are a little bit about apologizing to other countries for Trump and reestablishing friendly relations with our allies.
Even if Harris did, for some reason, accidentally slip into a French accent for a second — which actually would not be an impossibility when you have been in France and speaking French for days — what is it they imagine her nefarious plan for that would even be? Like, she’s gonna just start casually dipping into a French accent more and more until she fully morphs into Maurice Chevalier?
Oh! Or are they afraid that she is secretly French? Like she is a double agent … for France?
Honestly it’s just sad.
As an aside — I happen to think we need to rid ourselves of this assumption that people who slip into accents when they are around other people with that accent are doing so because they are pretentious and want to pretend to have that accent. […] a lot of people are just natural mimics. I am one of those people (my sister is even worse). The longer I am around people with a particular accent, the more likely I am to pick it up. Hell, I watch BBC mysteries for too long and Brenda Blethyn starts narrating my inner monologue.
[…] It’s not uncommon and it’s much more fun to laugh about than laugh at. We all do weird shit and we’re all just trying our best to talk to other human beings without doing something that makes us want to die of embarrassment.
Michael Flynn, former national security advisor in the Trump administration, on Saturday suggested that the United States should have a single religion.
“If we are going to have one nation under God, which we must, we have to have one religion,” he said while speaking on “Reawaken America” Saturday night. “One nation under God, and one religion under God.”
Responding to questions on the tour, Flynn, who has been known to repeat conspiracy theories in the past, also accused President Biden of election fraud, claims that have been proven to be false.
Later Saturday night, Ohio state treasurer and Senate candidate Josh Mandel (R) tweeted, apparently in response to Flynn’s “Reawaken America” comments, “We stand with General Flynn.”
[…] He received backlash in July after joking about finding “somebody in Washington, D.C,” while holding an AR-15. Just a few months later, he appeared to call for a coup similar to the one in Myanmar, where the country’s military seized power and overtook the democratically elected government in February, to take place in the U.S. […]
“Saturday Night Live” knocked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) during the sketch comedy show’s latest episode for labeling a tweet by Big Bird about vaccines as “propaganda.”
The show opened with an episode of “Ted Cruz Street,” a parody of the children’s show “Sesame Street,” which, according to “SNL,” aired on “Newsmax Kids.”
Cruz, played by cast member Aidy Bryant, welcomed the audience to his eponymous show, quickly making note of his controversial opposition to Big Bird’s vaccine advocacy. Cruz made headlines last week when he said a tweet from Big Bird promoting the COVID-19 vaccine was “propaganda,” despite decades of the “Sesame Street” character promoting inoculations.
“Hello, I’m [a] Texas senator and [the] last one invited to Thanksgiving, Ted Cruz,” Bryant’s Cruz said.
“You know, for 50 years I stood by as ‘Sesame Street’ taught our children dangerous ideas like numbers and kindness. But when Big Bird told children to get vaccinated against a deadly disease, I said, ‘enough.’ And I created my own ‘Sesame Street’ called ‘Cruz Street.’ It’s a gated community where kids are safe from the woke government,” he added.
The first character to make an appearance on the episode of “Cruz Street” was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), played by cast member Cecily Strong, who walked onstage wielding an AR-15 gun.
Asked by Cruz what she was doing in the area, the congresswoman said she was “taking a break from releasing the phone numbers of Republicans who voted for the infrastructure bill so they and their families get death threats.”
Strong’s Greene then said the episode of “Cruz Street” was sponsored by “Q, not the letter the man,” adding that he will “reveal himself and help President Trump reclaim his rightful throne.”
Big Bird, played by cast member Kyle Mooney, was then introduced onstage. The fictional character said his feathers were falling out and he didn’t feel well, potentially because of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Bryant’s Cruz then called for “Ted Cruz Street” resident medical expert, Joe Rogan, played by cast member Pete Davidson, on set. Rogan, an outspoken vaccine skeptic, advised NFL player Aaron Rodgers after his COVID-19 diagnosis.
“I used to host ‘Fear Factor’ and now doctors fear me,” Davidson’s Rogan said.
He then recommended that Big Bird take zinc and “horse medicine” for his ailments.
“Well, why would a bird take horse medicine?” Mooney’s Big Bird asked.
“I’m a human and I took horse medicine,” Davidson’s Rogan responded.
Later in the fictional episode, Bryant Cruz’s teased that after a commercial break the show would introduce “The Recount” Count, played by Aristotle Athari, to “find out how Trump definitely won the election.”
“I’m moving to Arizona,” Athari’s Count said, followed by laughs. […]
Video is available at the link. Andy Bryant captures Ted Cruz’s unctuousness. Cruz is so anxious to please the trumpian base that he makes all kinds of unforced errors, like going after Big Bird.
johnson catmansays
re Lynna @466: Not sure if you just fat-fingered it, but the cast member is Aidy Bryant, not Andy Bryant. And she mocks the prick so well.
johnson catman @467, thanks for the correction. Yes, I did fat-finger that, and then I didn’t see that I had done so.
In other news, a Southwest employee was hospitalized after an alleged assault by a passenger.
A Southwest Airlines passenger “verbally and physically” assaulted a female operations agent who was hospitalized after the incident on Saturday.
Southwest Airlines confirmed the incident in a statement to The Hill on Sunday. The airline noted that the agent was not a flight attendant as some other reports had indicated.
The airline said that the assault happened during the boarding process for a flight from Dallas to New York’s La Guardia airport.
The employee who was assaulted was taken to a hospital. She was released Saturday night and went home to rest, according to the airline’s statement.
“Our entire Southwest Family is wishing her a speedy and full recovery as we send our thoughts, prayers, and love to her,” the statement said of the agent. “Southwest Airlines maintains a zero-tolerance policy regarding any type of harassment or assault and fully support our Employee as we cooperate with local authorities regarding this unacceptable incident.”
The female passenger who assaulted the agent was taken into custody by local law enforcement officers.
Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it would propose over $225,000 in fines for 10 airline passengers accused of assault. In its statement, the agency noted that it has had more than 100 reports of passenger disturbances since the start of this year. […]
Yep, seems like the increased fines are going to be necessary.
blfsays
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 15th(!) flight about a week ago (Nov 6th), the first in a series of 4–7 flights to return to its original airfield (Wright Brothers Field), where it will rendezvous with the Perseverance rover, which is also returning to the site. From there, both of them will then travel north along the east edge of Séítah, then west to reach the Jezero ancient river delta. There may also be a software update during this time. This was the first flight at distance & speed (400m, 129s, 5m/s (all figures approximate)) at the higher rotor speed tested during flight 14.
At the present time, I have no idea when they might rendezvous, or what may happen when they rendezvous (although it seems obvious Perseverance will thoroughly image Ingenuity so JPL can get a better of idea of its condition, etc (as well as for the publicity)).
What looks like really bad and anti-democracy news, but may be less bad than you think:
[…] The New York Times reports today that Republicans “are already poised” to erase their deficit in the House “thanks to redrawn district maps that are more distorted, more disjointed and more gerrymandered than any since the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965.”
In other words, a year out from the 2022 election cycle, the GOP is positioned to retake the House majority, even if the American electorate votes exactly the same way as it did it 2020, when it elected a Democratic majority. The Times’ report characterized this as a dynamic in which the GOP could have “a nearly insurmountable advantage in the 2022 midterm elections.”
But that’s only part of the Democratic Party’s challenge.
To be sure, it’s a problem that Democrats are positioned to lose power even if voters cast ballots the same way they did a year ago. To overcome this structural hurdle, Democrats would likely need a substantial national advantage, since winning slightly more votes might still lead to less power.
The bigger problem is that the party’s national advantage, at least for now, has disappeared. ABC News reported over the weekend on an important new poll:
Republican congressional candidates currently hold their largest lead in midterm election vote preferences in ABC News/Washington Post polls dating back 40 years, underscoring profound challenges for Democrats hoping to retain their slim majorities in Congress next year.
At this point four years ago, when Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, the Democratic advantage on the Post/ABC generic ballot was 11 points: 51 percent to 40 percent. Now, those numbers have flipped, and it’s the GOP with a similar advantage: 51 percent to 41 percent among registered voters.
This is roughly in line with the latest national USA Today/Suffolk poll, which found Republicans with an 8-point lead.
In case this isn’t obvious, if Democrats were ahead on the generic ballot by two or three percentage points, that would also be a problem for the party, because the lead would be too small to overcome the GOP’s structural advantage, given the unlevel playing field.
But Democrats aren’t up by a few points; they’re down by double digits.
So, does this mean Republican leaders can start measuring the drapes in the Speaker’s office and Democratic incumbents should start retiring in droves to save themselves the embarrassment of inevitable defeats? Not just yet.
First, let’s not forget what the generic ballot is: These surveys ask voters for their general partisan preferences in congressional elections, without referencing any specific names of candidates. It’s why it’s called a “generic” ballot — respondents are saying whether they’re inclined to support a Democratic or Republican candidate without knowing anything about those candidates themselves.
But when voters actually cast their ballots, they’ll be choosing from actual candidates, not generic party labels, and the more extremists and scandal-plagued candidates win GOP primaries, the more likely it will affect the results.
Second, Republicans aren’t ahead because they’re popular — there’s nothing in the ABC/Post poll to suggest Americans are buying what the GOP is selling — they’re ahead because much of the country is unsatisfied with the status quo at a time when Democrats control the reins of power.
The good news for Democrats is that there’s nothing normal about the status quo, which is likely to look quite different a year from now. As we recently discussed, the Covid-19 crisis will likely look a lot different 12 months from now. So will the effects of the pandemic on the economy. So will the supply chain. So will inflation rates. With any luck, Democrats might even have an improved legislative record to run on ahead of the next Election Day — and the Post/ABC poll showed fairly strong support for
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes made a point on Twitter a couple of weeks ago that continues to resonate: “My unified theory of American social and political life is that we’ve lived through and are living through a once-in-a-century trauma/disruption and the results of that are going to reverberate throughout almost every facet of politics for a while.”
[…] That’s not to say Democrats should be complacent or optimistic. But their polling deficit doesn’t necessarily mean the party is facing inevitable doom.
Republicans are rallying around former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon after his indictment on charges of contempt of Congress on Friday, warning that Democrats’ efforts to force Bannon to comply with what they say is an unfair subpoena paves the way for them to do the same if they take back the House in 2022.
Commentary:
The Post added that “many” GOP officials are warning Democrats that they intend to “go after” President Joe Biden’s aides “for unspecified reasons.”
For his part, Jordan wrote on Twitter last week, “Joe Biden has evicerated [sic] Executive Privilege. […]
Right off the bat, it’s worth emphasizing that the president has not, in fact, “eviscerated” the concept of executive privilege. Rather, Biden and his team have concluded it does not apply to former presidents who want to hide important information from Congress about an insurrectionist attack on the U.S. Capitol.
What’s more, these threats probably aren’t as intimidating as Jordan and his colleagues might think. Republicans held the House majority for three-quarters of Barack Obama’s presidency — and three-quarters of Bill Clinton’s presidency — and they held all kinds of pointless hearings about manufactured controversies, nearly all of which were meaningless.
Jordan and GOP leaders may have “payback” on their minds in the wake of Bannon’s indictment, but to what end? Is it realistic to think the White House will be nervous about congressional subpoenas in response to hollow and forgettable conservative outrages?
Finally, if Democrats have heard about Republicans’ retaliatory intentions, they appear indifferent toward them. NBC News reported yesterday:
The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol will “move quickly” to refer Mark Meadows, who was former President Donald Trump’s White House chief of staff, for criminal contempt for not cooperating with its investigation, a committee member, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday.
The Democratic chair of the House Intelligence Committee, who also serves on the Jan. 6 investigatory panel, told NBC News’ Chuck Todd, “I’m confident we’ll move very quickly with respect to Mr. Meadows also, but we want to make sure that we have the strongest possible case to present to the Justice Department and for the Justice Department to present to a grand jury.”
It turns out not even Rudy Giuliani’s bar tab could save the Trump International Hotel. The Trump Organization lost at least $70 million since its opening in 2016, even as the grand hotel became a fixture of Trump-era Washington, a place where the president’s loyalists and sycophants alike could gather in a cozy bubble safely away from the fake news and impeachment managers and sip champagne from a spoon and imbibe cocktails starting at $24 a pop.
The Trump family has been threatening to sell it for the past few years, and now it seems they finally have: The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that a Miami-based investment firm, CGI Merchant Group, intends to assume the lease with the federal government for $375 million and turn the Trump Hotel into a Waldorf Astoria.
The hotel had become a liability for a family company that no longer had a steady stream of lobbyists and influence-seekers willing to pay inflated prices for rooms in a hotel that many businesses wouldn’t come near because of the association with Trump. By far one of the former president’s biggest conflicts of interest—he refused to relinquish control of the company that ran it—Trump had won the contract to lease the former Old Post Office Pavilion from the federal government by wildly overpaying, and then sinking $200 million into renovations, paid for with $170 million borrowed from Deutsche Bank. That loan, and others, comes due in 2024. Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is continuing to probe how Trump handled hotel-related conflicts of interest, and the DC attorney general is currently suing the Trump Organization, alleging that the nonprofit created to manage Trump’s inauguration improperly misused charitable funds by grossly overpaying the Trump Hotel for event space to enrich the Trump family. Those investigations are likely to continue regardless of who owns the hotel. […]
A judge on Friday rejected ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell’s challenge of the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate.
Powell’s Texas-based group, dubbed Defending the Republic, filed a lawsuit in October on behalf of 16 active-duty service members “in support of their right to refuse” the COVID-19 vaccine.
The lawsuit named Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra, acting Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Janet Woodcock, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro and Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth as defendants.
The plaintiffs argued that the vaccine mandate imposed “unconstitutional conditions by forcing Plaintiffs to choose between violation of their constitutional rights or facing life-altering punishments,” and argued that the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was unconstitutional.
They said the vaccine mandate was invalid because it did not go through required “notice-and-comment rulemaking.”
The lawsuit specifically asked the court to block the Pentagon from from implementing the mandate and compel the FDA to retract its approval of the Pfizer vaccine.
U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor on Friday, however, ruled that the plaintiffs’ lawsuit did not reach the “extraordinary burden of showing the mandate lacks any rationality.”
[…] The Pentagon announced in August that it would be mandating COVID-19 vaccines for all service members, after the Pfizer shot received full approval.
The department did not set a deadline for when all personnel had to be inoculated, instead allowing each branch to create their own target dates. […]
Steve Bannon surrendered to law enforcement today. He is facing two charges of criminal contempt of Congress.
blfsays
When I was last living in Ireland and teh “U”K, Tesco, a supermarket chain, wasbecame one of my least-liked such chains (not that I’m too fond of any of them, anywhere I’ve lived). However, they do sometimes get it right, this time annoying anti-vaxxers and other loons, Tesco Christmas ad: 1,500 complain over Santa with Covid vaccine passport:
[…]
Tesco’s festive TV ad featuring Santa Claus bearing a Covid vaccine passport has prompted more than 1,500 complaints, making it the most complained-about advert of the year.
The advert, titled “This Christmas, Nothing’s Stopping Us”, shows the public determined to enjoy a proper Christmas with family and friends after lockdown restrictions prevented gatherings last year.
However, in one scene a reporter appears on TV with “breaking news” telling viewers that “Santa could be quarantined”. Father Christmas is then shown presenting his Covid pass at border control, proving he has been vaccinated to a customs officer so he can enter the country without restriction. Most of the complaints made to the UK advertising regulator [ASA (Advertising Standards Authority)] state the scene is coercive and encourages medical discrimination.
[…]
A video of the advert is at the link.
What remains to be seen if is whether or not they or the ASA will cave.
Putting aside the fact that no one should want to de-vaccinate themselves, it’s important to note that these efforts don’t work.
I was under the mistaken impression that when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines, the population could effectively be divided into three categories: Those who’ve taken advantage of the free, safe, and effective vaccines, those who’ve refused, and those who want the shots but can’t get them for health reasons.
What didn’t occur to me is that there might be a fourth category: People who’ve been vaccinated, but who then pursue misguided efforts to undo it.
NBC News reported noted a TikTok video — which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views — in which someone created a process through which people could bathe in a concoction in order to “detox the vaxx.”
Not surprisingly, the concoction doesn’t work. It doesn’t even make any sense. But what is surprising is the fact that such instructional efforts exist for people who want to de-vaccinated themselves after having gotten the shots. From the NBC News piece:
The video is one of several methods anti-vaccine influencers and communities on social media have in recent weeks suggested to their many followers who have capitulated and received the Covid shot. Anti-vaccine message boards are now littered with users caving to societal pressure or work mandates and receiving a coronavirus vaccination.
That last point was of particular interest, because it explains the motivations behind these strange instructions. There are apparently significant groups of Americans who, for whatever reason, didn’t want to be vaccinated, but they grudgingly did the right thing anyway in order to keep their jobs.
In related news, vaccine requirements continue to be effective.
But some of these same folks, who apparently don’t want the potentially lifesaving protections the vaccines make possible, believe the process can be undone.
[…] Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and adjunct professor at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told NBC News, “Once you’re injected, the lifesaving vaccination process has already begun. You can’t unring a bell. It’s just not physically possible.”
She added, “The transaction process for the mRNA vaccine is fairly quick. Basically, by the time you get out to your car, sorry, the magic has already started.”
If the doctor had to add “sorry” to her comments that would be an unfortunate sign of the times. I am assured by a Canadian friend that north of the border it ironically meant “too bad.”
I think the purveyors of the “detox the vaxx” nonsense just want to sell more bogus goods. It’s a way for them to continue to rake in money from gullible viewers.
Fox News on Saturday night edited an article to remove the “white nationalist” label from a white nationalist group holding an anti-vaccine rally in New York City.
The initial report from Fox News, detailing a rally led by white supremacist honcho Nick Fuentes, read: “Antifa members clash with White nationalists over COVID vaccine mandate outside NYC’s Gracie Mansion.”
A couple hours after the article’s publication, according to archived versions of the post, the headline was changed, and now refers to “antifa members” clashing with “anti-vaccine protesters.”
The body of the article was similarly edited to remove references to the rallying white nationalists. […] Fuentes, the leader of the “America First” or “Groyper” movement, has made no secret of his views.
He attended the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017, writing on Facebook that day that “a tidal wave of white identity is coming,” and has said the segregated South “was better for them, it’s better for us.” He’s called himself a “white advocate.” The First Amendment, he said in 2017, “was not written for Muslims” or immigrants. Of the Holocaust, he’s said “I don’t buy it,” while facetiously discussing how long it would take for “15 ovens” to produce “6 million batches of cookies.” “I’m getting really sick of world Jewry — that’s what it is! — running the show,” he said in another webcast.
He’s also been embraced, at times, by some politicians on the Republican Party’s far right, including Arizona Rep. Paul Gosar and Arizona State Sen. Wendy Rogers. Gosar attended a conference organized by Fuentes earlier this year, at which Fuentes called for the protection of America’s “white demographic core” and said the Capitol attack was “awesome.”
[…] The edited article also erased a paragraph quoting the Anti-Defamation League: “Like the alt right and other white supremacists, Groypers believe they are working to defend against demographic and cultural changes that are destroying the “true America”—a white, Christian nation,” the ADL’s website states.
The edited post keeps two mentions of America First, but only to describe members of the group saying “fuck Antifa,” and to paraphrase an unnamed spokesperson for the group: “An America First spokesperson told Fox News the group protested to voice opposition to vaccine mandates.”
After the original article was published, Fuentes criticized its wording. On his Telegram channel, he noted, “Fox News using ADL talking points about me and AF. Scum,” and posted pictures of the author. Later, after the article was edited to remove “white nationalist,” he posted “much better– thank you!” […]
Fox News allowed itself to edited by the “white advocates,” AKA white supremacists, AKA wannabe Nazis.
In what congressional Republicans are calling an act of flagrant overreach by the Department of Justice, the former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon has been arrested for contempt of soap.
The basis for the arrest is a rarely enforced 1858 statute requiring White House employees to conform to minimal standards of hygiene during their tenure with the executive branch.
A defiant Bannon said that he would fight the federal government’s “outrageous” attempt to make him come into contact with soap and water, and declared that his avoidance of both was a life-style choice.
“You can lock me up but you can’t hose me down,” he thundered.
President Joe Biden on Monday signed one of his biggest legislative victories into law, the final approval of the hard-fought $555 billion infrastructure bill.
The act will direct billions of dollars toward new construction of roads, bridges, airports and seaports. It will also expand the availability of broadband internet, replace lead pipes and build electric vehicle charging stations.
[…] business groups like the National Retail Federation, Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers praised the bill’s enactment.
“The enactment of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will help connect 14 million Americans to broadband, provide clean drinking water for 10 million families, upgrade our energy grid, and grow our economy,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne P. Clark said in a statement Monday. “It is the single largest investment in bridges since construction of the Interstate Highway System and the single largest investment in innovation, efficiency, and resiliency to address climate change in U.S. history.” […]
[…] Some Q-nut told Stew Peters that he has been “magnetized” by being around people who have had the vaccine, claiming vaccinated people somehow “shed” vaccine components outside their bodies. (Obviously, this has been debunked.) As proof, he sent Stew a photo of various objects, like coins, stuck all over his body. Stew put him on the show immediately, and added that this is a phenomenon “that we’re seeing all over the place!”
Not that facts matter, but coins aren’t even magnetized. Vending machines all have magnets to reject fake coins (steel slugs) because real coins are minted mostly of nonmagnetic metals like copper and nickel. But if you are dumb enough to believe any of this, you aren’t reading Daily Kos, so I digress.
Anyway, the photo was more than enough proof for Stew to feature him on his show. Unfortunately for the guest, Stew asked the guy, Scott Taylor, to demonstrate for the audience. What happened next is comedy gold: [video is available at the link and here: https://twitter.com/BadCOVID19Takes/status/1459608355014688777 ]
In case you can’t see it, Stew asked him to demonstrate. Scott Taylor wasn’t prepared for this, and repeatedly tried to put coins on his face, but they kept falling off. One coin managed to linger on his forehead before being dropped, but you can see the video was cut at the 58-second mark. Stew, ignoring his own eyes, closed by going on a rant of how this was absolute proof that this was real and the media was covering it up.
[…] Peters went from being a failed rapper, to a failed bounty hunter, to now a full-time COVID conspiracy theorist. And yes, being full-blown MAGA, there’s the obligatory police report documenting domestic violence as well. […] he hosts his own podcast that features a who’s who of Trumpian rejects: George Papadopoulos, Lin Wood, Michelle Malkin, Sidney Powell, and Karen Fann—the state senate president responsible for the disastrous Arizona audit.
President Biden on Monday signed into law a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill at a boisterous ceremony outside the White House, sealing a major accomplishment of his first term.
[…] The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which contains roughly $550 billion in new funding, will provide for new investments in roads, bridges and railways around the country. White House officials have also said it will allow for the replacement of lead pipes to provide clean drinking water to communities, establish a network of electric vehicle charging stations and help expand internet access for swaths of the country that do not have it. […]
Note the difference in the $1.2 trillion reported here and the $555 billion that sometimes is highlighted in media headlines about this bill. The second paragraph above explains some of the discrepancy.
I do wish the messengers would stop confusing U.S. voters regarding the infrastructure bill.
Looking to the near future:
Attention will now shift to the fate of a $1.75 trillion proposal that contains many of the priorities addressed in Biden’s Build Back Better agenda, including funding to combat climate change, efforts to expand health care access and child care assistance, and money toward education and housing programs.
Wonkette: “It’s Official: Beto O’Rourke Running For Texas Governor”
Democrat Beto O’Rourke, who we like around here, officially declared his candidacy for Texas governor on Monday. O’Rourke came within 2.6 points of defeating unsightly buttcheek pimple Ted Cruz in the 2018 Senate race. That was an epic Blue Wave election, however, and O’Rourke will face two-term incumbent Greg Abbott during midterm elections that look increasingly bleak for Democrats. Abbott is also a more likable candidate than Cruz, based on the objective reality that he’s not Ted Cruz.
Some polls show O’Rourke statistically tied with Abbott, and another has him losing by nine points, while the baby Jesus cries. It’s not like polling is a science or anything. Don’t pay attention to polls and just go vote, to the extent that you’re legally able to in Texas after Republicans rammed through a voter suppression bill on a party-line basis.
Let’s take a look at O’Rourke’s campaign launch video. [Video available at the link]
Right off the bat, O’Rourke mentions the massive electricity grid failure in February that left millions of Texans without power and sent one, spineless weasel fleeing for Cancun.
O’ROURKE: Millions of our fellow Texans were without power, which meant that the lights wouldn’t turn on, the heat wouldn’t run, and pretty soon their pipes froze, and the water stopped flowing. They were abandoned by those who were elected to serve and look out for them.
Making this election about competent governance is a good move. There’s bipartisan consensus around not freezing to death.
O’Rourke charges existing leadership with not actually listening to Texas voters. They aren’t focused on important things all Texans want, which include maintaining a functioning electricity grid, creating good jobs, and fostering world-class schools. He also correctly states that most Texans support Medicaid expansion and legalized marijuana.
O’ROURKE: Instead, they’re focused on the kind of extremist policies around abortion or permitless carry […] even in our schools, that only really divide us and keep us apart and stop us from working together on the truly big things we want to achieve for one another.
It’s smart that O’Rourke isn’t hiding from culture war issues, as some might timidly suggest. He’s taking the initiative to paint Republicans as the radical extremists. Texas has joined the book-banning bandwagon, and that won’t keep anyone’s pipes from freezing over during the next preventable power outage. O’Rourke slams this rightwing BS as a “really small vision for such a big state.”
O’Rourke’s messaging is on point: He claps back at divisive GOP politics while maintaining a unifying tone. He’s a problem solver, not a taxpayer-funded Twitter troll. He demonstrated this during the power outage when he organized wellness checks for Texas seniors while Cruz was in Cancun. He makes the inspirational appeal that all Texans can put aside their differences and work together to achieve shared goals. O’Rourke believes Texas can “get back to being big again.”
During the third Democratic primary debate in 2019, O’Rourke declared, “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.” I personally thought he was dead in the water as a statewide candidate after the point, but I admit I’m impressed that he’s not backing away from his position, which he argues isn’t outside the mainstream, even in Texas. He’s also going on the offense and defining Abbott’s gun policies as unreasonable.
He told the Texas Tribune:
“What I think you’ll also find is most Texans reject Greg Abbott’s extreme, divisive policies when it comes to firearms, like signing the law for the permitless carry bill,” he said, adding that the bill was opposed by members of law enforcement worried it could endanger officers.
Abbott’s already claiming that O’Rourke is “pro-open borders, pro-Green New Deal, anti-Second Amendment, and anti-police.” It’s petty politics that don’t actually help anyone. Let’s hope Texas will make a better choice.
John Eastman, one of Trump’s controversial attorneys, wrote an outrageous memo, which was effectively a blueprint Republican officials could follow to reject the results of the election and keep the losing candidate in power.
effrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, also used his office to sketch out a map for Republican legislators to follow in which they could try to overturn the will of voters.
Jenna Ellis, a member of Trump’s campaign team, also wrote an anti-election memo.
And John McEntee, a White House aide, prepared his own anti-election memo.
We now know, of course, that Pence grudgingly concluded he couldn’t help Trump steal an election. But that doesn’t change the fact that the campaign to change his mind represents an important national scandal.
We’ve reached an awkward point in American history: When the political debate turns to Team Trump’s coup memo, we now have to ask, “Which one?”
More details are available at the link, including a report about the memo drafted by Jenna Ellis, one of Trump’s campaign lawyers at the time. That’s the newest revelation about coup memos.
Is it possible for both a company and the individuals working for said company to be filled with more s@%t than even the sum of their parts? Fox News has time and time again defied all constructs of decency, intelligence, and morality. On Friday, Fox News sent out invites to raise themselves some money at what is being called an “award show.” The network that has turned its audience into the biggest believers in public health misinformation want everyone to meet up!
The event is Fox Nation’s Patriot Awards 2021! Wowsers! It will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 17, in Hollywood, Florida! (GET IT?!?!?!?!?!) Tickets range from $125 for a plain old Patriot ticket up to $500 for a Patriot Gold ticket. “Special guests” will include all kinds of Fox Nation favorites like Tucker Carlson. Barf! Patriots are about freedom and Trump and the freedom to be you and me. No, it means the freedom to just be them everyone else be damned!
Probably unrelated fine print from the event: “IMPORTANT: In order to attend The Patriot Awards, all attendees must show either (A) COVID vaccine card OR (B) a negative COVID test taken 72 hours prior to the event. Before entering the venue, your vaccine card or negative test will be verified by a Fox Nation team member in front of Hard Rock Live. Once confirmed, a colored wristband corresponding to the package you purchased will be provided and you can proceed into the venue.”
Maybe we read that small print wrong? It is hard to believe that one of the prime vomiters of fake science information, Fox News, would demand anyone be forced to follow actual science. If you look further down the page, some more important “COVID Guidelines and Details”:
In order to attend this event attendee must show either a COVID vaccine card OR a negative COVID test 72 hours prior to the event.
There will be a mandatory check point on site for all attendees prior to entering the venue doors.
Does this fly in the face of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ prohibition against “any business entity, governmental entity or educational institution” requiring proof of vaccination? Because it sort of sounds like it does. And according to DeSantis, violators of this policy will be hit with “a $5,000 fine per individual and separate violations against the business, governmental entity or school.” […]
Oh well! Who will be at this COVID VACCINE-roped event?
Dan Bongino! Bongino’s history of NRA/MAGA jingoism includes recently losing some of his radio affiliations because of his anti-vaccine and public health mandate misinformation stances!
Tucker Carlson! The ways in which Carlson has spread anti-vaxx disinformation have been well covered. Tucker has even been aligned with anti-free speech and anti-vaxx misinformant dirtbag Robert F. Kennedy Jr. […]
Sean Hannity! Hannity has spent considerable time undermining how effective the COVID-19 vaccines are. It’s a truly detestable bit of business from a truly detestable human being.
Brian Kilmeade! Kilmeade might spend a considerable amount of time yelling at Black people out front of the event.* […]
Congress will inject unprecedented funding into replacing dirty school buses, lead pipes, and more.
President Joe Biden signed into law on Monday a bipartisan infrastructure bill that includes $350 billion to address long-ignored environmental threats. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act is the largest sum in recent memory directed at cleaning up pollution, from replacing lead pipes to capping methane-spewing oil wells.
The funding could make a serious dent in air and water pollution for certain communities by preventing runoff from abandoned mines and cleaning up old, toxic manufacturing sites. People who live near busy roadways, airports, and ports may benefit from the boost to electric vehicle charging stations, school buses, and cranes that will replace gas- and diesel-burning cars and equipment.
Other investments will improve public health more indirectly: One of the law’s major provisions includes expanding transmission that can move more clean energy across the grid. By increasing the mix of renewables, states and the utilities they regulate ultimately would need to burn fewer fossil fuels to power the economy.
[…] This is not the transformative climate bill that climate activists had hoped for. […]
Because of this mixed bag, an analysis by Princeton University finds that the new infrastructure law only reduces carbon emissions by 1 percent by 2030 compared to peak levels, an infinitesimal drop in the bucket compared to the cuts needed over the coming decade. The far more important investments for climate change remain in the Build Back Better reconciliation bill that still faces an uncertain fate in Congress.
But while the country waits and sees if Democrats will pass the larger climate investments of the Build Back Better Act, it’s worth looking at the serious ways the infrastructure law can improve environmental health in certain communities. […]
Here are the major ways the bill can make a difference.
Cleaner air next to some busy roads, rail routes, and ports
[…] The infrastructure law makes the biggest federal investment yet in electrifying the transportation sector. By adding more electric-powered machinery fueled by an increasingly clean electricity sector, communities near ports and highways would face less smog and particulate matter.
The $7.5 billion for electric vehicle chargers helps with one major obstacle to getting more electric cars on the road. […]
Addressing kids’ exposure to polluting school buses
Ninety-five percent of the nation’s school buses run on diesel. That leaves more than 20 million kids exposed to pollutants from bus exhaust every school day, whether they are riding them, standing next to an idling bus, or walking to school. Adults living in nearby communities aren’t immune to the lung and brain damage caused by diesel either.
The law devotes $2.5 billion to electrifying school buses […] Though experts don’t have an exact number for how many buses this sum would replace, it will be far less than the 20 percent Biden originally hoped to electrify with $20 billion. There’s even more money, $5 billion, in the still-unfinished Build Back Better bill to electrify trucks and school buses.
Building more transmission lines that will deliver renewable energy
The United States needs to produce more clean energy, and find better ways to store solar and wind, to meet the nation’s energy demands while also meeting climate targets. It also needs more transmission lines to transport renewable power to businesses, homes, and all those charging stations powering those newly electrified cars and buses on the road. The infrastructure law devotes $65 billion to updating the electric grid, including building thousands of miles of new lines. […]
There are three major ways the law cleans up drinking water: by addressing lead pipes, beginning to address PFAS contamination, and improving aging sewage systems that dump contaminants in waterways.
The law includes $15 billion for replacing lead pipes used for drinking water (the Build Back Better Act has another nearly $10 billion). […] the law spends $30 billion starting to revamp city sewage systems and wastewater management.
[…] Congress will inject $3.5 billion into the EPA’s bankrupt Superfund Clean-up fund and $1.5 billion into EPA’s brownfields clean-up via the new infrastructure law. More importantly, an expired tax on chemical manufacturers that Congress let lapse 25 years ago will be revived. […]
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene from Georgia, which deserves better, revealed last week that she’s defiantly unvaccinated. She also keeps getting fined because she refuses to wear a mask on the floor of the House of Representatives, where she is inexplicably a member.
Greene won’t stop whining about how mask and vaccine mandates are a form of persecution, as if dullards are a protected class. Monday, she tweeted:
I am not vaccinated. I choose to trust my own body’s immune system against #COVID19 and do not fall into any risk groups. I solidly stand against the unconstitutional vaccine mandates, and I will be fighting alongside those persecuted for choosing not to take the jab.
[…] Greene and I both graduated from the University of Georgia in 1996, but she’s acting like she’s a 21-year-old who can regrow an arm overnight. Life becomes very risky when you’re 47 […] Greene seems to think she can CrossFit the COVID away. On April 1 (yes, really), she shared a bizarre video of herself working out with the message, “This is my Covid protection.” Deadlifting (poorly) is not a medically recognized protection against COVID-19.
So far, 763,178 Americans have died from COVID-19. Yes, many of the dead were immunocompromised, but not everyone was like the boy in the plastic bubble. Their immune systems were relatively normal but just weren’t up to the task of fighting off a novel coronavirus that shreds your lungs. Greene’s grotesque ableism aside, people who fit her narrow view of “healthy” have died from COVID-19 and many who survived still have lingering, debilitating symptoms.
Greene could personally have a mutant healing factor, but that wouldn’t prevent her from spreading COVID-19. The virus is currently the leading cause of death among police officers. There are minimum fitness requirements for law enforcement, but COVID don’t give a fuck. Maybe instead of waving a thin blue line flag, Greene could consider wearing a damn mask, but that is apparently both communism and the Holocaust. […]
Further evidence of Greene’s sociopathic tendencies is that she doesn’t seem to care if she infects her fellow House members. She also tweeted yesterday:
The only time I wear a mask is when I have to fly.
I have $60,500 in mask fines from Nancy Pelosi, who is a hypocrite because she does not wear a mask at times. Here she is during the vote on Infrastructure bill, with her mask down. [photo of Pelosi with her mask falling briefly and barely below he nose. She fixed it.]
I’m also suing her.
We can add “hypocrite” to the list of words whose definition Greene fails to comprehend. She’s the hypocrite because she selectively complies with mask mandates. […] there’s no reason why she can wear a mask on a plane and not on the House floor.
The Capitol attending physician Brian P. Monahan recommended the mask rule, which House Speaker Nancy Pelosi enforces. Greene claims Pelosi is a hypocrite because she was caught on video speaking to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer with her mask pulled down. Hoyer is 82 years old. My own experience with people around his age is that they find it very hard to hear you when you’re wearing a mask. But we all know it doesn’t matter if Pelosi had consistently obeyed the mask rule. Greene would find any excuse not to comply.
Yes, Pelosi, who is vaccinated, sometimes doesn’t wear a mask around other vaccinated people, which somehow justifies Greene’s dumb unvaccinated ass never wearing a mask around people. Anti-vaxxers are the primary reason we had to start wearing masks again in indoor public spaces, so fuck you, Marjorie. You’re also going to lose whatever nuisance suit you file against Madame Speaker.
Remember those days when the GOP mocked Democrats as the cult of Obama? And now a big part of their base is a literal cult which doses itself with horse paste and rejects modern science? […]
Rep. Liz Cheney is the latest casualty in Republicans’ descent ever deeper into madness, with her own state party voting to expel her from its ranks for crimes against Trump most foul. The Casper Star-Tribune reports that the Wyoming GOP Central Committee voted Saturday 31-29 to cease recognizing the party membership of the state’s only Representative in the US House.
In February, the party voted to censure Cheney for her impeachment vote. Then in August the Republican parties of Park and Carbon counties voted unanimously to boot Cheney for her role in the January 6 investigation, passing a resolution which falsely blamed Antifa and Black Lives Matter for provoking rioters to overrun the Capitol.
[…] “In short, and in the immortal words of the 45th President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump…’You’re Fired!'” they concluded, and no we’re not “joking,” they literally did that. Because these are very serious people.
And indeed that seriousness was on display this weekend in Buffalo, Wyoming, as the Central Committee convened to grunt and shout and show that little lady who’s boss.
“Previously mentioned in the resolution of censure, Representative Liz Cheney ‘cast her vote in favor of impeachment without any quantifiable evidence of High Crimes or Misdemeanors,'” they wrote. “As to date, no quantifiable and or undisputed evidence has been offered Representative Liz Cheney to defend her questionable decision.”
No quantifiable or undisputed evidence of BLM or Antifa’s involvement was offered either, but the Committee nonetheless included them in its resolution.
“To further her own personal political agenda, Representative Liz Cheney has not only caused massive disruption, distraction and division within the House Republican Conference, but has also willingly, happily, and energetically joined forced with and proudly pledged allegiance to democrat Speaker of the House Pelosi, as a means of serving her own personal interests while ignoring the interests, needs and expectations of Wyoming Republicans,” they huffed, refusing to even capitalize “democrat,” because OOOH, SICK BURN!
The resolution concluded by calling on Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to ensure that their tiny state lose any vestige of power in the lower house of Congress: “House Republican Conference Leadership immediately remove Representative Liz Cheney from all committee assignments and the House Republican conference itself, to assist and expedite her seamless exodus from the Republican Party.”
As for Cheney, who knows she’ll have a tough fight on her hands next November, she wasn’t backing down.
“It’s laughable to suggest Liz is anything but a committed conservative Republican,” her spokesman Jeremy Adler told the Star-Tribune. “She is bound by her oath to the Constitution. Sadly, a portion of the Wyoming GOP leadership has abandoned that fundamental principle, and instead allowed themselves to be held hostage to the lies of a dangerous and irrational man.”
But hostages are generally held against their will. And the Wyoming GOP — indeed the entire Republican Party writ large — appears to be willing participants in this nutbaggery, eagerly prostrating itself to a spray-tanned charlatan who parades himself as an avatar of masculinity while embodying every sin and weakness they claim to despise.
Let’s call it what it is. It’s a cult, and they’re shunning an apostate. But if the GOP wants to stick a shiv in one of their most effective leaders, who are we to stop ’em.
How evangelical women in Texas are mobilizing for a future without abortion.
The vision had come as she was driving home from the Kroger, and it was so sudden and fully formed that Aubrey Schlackman began to tell people that “it was like God placed it in my head.”
This was last year, a time when abortion was still widely available in Texas and Aubrey was one more young mother joining the midmorning traffic along Farm to Market 407 in the growing suburbs north of Dallas. […]
“A maternity ranch,” she thought, and she could practically see it through her windshield.
It would be a place for struggling pregnant women who decide to have their babies instead of having abortions, a Christian haven where women could live stress-free during their newborn’s first year of life. It would have individual cottages for mothers. “Host homes” for couples who would model healthy marriages. A communal barn for meals. Bible study. The whole plan was clear, and when she told her husband later that night, he said, “Yes, this is what we’re supposed to do.”
Now it was September of this year, and Aubrey was bringing her vision to life outside a coffee shop on a perfect Dallas morning. […] She was putting out stacks of pastel-hued postcards with photos of women and babies. She was propping up a sign that read, “Blue Haven Ranch” and “Donate Today.” Her goal was $10,000, […]
Four months before, Texas legislators passed a bill outlawing most abortions in the state.
Three weeks before, the law had taken effect, and though it was being challenged in court, a similarly restrictive Mississippi law was headed to the most conservative U.S. Supreme Court in decades.
The growing sense among evangelical Christians was that the end of Roe v. Wade was no longer a dim possibility but a near certainty. The time had come for the next phase — a new era in America when the church would establish a kind of Christian social safety net where motherhood was not only supported but exalted as part of God’s plan for the universe.
Increasingly, this was the cause mobilizing the megachurches rising across the Texas suburbs, most especially an emerging network of women who flocked to them, and Aubrey Schlackman was part of this vanguard. Her project was gathering momentum, and in front of the coffee shop, she was greeting her first prospective donor of the day.
“Morning, we’re a local nonprofit supporting single pregnant moms,” she said to a young woman who read the sign, studied the postcard and responded without hesitation.
“Such a blessing,” she said. “Do you take checks?”
[…] She was not convinced that the Texas law known as the heartbeat law — which bans almost all abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy — or any law, was necessarily the best way to end abortion. What she did believe was that abortion had led to a “genocide of children.” She believed that the best path to ending it was not only to support women but to help them to see themselves as God intended. […]
The idea of providing a place for single, pregnant women harkened to a time before abortion became legal and so-called “homes for unwed mothers” were often the only option for women—mostly White women—to give birth in secrecy and avoid social scandal. The homes were often run by institutions such as The Salvation Army, orders of Catholic nuns, and evangelical churches. They were often bleak places where women were assumed to need reform and were sometimes abused and shamed, the kind of subjugation that advocates of legal abortion aimed to end.
[…] she envisioned her own maternity ranch in almost utopian terms. To her, it would be a place of liberation and Christian development in accord with the beliefs she had refined at her church, one of the many popular megachurches in suburban Dallas that tended to be conservative in values, modern in style, with praise bands, coffee shops […]
Hers was called the Village Church, a congregation of roughly 3,500 people whose mission included advancing the idea of a divine social order the pastor often called “God’s beautiful design.” The question of how abortion fit into this order was intertwined with the question of how women fit in — and this was a matter that had become so fraught within the evangelical world that in 2017, her church issued its own 64-page statement on the subject with 218 footnotes and a five-page bibliography.
It affirmed that God created two genders, male and female, who were “equal in essence, dignity and value” while having “different yet complementary roles.” Men were meant to be “protectors” and “providers.” Women were meant to be “helpers” and “life givers.” In the church, this meant that the top leadership roles were reserved for men. In Christian marriage, which the church defined as being between a man and a woman, it meant that men were to lead. In politics, it meant a relentless focus on ending abortion, which the church viewed not only as murder but as a grotesque distortion of God’s plan for humanity.
[…] Aubrey embraced all of this, and if she sometimes had questions, her reaction was to try harder to understand what she believed to be God’s wisdom. She attended Bible study every week. She went to church every Sunday, […]
She was there on a Sunday after the heartbeat law took effect, when her pastor addressed questions that he was getting about the proper Christian response to women who become pregnant after being raped or trapped in abusive situations.
“My heart breaks for that,” he told the congregation. “But the answer can’t be, ‘Well let’s kill the baby.’ The church’s answer is, ‘Let us come alongside you and love you and walk with you and help you in any way we can with our money, with our houses, with our homes.’ ”
As she heard the words, Aubrey felt a wave of encouragement. It was exactly what she and her husband, Bryan, were already trying to do.
Their home was a beige brick fixer-upper in a town called Argyle, roughly 30 miles northwest of Dallas. It had a gray Ford Explorer in the driveway and a welcome wreath on the front door, and inside was an open floor plan renovated in the modern-rustic style of the Christian HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines. White shiplap walls. Tile floors resembling rough-hewed planks. A farmhouse table. Built-in bookcases with titles such as “Every Woman’s Desire” and “Try Softer,” classics of modern evangelical literature that advanced a certain kind of Christian womanhood, Christian manhood and Christian marriage. […]
She was the good daughter, the dutiful one who grew up absorbing the basics set forth on Sundays all over evangelical America, including in her hometown of Amarillo, Tex.: follow God’s plan and earn eternal salvation; rebel and face eternal suffering.
[…] Ten years into the marriage, there were times when Aubrey chafed at what she believed God required of her. She struggled with the concept of submitting to Bryan’s leadership, though his earnest and self-deprecating manner made it easier. She did not love being pregnant, especially after suffering an excruciating form of rheumatoid arthritis probably triggered by the birth of her first son. The condition left her so racked with pain that she would sometimes sit at the edge of her bed at night and cry, thinking, “I could kill myself, but then I’m leaving my husband and my son,” and understanding why women with less support than she had might choose to have an abortion. But the lesson she ultimately took from the episode was not about politics or God’s indifference, but rather “what God did to humble me.”
“I realized my life is not really mine,” she said.
To remind herself, she got a tattoo on her right forearm referencing a favorite line of a favorite hymn about “bowing in humble adoration.”
[…] She met a woman from church who founded a nonprofit called the Sparrow Collective, whose mission was to “help women identify their God-given significance,” and who was rehabbing an old building into a modern-rustic wedding venue. She met a Christian blogger and purveyor of essential oils whose mission was “helping women show up for their lives.” She met a woman writing a book called “Breathe, Broken Soul” about being saved from a life of drugs and multiple abortions. She met Christian doulas, Christian photographers and Christian Instagrammers — a juggernaut of evangelical Christian womanhood […]
She began working with a Christian consultant who helped women set up nonprofits to do “Kingdom-advancing work.” Before long, she had a sleek website, 501(c)(3) status, and a mission statement of her own: “Supportive community, gospel discipleship, and farm therapy for single pregnant mothers with children.” Her pastor endorsed the project. An anonymous donor gave seed money, enough to start a first phase: financial assistance for four single pregnant women, along with a Monday meal and discipleship in the Schlackmans’ home.
By January, they were looking for women in need of help […] They all signed agreements to participate in a series of activities, starting with a 12-week Bible study.
By September, three babies had been born. And on a Monday evening, the women gathered in the Schlackmans’ living room for the Week 9 topic, “allowing Christ to set you free.” […]
“We have to say, ‘You are created to do this. Your body is meant to do this.’ ”
[…] More and more, Aubrey saw herself as part of the cultural shift. She was already starting a waiting list for her program. She realized she was going to need more space, and contacted a church near her house about hosting the program until she had raised enough money to buy land, and the next Sunday, a church elder was introducing her to the congregation.
By then, she had a video to show potential supporters, and she watched as it played on a huge screen — scenes of the women in her living room, their pregnancy portraits, a clip of her two boys running out into an open field.
“A new life sanctuary,” Aubrey said in the video, her voice now filling the auditorium.
“Amen,” came the response.
“I love what you’re doing,” a woman said afterward.
The next Monday, Aubrey moved the program inside the church.
[…] “They’ve encouraged me that getting pregnant wasn’t just a mistake — that God wanted that for you,” one of the women said, referring to Aubrey and her volunteers. “I’ve learned I don’t have to feel shame — that shame and guilt is the enemy talking, not God talking.”
[…] “It’s like once they have the baby, that’s when the real help is needed,” she said to the next person, who handed her a check, and after a while, there was a small group of young women standing around the table talking.
“Have you heard of MOPS?” one of the women said, referring to a group called Mothers of Preschoolers. “It’s a Christian organization where moms get together with other seasoned moms, and just live life, and have prayer.”
“I’ll have to check that out,” Aubrey said. […]
Aubrey was in another room rummaging for the letter that Bryan had written her back when they first started dating. It happened to be their anniversary, and she hadn’t read the letter in years. When she finally found it, she began reading the opening lines as she walked back into the kitchen, where her kids were running around and her brother was making dinner.
“It is clear in the scripture that God preserved and protected certain Godly women so that he might use them in the work of reconciling all things to Christ,” she read.
“I am confident that you are a continuation of this legacy because of how you have boldly and shamelessly lived your life for God,” Aubrey read, then handed it to her brother to finish. […]
“Well, Aubrey — that’s all you have to do,” Isaac joked. “Just be like Christ.”
[…] Aubrey had raised more than $120,000, a figure that continued to rise.
[…] “What if Texas ends up becoming a model for the future?” she said. “What if Texas meets this shift in culture? And instead of having high abortion rates, what if we help single moms to become stronger moms, to become successful?”
She imagined what that would look like. Churches helping. Christians opening their homes. Christian safe havens all over Texas. Maybe all over America.
“God is paving the way,” Aubrey said. “I’m just trying to keep up with how quickly it’s happening.”
Up until last week, Maj. Gen. Mike Thompson was serving as an uncontroversial adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard. He then got a phone call from Kevin Stitt, the state’s Republican governor, who told the major general that he was fired.
Thompson spoke to Tulsa Public Radio a day later and said he wasn’t given a reason for his dismissal.
It wasn’t long, however, before an explanation came into focus.
On the heels of Thompson’s ouster, the GOP governor tapped Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino as the new adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard, and on Mancino’s first day — before he was even confirmed by the state Senate — the brigadier general announced that he intends to ignore the Defense Department’s Covid-19 vaccine requirement for all troops.
[…] Putting aside obvious questions about why the brigadier general would oppose mandatory vaccine protections for guardsmen and women during a pandemic, there’s also an obvious chain-of-command problem: In the military, officers don’t get to ignore lawful orders — especially those that protect troops from harm.
[…] Politico reported:
The Pentagon’s top spokesperson on Monday insisted Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had the authority to require National Guard members to get vaccinated against Covid-19, despite new resistance from Oklahoma’s highest-ranking military official. “It is a lawful order for National Guardsmen to receive the Covid vaccine. It is a lawful order,” Defense Department press secretary John Kirby told reporters at a news briefing.
Kirby added, “Refusing to do that, absent an approved exemption, puts them in the same potential [for disciplinary action] as active-duty members who refuse the vaccine.”
In case anyone needs a refresher, it was in August when Secretary Austin announced that all U.S. military members will be required to get the Covid-19 vaccine. It was in keeping with American traditions, and it was entirely consistent with existing military policy: Depending on where servicemembers may be deployed, troops are already required to receive up to 17 different vaccinations.
In a message to servicemembers, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff noted at the time that the “health and readiness of our force is critical to America’s defense.” The Army general added, “Mandating vaccines in the military is not new.”
What is new is the adjutant general of the Oklahoma National Guard deciding he doesn’t want to follow the Pentagon’s policy.
Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail, Mancino and Stitt will back off their defiance of U.S. policy, Guard troops in Oklahoma will be protected, and there won’t be copycats in other states. But if Mancino continues to refuse, the Defense Department apparently intends to treat him like any other soldier who defies lawful orders.
Forgot what time of day it was and accidentally tuned into Chuck Todd pontificating on MSNBC. Before I tuned out, I heard Todd ask his guest, “Do you think the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left?”
Todd has been repeating that Republican talking point for months. He asks the same question of almost all of the guests on his show, Meet the Press Daily.
It’s as if Chuck Todd is trying really hard to establish that stupid, overly simplified premise as truth. He is working, alongside Republicans, to block progressives from achieving their legislative goals. He’s also boring and repetitive. He doesn’t have a substantive contribution to make to the discussion, so he just repeats the talking points he cherishes. He seldom listens to whatever answer he receives when he asks the question. It’s past time to replace Chuck Todd with a host that can think.
ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl’s upcoming book, “Betrayal,” reveals more eye-popping details on ex-Trump adviser Michael Flynn and his lawyer, Sidney Powell, urging the use of the U.S. military to steal the election for [Trump] … by going directly to the Defense Department and peddling wacky conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
Flynn’s Pitch
We already knew some of the bare bones of the Flynn gambit to use the military. Flynn and pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood called on Trump to declare martial law in December for “the sole purpose of having the military oversee a national re-vote,” and Flynn suggested the idea again during an explosive Oval Office meeting with Trump, according to CNN and the New York Times.
According to Karl’s book, Flynn (fresh after receiving a pardon from Trump) reportedly called Ezra Cohen-Watnick, by then a senior intelligence official, who was traveling in the Middle East at the time, and demanded that he cut his trip short, telling Cohen that “we need you” in the U.S. and that “there was going to be an epic showdown over the election results.”
Flynn told Cohen-Watnick that he needed to sign orders to seize election ballots, according to Karl.
When Cohen-Watnick reportedly told Flynn it was “time to move on” from the election, the former Trump adviser accused him of being a “quitter” and insisted that “This is not over!”
[…] Months after Trump left office, Flynn fully endorsed a coup in the U.S. akin to the one in Myanmar in February, arguing during a pro-QAnon MAGA event that it “should happen here.”
Powell’s Pitch
Like Flynn, Powell repeatedly pushed for a war on the election results: In addition to attending that same infamous Oval Office meeting with her client in December, the lawyer amplified calls online for the then-president to invoke the Insurrection Act and hijack the Electoral College certification vote so military tribunals could investigate non-existent voter fraud.
And new revelations in Karl’s book lay out how Powell took her demand for military intervention to a another extreme on the basis of one of the many mind-boggling conspiracy theories she regurgitated regarding voter fraud.
Cohen got a wild call from Powell featuring yet another truly bonkers conspiracy theory about the “deep state” and foreign election meddling after his heated call with Flynn, according to Karl.
Powell reportedly urged the official to launch a “special operations mission” to retrieve then-CIA director Gina Haspel from Germany, where Powell claimed Haspel had been taken into custody after being injured during a secret mission to destroy a server containing evidence of voting machines rigging the election against Trump.
It was a blatantly false conspiracy theory that emerged from QAnon circles, and Powell was invoking it to push the Defense Department to send special forces to Germany immediately and force Haspel to “confess,” according to Karl.
Cohen reportedly thought Powell sounded unhinged, and he informed the then-acting Defense secretary of the call.
The way I read the last part of the article is that Powell wanted the DoD to INVADE or otherwise perform and act of war against Germany.
I am curious is to what NATO’s requirements and actions would have been had we actually launched such an attack, sent in special forces.
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The plan they ended up with, and the one they may face conspiracy charges for, was the challenge of the EC count that hinged on Pence.
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We’re going to find both Erik Prince and Roger Stone in on these circles of conspiracy, as well. [Yes, I think that’s likely.]
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1 / Sidney Powell needs to be disbarred in the states where she has standing.
2 / The military needs to post-hoc court martial Flynn for seditious activities in violation of the US Constitution.
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Flynn on Saturday in Texas: “If we are going to have one nation under God — which we must — we have to have one religion.”
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Dear Lord there be some mighty strong crazy all up in there. :open_mouth:
I mean certifiable, needing straight jackets by the dozen, crazy up in there.
Trump before the 2016 election complained about the election being rigged, and continued to complain about the election being rigged for a few weeks after he was sworn in, in Jan of 2017. Then he precedes to bring it up again during the 2020 campaign.
And yet “normal” Republicans did nothing, some went along to get along, but the ones who backed the myth are the dangerous ones. These people know it’s a lie, this is more than “wink, wink, nudge, nudge” complicity.
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My question is whether Flynn is still collecting his military pension. If he is, that doesn’t seem like a particularly wise use of taxpayer funds.
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Are they insane or flat out traitors?
Can a mounds bar come with nuts? Why not both?
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this does seem to be some mass hysteria event that borders on the level of the Salem Witch Hunts. This happened within the highest levels of our government. That any sane person could give credence to what Flynn or Powell were saying is beyond my knowledge of psychology.
This seems to be the truest form of “by any means necessary”.
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It bears repeating that one of the main reasons Flynn appears to have fallen down the batshit-crazy rabbit hole is that he felt he was unjustly passed-over for promotion, and was in fact demoted (IIRC). Observers have suggested that this sense of grievance drives some of the present batshittery. But it also means that military brass in fact recognized he was manifestly unfit for command. Which means that, in fact, the system worked.
Just a month ago, we had a brief update on the saga of Matt Gaetz’s good friend Joel Greenberg, specifically that investigators had uncovered a lot more than they’d expected. It’s looking now that it involves members of the Florida Republican establishment, the Florida mob (but I repeat myself), and shady Russian spooks.
Gaetz ally Joel Greenberg is giving investigators new information, prosecutors say
At a brief hearing in Orlando federal court Monday, Roger Handberg, an assistant US attorney, said that Greenberg has made allegations to investigators that “take us to some places we did not anticipate.” […]
Handberg called the need for a second delay “unusual” but added the department was in an “unusual situation given the number of different investigations and lines of investigation we are pursuing.”
One of those lines led directly to a couple of crooks named Keith Ingersoll and James Adamczyk. A forensic audit of the Seminole County Tax Collector’s office had uncovered mysterious payments to one of Ingersoll’s companies, as well as the purchase of a former bank building which had been flipped by Adamczyk for a $260,000 profit.
Looking deeper, the feds have uncovered a joint fraud perpetrated by Ingersoll and Adamcyzk, plus at least one other co-conspirator who has since died. The two have now been indicted for wire fraud, conspiracy, and other charges related to a scheme in which they convinced some idiot to give them millions of dollars for alleged deposits on bogus real estate deals. They convinced their mark, since at east early 2016, to repeatedly wire huge amounts (like, $1 million at a time) to a “lawyer” (who’d lost his license in 2008) to hold in escrow towards the purchase of real estate in Florida, Nebraska, and the Bahamas. They’d promised the victim 9% interest plus unspecified earnings on the profit of resale of the properties.
After the “lawyer” died, Adamczyk then took on that role himself. The pair forged real estate contracts and made up the identities of both sellers and buyers in a bid to keep their victim mollified. However, when s/he began to become nervous and demanded repayment, the pair stalled by claiming that Adamczyk had contracted Covid and could not leave Costa Rica. The pair scammed some $12 million in all.
But there’s a lot more there there.
Ingersoll was also involved, with his good friend Aaron (Chris) Miller, in a dodgy crypto currency affair that leads to a whole bunch of other shitbags. (Ingersoll was fired from the Belle Isle (FL) Police Dept. in 2012 after he was rolled up in a felony warrant raid by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office against Miller, who has quite a long rap sheet.) Pretty much everyone involved is super-creepy, and there’s reason to believe that it goes well beyond just the usual grift. Because republicans and their money-grubbing inevitably attract Russian spooks.
[…] I won’t go over it all here because it’s a very deep rabbit hole. Instead, I’ll post these two threads from open source investigator extraordinaire @gal_suburban — who never ceases to surprise me. For those looking to keep abreast of Gaetz-adjacent Florida sleaze, both her work and that of the Orlando Sentinel are not to be missed. (If you can stomach it. These are all people who fit in perfectly with the likes of Don jr. and his hideous girlfriend.) […]
One of the really interesting threads, though it may be destined to remain obscure involves Russian Intelligence. Because of course. We long ago came to understand that Putin’s spooks have put a lot of effort into getting close to shitbag republicans with more (other people’s) money than brains.
A figure at the heart of the crypto scam is Mikhail Morgulis, a creepy emigré from the former Soviet Union and self-described spiritual scholar who runs something called the Spiritual Diplomacy Foundation, which purports to be about bringing Western Fundamentalist Christians closer to Eastern European dictators. Or something like that.
Unsurprisingly, his activities include co-opting Republicans, such as Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), who has been described by Morgulis as an adviser to his “foundation”. He’s also behind an organization of far-right shitbags called US-Ukraine Observer, which has attended elections in the Russian-occupied Donbas region and Belarus. Unsurprisingly, they’d given those elections very high marks.
One of Morgulis’s cohorts in US-Ukraine Observer, btw, is Frank Abarnathy, a Tennessee lawyer whose license had been (briefly) suspended in 2002 after he was caught trying to steal an elderly client’s money by drawing up a Last Will that left it all to him. Only the best people.
Morgulis is also connected to Sergei Millian, head of the Russian American Chamber of Commerce. The Senate Intelligence Committee has concluded that Millian is an agent, if not an officer, of Russian Intelligence. Millian is once again in the news after the indictment of Igor Danchenko, who’d been one of Christopher Steele’s sources. Millian is suspected to have been involved, along with Oleg Deripaska, with conducting a disinformation campaign […]
It’s believed that Morgulis is a prime mover in support of RACC through the Russian diaspora inside the US. During the 2016 election campaign, Morgulis and Millian discussed organizing that diaspora to support Donald Trump.
And so it goes. Those of you who are disappointed that Gaetz himself has not been indicted should take heart that this investigation has proved to be leading to all kinds of scumbaggery. It’s clear that prosecutors have had to branch off. This in no way should suggest that Gaetz is in the clear.
Evidence that the church is penetrated by the KGB comes from my own experience as a KGB intelligence officer. Among other young officers, I was offered a place some years ago in the church’s Spiritual Academy, a university that is attached to its headquarters in Zagorsk, outside Moscow. This special place in the academy (coming from a KGB quota and without the usual competitive entrance examination) offered a “splendid career” in the church hierarchy and substantial material benefits. I declined, but there was no shortage of volunteers. […]
But the party couldn’t be satisfied with that loose system of informers and agents. The informers couldn’t be fully trusted. So the next step was penetration of the church by the most trusted KGB officers. This process started no later than the mid-’50s. The program was supervised by what’s now known as the KGB’s Fifth Directorate (responsible for ideology) with support from the Second Directorate (which handles counterintelligence). By the late 1980s, the church had been fully penetrated. The mirage was built. […]
The penetration operation gives one more benefit to the KGB — more specifically, to its First Chief Directorate, which is responsible for foreign intelligence. They have discovered that the church provides KGB officers with very attractive cover for espionage activities abroad. Their biggest complaint was that the number of clerical-cover positions available wasn’t nearly enough for their needs. […] Putting the KGB in a Cassock: Why Moscow is Infiltrating the Soviet Orthodox Church; Victor Sheymov (writing as Victor Orlov), Washington Post; July 17, 1988
A sad story from the UK. A rejected Iraqi-Syrian asylum-seeker with mental health problems, Emad al-Swealmeen, blew himself up in a taxi outside a Liverpool hospital. He died, the taxi-driver was injured but has left hospital, no-one else was hurt. The UK “terrorist threat level” was instantly raised to “severe”, and people who shared an address with him (not the one where the bomb was constructed) were arrested by armed police in what must have been extremely frightening circumstances. It now appears al-Swealmeen acted alone, and no ideological motive has been found. It is not known whether he detonated his bomb intentionally, and if not, what he intended to do with it.
“There is much comment in the media about al-Swealmeen and it is clear that he was known to many people. We continue to appeal for people who knew him, especially those who associated with him this year as we try and piece together the events leading up to this incident and the reasons for it.” [Russ Jackson, assistant chief constable and head of counter-terrorism policing in north-west England]
A Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said: “We can confirm Emad Al Swealmeen had previously accessed our services but was not a service user at the time of the incident.”
Police arrested four people after the explosion and released them without charge. Jackson said police believe Sweelmean plotted on his own for most of this year.
If I had known al-Sweelmean, I’m by no means sure I’d respond to the police request – any such association will surely get you on a police “watch-list” of possible terrorists. I certainly wouldn’t have done so in the intial aftermath. The incident will be used by the Tories, and specifically the loathsome Priti Patel, Home Secretary and certified bully, to press for asylum-seekers to be imprisoned outwith the UK while their cases are considered, and deported back to the countries they fled without a right of appeal if their claim is rejected.
KGsays
Further to #494. Al-Swealmeen officially converted from Islam to Christianity during his time in the UK. Some asylum-seekers are rumoured to do this because they think it will improve their chances of being accepted, but his church associates (who lost touch with him some time ago) seem convinced his conversion was genuine.
Starting out okay, and then slipping into stupidity?
Earlier this year, as Covid-19 vaccines became available to the public, several congressional Republicans with medical backgrounds did the right thing. The “Doctors’ Caucus” released a video in April that not only encouraged Americans to vaccinated, they even tailored their message to conservative audiences that might otherwise be reluctant to protect themselves from the pandemic.
Several of the GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, appeared in white lab coats in the video, to help drive home the point about their credibility as trained physicians.
[…] Harris’ message took a deeply unfortunate turn several months later. The Washington Post reported last month that the Maryland Republican, a practicing anesthesiologist, boasted about having prescribed ivermectin as a Covid-19 treatment, and even “lashed out at pharmacies for not making the drug readily available.”
Harris neglected to mention to that ivermectin — according to the FDA, CDC, WHO, and the company that manufactures the drug — is not effective in treating Covid-19.
At the same time, the congressman fielded a question call from someone who said instead of getting vaccinated, he was relying on a checklist created by a right-wing group called America’s Frontline Doctors.
“Good idea,” Harris replied. He went on to question whether mask protections actually “do anything.”
[…] The Baltimore Sun reported this week that the GOP lawmaker is now under investigation in response to a complaint filed against him with a physicians board for prescribing a Covid-19 treatment that doesn’t actually treat Covid-19.
[Rep. Andy Harris] said in a Monday discussion of vaccine mandates by the conservative House Freedom Caucus, an advocacy group, that a complaint has been lodged against him. “An action is currently being attempted against my medical license for prescribing ivermectin, which I find fascinating, because as an anesthesiologist, I know I use a lot of drugs off-label that are much more dangerous,” Harris said, according to a Facebook video post of the event.
The congressman went on to tell the Washington Examiner that the matter is “in the investigation stage with the board of medical examiners.”
Making matters slightly worse, despite Harris’ sensible rhetoric in April, accord to the Sun’s report, he went on to say this week that vaccines may become ineffective.
“The way this pandemic is going, it looks like what we’re just going to need are very good treatments because when the next variant comes around, this vaccine may be of no use against it,” he said.
Harris neglected to mention that the more people get vaccinated, the greater the odds of preventing the emergence of new and dangerous variants.
The overarching question remains unanswered: Why would a trained medical professional and experienced member of Congress deliver responsible messages to the public in the spring, only to deliver irresponsible messages in the fall?
It’s hard not to wonder whether the anti-science backlash across much of the Republican base is leading GOP officials who know better to say things they shouldn’t.
A white voter in Nevada cast an illegal ballot for his dead wife. He received a vastly lighter sentence than Crystal Mason. This keeps happening.
Republicans and conservative conspiracy theorists were certain they’d found the definitive proof they’d been waiting for. Rosemarie Hartle passed away in 2017, but someone nevertheless tried to cast a ballot on her behalf in the 2020 elections. Her husband, Donald Kirk Hartle, called this “sickening,” and suggested it bolstered GOP attacks on the integrity of the electoral system.
At the time, right wing media, especially Tucker Carlson on Fox News, made a really big deal out of this, saying that it absolutely proved that there was massive voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Repetition drove the point home: the election was stolen from Trump.
Yesterday, the story collapsed: It was Donald Kirk Hartle who illegally voted for his late wife, lied about it, got caught, and ultimately pleaded guilty. As The Nevada Independent reported, the Republican voter accepted responsibility, expressed regret, and received a fairly light sentence.
As part of the plea deal, Hartle will be able to withdraw his plea, if he follows the terms of a yearlong probation, and instead plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to commit voting more than once in the same election. Under that charge, he would be fined $2,000 and receive credit for time served — meaning he would not serve any additional jail time. The felony charge he pleaded guilty to is typically punishable by a prison term of up to four years, as well as a fine of up to $5,000.
To be sure, the Republicans who seized on this case as proof that voter fraud is a real societal scourge have some explaining to do. But I’m also struck by the familiarity of the circumstances.
Revisiting our earlier coverage, we learned in May about Pennsylvania’s Bruce Bartman, who cast an absentee ballot in support of Donald Trump for his mother — who died in 2008. Bartman pleaded guilty to unlawful voting, conceded he “listened to too much propaganda,” and was sentenced to five years’ probation.
About a month later, Edward Snodgrass, a local Republican official in Ohio, admitted to forging his dead father’s signature on an absentee ballot and then voting again as himself. NBC News noted at the time that Snodgrass struck a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to three days in jail and a $500 fine.
In August, we learned of a Pennsylvania man named Robert Richard Lynn, who used a typewriter to complete an absentee ballot application on behalf of his deceased mother. After getting caught, he faced up to two years behind bars. Lynn instead received a sentence of six months’ probation.
I suspect some will see reports like these as evidence to bolster conspiracy theories. “See?” they’ll say. “Voter fraud is real; people keep casting ballots on behalf of dead relatives; and sweeping new voter-suppression laws are fully justified.”
But that remains the wrong response. What these examples actually show is that when would-be criminals try to cheat, the existing system is strong enough to catch them, charge them, and convict them. This doesn’t prove the need for voter-suppression laws; it helps prove the opposite.
But let’s also spare a thought for Crystal Mason, who cast a provisional ballot in the 2016 elections while on supervised release for a federal conviction. She didn’t know she was ineligible to vote, and her ballot was never counted, but Mason — a Black woman — was convicted of illegal voting and sentenced to five years in prison.
It’s hard not to notice that white guys like Donald Kirk Hartle, Robert Richard Lynn, Edward Snodgrass, and Bruce Bartman received vastly more lenient sentences, despite the fact that they knowingly hatched schemes to cast illegal ballots on behalf of dead relatives.
As Congress prepared to pass the Democrats’ American Rescue Plan earlier this year, Rep. John Yarmuth, the Democratic chairman of the House Budget Committee, made an important prediction on the chamber floor.
“What we are all concerned about on our side,” Yarmuth said, referring to Democrats, “is that the Republicans are all going to vote against this, and then they’re going to show up at every ribbon cutting, and at every project funded out of this bill, and they’re going to pump up their chests and take credit for all of these great benefits that are coming to their citizens.”
[…] As Congress approved the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act two weeks ago, the Democratic majority expected the same dynamic to unfold once more: Republicans would, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, “vote no and take the dough.”
[…] Republican Rep. Gary Palmer issued a press release this week, […] “Funding the Northern Beltline has consistently been one of my top priorities,” Palmer said. “Birmingham is currently one of the largest metropolitan areas in the country without a complete beltline around it. Completing the Northern Beltline will benefit the entire region and enhance economic development and employment opportunities…. This is the opportunity we have been working for as a region and a state. Now is the time for us to take advantage of it and complete the work by finishing the Northern Beltline and building a better future for the Birmingham metro area and central Alabama.”
What the GOP congressman neglected to mention is that he voted against the legislation that will fund the project.
Palmer, a member of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, also didn’t mention the fact that he condemned the bill after it passed, deriding it as a measure that will waste “hundreds of billions of dollars on a Green New Deal wish list and programs under the guise of human infrastructure that simply expand government control of our lives.”
[…] it’s not uncommon for lawmakers, especially when dealing with a massive, multifaceted piece of legislation, to like some elements of a bill while opposing the larger whole (or conversely, oppose some provisions while endorsing the larger whole). That’s just part of the process.
But Palmer and his colleagues should also be mindful of the context: Republicans condemned the infrastructure bill in no uncertain terms, before launching an offensive against the modest number of GOP lawmakers who dared to make it bipartisan by voting for it.
Either the new law is reckless socialism, or it’s poised to make worthwhile investments that will help a lot of people. Either Republicans are going to make the case against the package, or they’re going to celebrate the parts of it that benefit their constituents.
When the GOP tries to do both at the same time […] Republicans shouldn’t be surprised when they get called out for their brazenness.
More intense weather systems … and the resulting damage: “A record heatwave killed hundreds in BC just months ago; today, rain cuts off Vancouver from Canada.”
The city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and its metropolitan areas together have a population of roughly 2.5 million. An atmospheric river of severe rainfall enhanced by global warming has inundated large swaths of the Pacific Northwest region; damage is severe in Vancouver where highways have collapsed, roads and towns covered in mud and rock from landslides in addition to severe erosion destabilizing roads. The damage is devastating in that there is no way for residents or supplies to enter or leave the city by road. Rescuers have begun the grim task of finding people and cars buried by landslides from the record-breaking rainfall and snowmelt caused by the storm.
This is it, folks; there is no doubt we are seeing the impacts from warming earth. Roads, railroads, and ports are closed, supply chains severed, suffering and terror for millions. […]
The Royal Canadian Air Force rescued hundreds from the threat of mudslides. Many are trapped in their homes, and returning to normal is months away as winter snow and ice loom. The Trans Mountain Pipeline that transports oil to Canada’s west coast has been shut down. A barge torn off its moorings is lodged on the seawall. […]
Six months ago, British Columbia endured 120-degree temperatures along with raging out-of-control wildfires; 595 people did not survive the onslaught. The town of Lytton incinerated. Today the burn scars have made the flooding that much worse by triggering the slides. Climate change is a threat multiplier. […]
Jeff Masters writes in Yale Climate Connections.
An atmospheric river (AR) is a band of water vapor 400-600 km wide – like a river in the sky – that acts like a pipe transporting huge amounts of water vapor out of the tropics. The amount of water that a strong atmospheric river can transport is about 7.5-15 times the discharge of the Mississippi River. When an atmospheric river moves over land, the water vapor transported can condense in the form of rain or snow, often causing extreme rainfall and flooding. In the western U.S., atmospheric river events are responsible for most of the region’s flood damages, according to a 2019 study.
In the case of this week’s atmospheric river in western North America, the moisture came from the vicinity of Hawaii, and the atmospheric river pulled moisture from ocean waters up to one degree Celsius (1.8°F) above average in temperature. […]
Surface waters of 1.8 degrees F are able to hold seven percent more water vapor in saturated air such as this storm. […]
In Washington State, which received copious amounts of rainfall as well, Jay Inslee has declared a state of emergency. Our cities and towns’ infrastructure was not built for this century’s natural disasters; the events are getting bigger and more powerful. Vancouver and Seattle prove how vulnerable we are to serious disruption.
The excellent Climate Signals website, which connects real-time extreme weather events to climate change, has this information on atmospheric rivers and climate change:
As the climate warms, ARs are expected to form in more rapid succession and grow more intense as they become wetter, longer, and wider. There is some indication that this is already happening in association with observed Pacific Ocean warming.
An August 2017 study spanning seven-decades of data revealed a rising trend in land-falling atmospheric rivers consistent with a long-term warming of the North Pacific, which sends more water vapor to North America. The study also identified an increase in the amount of moisture that atmospheric storms transport.
A July 2015 study found that climate change may increase horizontal water vapor transport by up to 40 percent in the North Pacific, due mainly to increases in air moisture.
ARs in the western US warmed substantially from 1980 to 2016. Warmer storms have important impacts on water resources, such as more precipitation falling as rain instead of snow, causing early snowmelt and flooding.
ARs distribute heat energy from equatorial regions toward the poles. Climate change is leading to shifts in energy flows, expanding regions of stable, warm and dry air in the subtropics, which shifts atmospheric rivers poleward.
Huang et al. 2018 found that an unusually warm AR preceded the Oroville Dam crisis and played a major role in the failure of the dam’s spillway. Runoff in the watershed supplying the Oroville dam during the peak precipitation immediately prior to the dam failure was one-third greater than it otherwise would have been, were it not for global warming.
More rain will be coming to the region later this week. […]
The new initiative is aimed at ramping up the vaccine supply needed abroad.
The Biden administration is offering to partner with Covid-19 vaccine makers on expanding their U.S. manufacturing capacity as part of an emerging plan to produce an additional 1 billion doses per year, an administration official said Wednesday.
The new initiative is aimed at ramping up the vaccine supply needed abroad and comes as officials have sought new ways to make good on President Joe Biden’s pledge to get 70 percent of the world’s population vaccinated by next September.
The administration is also hoping that the partnerships could serve as a model for accelerating drug production in response to future health crises.
“In the short term, this would make a significant amount of Covid-19 vaccine doses available at cost for global use,” the administration official said. “In the long term, it would help establish sustained domestic manufacturing capacity to rapidly produce vaccines for future threats.”
The U.S. has pledged to donate at least 1.1 billion doses to foreign countries and encouraged other wealthy countries to make similar commitments. Yet the global vaccination campaign is still well behind schedule, with many poorer nations still struggling to get access to first doses. […]
who’s ready for halloween?
I’m in the process of picking out all the horror/sci-fi films I intended to watch that whole weekend.
Cool. Give me suggestions!
nice way to spend it! gonna theme it at all? yuzna-gordon collabs, giallo, slashers?
i am always amused by horror movies that make something ludicrous have an erotic appeal for the characters, like hellraiser frank’s “it’s never enough.” likewise, “from beyond” has people get real horny for pushing a button to spooky slime dimension.
Who hasn’t seen Carnival of Souls? Watch that! Pairs well with David Lynch, who has some movies that are pretty much horror.
There was a certain hokey MTV era of 80s horror movies, most of which i haven’t seen in a long time. Might be a fun theme. Stuff like Critters, Ghoulies, House, Phantasm II and Evil Dead II more than the originals, Gremlins, what was that alien possession one with Kyle MacLachlan in it? Killer Klowns from Outer Space… I’m thinking of stuff where the monsters don’t look remotely realistic, like somebody took Ratt Fink art and sculpted it in latex.
Ooh, and Fright Night.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa is a horror director at heart, but he’s so good that people hijacked him to make art films like Bright Future. His best stuff is in genre tho. Cure, Kairo, and Sakebi are the best ones I’ve seen, but even the low budget and early Guard From Underground (aka Guard From Hell) had some bizarrely strong filmmaking in it. Personally, if you’re only going to get one, I’d say go for Sakebi or Cure. Cure is more classy, but the sense of humor in Sakebi, when it comes out, is too good to miss. I love it.
Rather than a film, I will mention a book.
“The End of October” by Lawrence Wright is a story about a pandemic – not this one, but a significantly worse one. It was published the spring of 2020.
It is chock-full of information about infectious disease, embedded in the story so you can ‘ingest ‘ it without slowing down or getting bored. The novel may not be a stellar literary achievement, it is rather in the style of Tom Clancy but if there is a prize for successful didactic literature this book would be qualified.
I do not mind a bit of lecturing. If people knew more basic science we would not be knee-deep in anti-vaxxers, creationists and goddamn flat-Earthers.
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You may recall “The Cobra Event” by Richard Preston, that book contributed to making the then president Clinton sit up and take notice of the threat of bioweapons, although Preston took a bit more liberties with facts than Wright (but as a layperson, my opinion does not carry much weight. My advice is you read the books and then check the science with the sources available to you)
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The book has some red herrings.
The human die-off is depicted in a horrifying way, but as far as I can tell the death toll in % of the population is not worse than some historically recorded pandemics.
The COVID unpleasantness of the last 21 months is by comparison ‘mild.
PZ – Fright Night! How could I forget? You knew exactly what I was talking about.
My annual marathon always includes my collection of Lovecraftian films: HPLHS’ productions of “The Call of Cthulhu” and “The Whisperer in Darkness!” “The Resurrected.” (An early 90s adaptation of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward starring Chris Sarandon), and now the Nick Cage adaptation of “The Color Out Of Space.” Then there are some of the old Universal movies, like Lugosi’s “Dracula” and Karloff’s “Frankenstein” and “The Mummy.” I’ve also got the original “Psycho,” “Forbidden Planet,” “Alien,” “Hellboy,” “Solomon Kane,” and a few others.
Of course, the night before Halloween, I always play the Mercury Theater on the Air’s infamous performance of “The War of the Worlds.”
I love Halloween!
@ 7
That would be “The Hidden” which, as I recall, also featured a young (and topless) Claudia Christian, long before she became Commander Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5.
There is a rather competently done Alien rip-off film named “Creature”. Klaus Kinski makes a memorable performance as a creepy astronaut.
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‘Bad Taste’ is a spoof horror film, one of the early splatter films that does not take itself very seriously.
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Speaking of Klaus Kinski, he made a brief appearence in a Bruce Lee rip-off film. I do not recall the title, it was cheesy but watchable.
This is Halloween. HALLOWEEN. HALLOWEEN!
The 1986 horror comedy “Night of the Creeps” with Tom Atkins is pretty good. It is a homage to 50s and 60s horror films, it even begins with a black & white flashback.
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“Drive Angry” with Nicholas Cage is much better than its reputation. But what makes it great is the performance of William Fitchner as The Accountant.
Another surprisingly good film is “Highway to Hell”. It did not easily fit into a genre which hurt the box office performance but has a cult following.
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Tom Selleck Gene Simmons and killer robots in the same film: “Runaway”.
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A cheesy film with Jack Palance and Martin Landau: “Without Warning”.
“Lifeforce” is a high-budget film from the early 1980s that is better than its reputation. And the photo and actors (kapten Picard!) is great, but it was just too weird for its time.
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“Dog Soldiers” is a perfectly good film that just happens to be labelled “horror”.
Slightly cheesy but objectively good films:
Hardware (Lemmy has a cameo).
-Death Machine.
And the more traditional The Gate
(Kudos to Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews).
An artsy and unsettling film: “Under The Skin”.
Another unusual film is the Farsi-language “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” (it has subtitles, so don’t worry). Made by a Californian-Iranian director.
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An artsy film that is an interesting failure is “The Hunger” with David Bowie, Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve.
Possibly “so bad it is good”:
The evangelical horror film
“Silver Bells” with the son of Chuck Norris confronting a satanist cult ruling an isolated town. He realises something is odd when the townspeople object to him touching the children (yes, för real).
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The muslim film “Day (sic!) When Sun Rises From The West: Film That Shook The World”.
The end of days is supposed to be preceded by the sun rising in the wrong direction, this is not the only scientifically nonsensical element. Bizarre ideas, crap dialogue, a feast for the sceptic film watcher.
Bizarre Japanese films:
“Cutie Honey” and “Big Man Japan”.
Korean zombie film: “Last Train From Pusan”.
Did someone say Japanese films? “Audition” then. Totally messed up. I told my neighbor it was a romcom like “When Harry Met Sally”. He was already suspicious before this turning point:
https://youtu.be/azeK3-pv2CE
What’s in the sack? You don’t want to know.
“Ringu” was much tamer. Too bad Hollywood bastardized it.
“Phantasm” was creepy when I was younger, plus I loved the ‘71 ‘Cuda. Saw the rest, which weren’t as good.
For really messed up and disturbing some of the found footage in the first two “V/H/S” movies. Best segments: “Tuesday the 17th” featuring “The Glitch”(horrific well beyond silly Blair Witch nonsense), “The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger” (aliens), “10/31/98”, “Phase I Clinical Trials” (pretty creepy like “The Glitch” above), “A Ride in the Park” (Zombies!!!), “Safe Haven” (most disturbing stuff I have ever seen…death cult and satan baby…far worse than “Audition”).
Wouldn’t mind rewatching some of “The Strain” series which took vampires back from the whiny emos in the “Twilight” series. Back to Nosferatu roots.
birgerjohansson@20 I am almost certain I saw Siskel and Ebert review “The Hunger” when it came out, and I have not given it any thought since then. IMDB gives it a 6.7, which isn’t too bad. Ebert was not a fan: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-hunger-1983
I might have remembered David Bowie playing a vampire if he had not outweirded himself by playing the Goblin King in Labyrinth a few years later. I had a friend who really liked that movie. I didn’t. The only thing I noticed years later is that a young Jennifer Connelly was in it. I have liked her in other roles (e.g. A Beautiful Mind) and and completely failed to make the connection.
Is there an actual subject to this thread? Are all weird movie references appropriate? I finally saw “Streets of Fire” (1984) and the best I will say for it is that true to its name, the streets are actually on fire for about 15 minutes of the movie (better than “Chariots of Fire”, right?). Also, Rick Moranis. Rick Freaking Moranis.
I haven’t watched “Donnie Darko” for many years. It wasn’t horrifically disturbing, just intricate. Took me several times to decipher it, but not a mindf-ck like “Memento”. “Donnie Darko” took place during an October (1988?). How can you make a rabbit creepy? They found a way.
Donnie Darko was OK. I was unaware of it (except maybe the title) until one of my kids wanted to see it a few years ago. At least it explained why my daughter’s friends knew the lyrics to an old Tears for Fears song.
Simply by phonetic association I thought of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_City_(1998_film) which is also more intricate than disturbing and just very weird. It also has Jennifer Connelly. And I also completely forgot she was in it.
The most disappointing thing about “The Strain” is that unlike the Goth kids in South Park, the main protagonists never figured out all they had to do is burn down the Hot Topic store. Of course I doubt those vampires ever drank clamato through their juice box shrinking proboscis either.
hemi – did you see my “https://freethoughtblogs.com/gas/2021/10/02/dark-horror-movie-memes/”“Audition” meme?
damn i broke that code lol
I just found this one:
https://freethoughtblogs.com/gas/2021/10/02/dark-horror-movie-memes/
Which reminds me of Micheletto Corella in one of the Borgias series (Showtime?) with his cheese cutter.
get me an image and i’ll put it in my footloose.psd
I don’t usually enjoy horror movies. I prefer the Addams Family version of creepy, and watch those films for Halloween. I plan to watch Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown with adorable granddaughter.
PaulBC
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It’s TET, (the endless thread) which once was used as a general conversation/ hang out thread. You can discuss any topic.
To that end, I want to say that whoever invented spray ceiling texture should be keelhauled. Why would you cover beautiful plaster ceilings in something that is impossible to clean or maintain? Why!?
Tethys@32 I guess for the same reason you’d covered a nice old brick rowhouse in Formstone.
“Razorback” may not be an outright horror movie, but it is certainly competently made.
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For digging up weird , schlocky or so-bad-it-is-good film titles, Youtube places like “Brandon’s Cult Movie Reviews” and “Decker Shado” are useful.
There are many B-film Youtube content makers, but those two are the ones I find most enjoyable (purely my own subjective taste).
And you have Mystery Science Theatre 3000, but then you have to watch the whole films. I cannot take more than 3-4 minutes of “The Terrible Claw”. But it was fun to see a very young Clint Eastwood.
The Strain disappointed me. It started out great, with truly repulsive vampires, and then just got weirder and more confused as it went on. They had to smuggle a nuke to the Master’s native soil? Come on. That’s overdoing it.
You all mentioned Lifeforce, which features a beautiful vampire woman who is naked for practically the whole movie (but then, baby, she got real ugly in her bat form). But what about Innocent Blood, with Anne Parillaud strutting around with full frontal nudity? That was also a bit much. Seeing Don Rickles explode added more to the story.
I forgot to mention films usually referred to as “Turkish Superman” or Turkish Star Wars.
There are weird Italian films like Argoman where the hero has superpowers and behaves like a villain.
If you want to combine “horror” with “weird” you can dig up some Indonesian or Thai films, in addition to the Japanese and Korean ones.
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A forgotten US film is the horror/blaxploitation film ” Abby – The Devil is her lover now” (thank you, God Awful Movies).
A black archaeology professor digs up a vessel that contains a Nigerian sex demon trapped inside. The demon escapes and travel across the Atlantic to possess the wife of the professor’s son (is this some kind of quantum entanglement thing? Is it a lower energy barrier to possess a relative to the one that opens the magic vessel than the opener himself?).
Dang! I forgot Innocent Blood!
But the film was too good to feature at the sites for cult movie classics.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mist_(film)
An American Werewolf in London is horror with a lot of comedy thrown in. The Howling II has a bad plot, but some of the most realistic and terrifying werewolves in pre cgi films. I had never pictured bipedal werewolves.
The Shining is a classic. Redrum, redrum!!
@PaulBC
At least my original ceiling is in good condition, unlike brick that gets covered with non-breathable materials for decades. I’m sure it was the modern thing at the time. Every thing done to my home in the 60s is slowly being removed, as it’s all ugly and poor quality compared to the original construction. I have some plastering and texture matching to do before I can finally paint the darn room. It’s just been an endless and tedious task to get all the texture off the crown moulding and ceiling. I’ve got twelve square feet to scrub, and this messy step will finally be complete.
Canada
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splice_(film)
Canada
Canada
I really liked this movie.
too bad Chas ain’t here to dispute the numbering
;-) wink wink
In toto “The Strain” fell flat, but as with “Mr. Robot” there were scenes. Setrakian taking out the Nazi bastard Eichhorst with the Warfarin. The scene in the “New Horizons” episode where Dutch is escaping from the baby factory and stops in her tracks upon seeing the sheer horror and efficiency of the blood extraction operation with people on meat hooks and…plus just the campy coolness of the Luchador storyline with Gus’s uncle. Anyone growing up watching Saturday afternoon wrestling could appreciate that cross-cultural throwback.
And The Ancients. Until this scene they seemed like a bunch of do nothing lazy privileged geezers then suddenly they developed a serious case of old school bad ass until the nuke:
https://youtu.be/Il6n75S6Uy0
And of course there’s Quinlan the Born dhampir with daddy issues. I was biased toward him because I liked Adam Carter in MI5. Unlike Jack Bauer most of the great characters in MI5 (Spooks) had spectacular death scenes because people in that dangerous line of work die:
https://youtu.be/YZQnp_OBDnc
I don’t like horror movies much. At our house we watch “Nightmare before Christmas,” do showtunes from “Phantom of the Opera,” stuff like that. I do recommend Korean horror movies. There’s a really good take on vampires with Thirst (2009), and I enjoyed the monster movie The Host (2006).
@39- John Morales
Damn you John you had to. Not only that several would go on to star in “The Walking Dead” the ironic ending where he does something horrific rendered unnecessary by subsequent events. It was a pretty good movie.
I’ll second that as perhaps my favorite werewolf film of all time. Done on a B budget, and I’ve heard other people complain about the effects and animal suits, but I loved it. I should add a gore warning. Plot tl;dr squad of British soldiers vs a pack of werewolves out in the wilderness away from civilization. It has just the right amount of British humor to make it is amazing.
Tethys@32–
My list of horror films that are also genuinely funny/enjoyable/satirical rather than just traumatic (excluding movies that are pretty much straight-up comedies with horror tropes, also excluding a couple of Whedon films that are very good but I don’t feel like recommending):
Evil Dead 2
Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (this one really leans into Raimi’s Looney Tunes sensibilitities)
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (despite an absolutely appallingly bad creative decision in the denoument)
The Old Dark House
Arsenic and Old Lace
Bad Taste (already mentioned upstream)
Braindead (another lesser-known early Peter Jackson film, contains one of the great visual gags)
Beetlejuice
They Live
Delicatessen
Black Sheep
Drag Me To Hell
Brotherhood of the Wolf
Lobster
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
@47- chrislawson
I liked “They Live” starring Rowdy Roddy Piper, one of the most notorious heels in wrestling history. He knew how to piss fans off big time. And that movie got taken for reality by conspiracy theorists. Some of Piper’s best work toward the end of his life was on “Always Sunny in Philadelphia”.
My list of off-the-beaten track horror movies worth watching…Not all of these are obscure (a couple are recognised classics, and one or two have already been mentioned upstream), but they’re not your standard Hollywood production, even those that were made there.
Raw
Neon Demon
Cure
Kairo
Carnival of Souls
I Walked With a Zombie
Diaboliques
Possession (the Sam Neill/Isabelle Adjani one)
Berberian Sound System (although its third act flounders)
The Lighthouse
The Haunting (1963 version only!!!!)
Pan’s Labyrinth
Cronos
Pi
Under the Skin
Memories of Murder (based on a real historical case of an incompetent police investigation into a Korean serial killer — and as the case resists being solved, the police become as terrifying as the murders)
Burning
Videodrome
Naked Lunch
hemidactylus@28–
And Piper has been immortalised by They Live for his quote “I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, but I’m all out of bubblegum”, which was not in the script. He had to convince John Carpenter to let him use it.
chrislawson @47,
add to that
Death Becomes Her
and
Beetlejuice
Oh snap and I don’t care about haters or critics or whatevers. Movie and music.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crow_(1994_film)
“Donnie Darko” has awesome music and storyline too, but holy fuck this movie is noir. I put it up as great.
We don’t go in for full-scale horror around here, but Bradbury’s animated “Halloween Tree” is always an October favorite, with Leonard Nimoy as Moundshroud.
“The Crow” or “Dark Knight” yeah I went there. But Bain:
https://youtu.be/VQpfYAxfiak
Yeah that guy!
@Akira #12:
I can’t help but think that a Nick Cage adaptation of that story would be quite different to the recent Nicholas Cage version.
The no-budget German version of Colour Out of Space is pretty good.
chrislawson, this one?
The Color Out Of Space | Full Sci-Fi Movie | H.P. Lovecraft
Not bad.
I am afraid that horror as a genre does nothing for me. If I want to be scared, I’ll just listen to the news.
If you like The Shining, I thought Dr Sleep was better — creepy, horrible, terrifying, but without Kubrick’s misogyny.
If you want a completely weird horror / martial arts movie check out The Boxer’s Omen. It is like Kickboxer meets The Thing.
What, no one has mentioned “Eraserhead” yet? Or “What Did Jack Do”?
The Innocents (1961).
chigau @41: Canada? Black Christmas (1974).
Horror from the all-too-real news: Man jailed in solitary for over a year is first to sue private prison company under recent state law
Now that part is good news. The new California law allow victims to file lawsuits against private prison companies. About time those fuckers faced some accountability.
Yep. This is also a story about immigration, and about anti-immigrant doofuses in the USA.
Horror
Yes. A complete lack of standards and a lack of accountability. The only consistent standard is “how much money can we make.”
Link
Lawsuits demand unproven ivermectin for Covid patients
ASSOCIATED PRESS / October 16, 2021
The later Peter Cushing said the Hammer Studio films of which he made a shed load were fantasy ,the real horror films were ones like Marathon Man .
American horror films seem to be the number one killer of American teenagers ,apart from skate board accidents .
Anyone seen a film called The Keep ? Part war film ,part horror film set in Rumania .
The Keep was a film version of a book ca.1980 by the same title. I did not find the book interesting so I avoided the film.
.
Recommended: “John Dies At The End” – American dark fantasy science fiction comedy horror film.
I stopped watching horror films in the 80s, so I wasn’t aware there is a sequel to The Shining. The Kubrick film does differ from the novel, but the hotel used as the Overlook, and Jack Nicholson’s performance are iconic in American horror films.
The Serpent and the Rainbow is another 80s horror film that was entertaining. It features a pharmaceuticals company sending the protagonist to Haiti to discover the plants which voodoo priests used to create ‘zombies’.
Apparently the film inspired the song Voodoo by Godsmack, which I also enjoy. The video is entirely appropriate for Halloween.
I’m thrilled to report that my ceiling and crown moulding is free of horrible popcorn texture residue. Overhead work is always a nightmare, especially when you need to work wet so no dust is created. No spiders were harmed.
I’m tempted to watch “Trick Or Treat”, but only for the excellent sountrack by Fastway. As 1980s teen/horror movies go (e.g. “The Wraith”), “ToT” is one of those films that was a better as a memory than in rewatching.
One of my favourite 1980s teen/horror movies was “Night Of The Comet”, a film that passes the Bechdel Test even without the two female lead characters. NotC was the film that inspired many 1980s and 1990s capable women characters (e.g. Ripley, Buffy, etc.). Among zombie movies, it came between the Romero flicks of the 1970s and “Return Of The Living Dead” in 1985, so it has a very different feel.
As for Hallowe’en itself, this is the first time in years that I’ll probably stay home and stick to watching creepypasta videos. The only major parties here are outdoors because of restrictions on attendees (80 indoor, 300 outdoor), but given which foreigners are involved and running it, it’s better to stay away.
How about “environmentalist horror” movies like “Wolfen” (1981) and “The Frogs” (1972)? A young Sam Elliot, oh my. . . .
Yeah, “Jaws” falls into this category, but I never liked it.
The murderer of the British MP David Amess was inspired by the notorious islamist and ISIS supporter Anjem Choudari . This is the second murder in Britain that has been inspired by his online presence. Choudari himself has not been convicted for doing physical harm, but he is the mother of all hate preachers.
I want to praise Sabine Hossenfelder, who is making surprisingly easy-to-understand physics videos on Youtube.
Harris Sultan – an exmuslim making videos at Youtube – found a guy who claims to be converting djinn to islam. The common evangelical kooks have to up their game or be left in the dust!
Sabine Hossenfelder revisited:
she is doing quite a bit of mythbusting and is using language lay people can understand, without dumbing down the topic.
She works at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced studies (a clone of IAS at Princeton?).
Sabine Hossenfelder “How to tell science from pseudoscience” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9ylQC5bPpU
Why the lessons in “Death of A Salesman” don’t apply anymore.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/life-of-a-salesman
The Brexiter’s guide to admitting you miss cheap migrant labour https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/the-brexiters-guide-to-admitting-you-miss-cheap-migrant-labour-20211006212765
Gam 191 Flat Earth Clues (8-14)
Eli, Heath and Noah dissect a horrible “documentary”
Colin Powell has died at 84, from Covid complications.
This comes on top of the death of Rumsfeld, the other awful guy in the Dubya administration.
Slaughter in Indonesia: Britain’s secret propaganda war https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/17/slaughter-in-indonesia-britains-secret-propaganda-war
@66 Yes ,I read the book as well as seeing the film ,I enjoyed them both .According to Wikipedia there is a book based On John Dies In the End ,and the sequel is called This Book Is Full of Spiders .
Just ordered a second hand copy of John Dies In the End ,the book not the film.
“This Book Is Full Of Spiders, Seriously Dude, Don’t Open It”.
@ 77
Don’t forget Parts 1–7:
https://youtu.be/CzbdXielt_Y
Some real scary stories. Some, not all are believable. But Mr. Ballen has a lot of real ones.
https://youtube.com/c/MrBallen
Russian influences in Nevada:
The summary above is Steve Benen’s take on reporting from The New York Times:
Link
More details at the link. A bunch of pushy, mob-like clowns raising money from questionable sources. And … relying on Giuliani and Russians via Ukrainian connections?
What happened to the GOP legislators who participated in Jan. 6?
One GOP state legislator who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6 resigned after his arrest. He was, however, an exception.
From Kurt Eichenwald:
From Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH:
While Powell had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before his death, he had multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that impairs the body’s ability to fight infections.
https://twitter.com/KevinMKruse/status/1450096270664679432
Kevin M. Kruse in response to Fox News hosts using Powell’s death to promote anti-vaccine propaganda:
It Follows is one of my favorite horror flicks. There’s little in the way of gore and very few jump scares but the unrelenting, invulnerable nature of the entity chasing the protagonists is like Terminator dialed to eleven and much scarier.
Bad news concerning diplomatic ties between Russia and NATO:
Link
To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut, now that the “Colon” is gone, we only need Bush and “Dick” to kick the bucket now.
From Wonkette: Colin Powell Was Vaccinated But Also Living With Cancer. Which Part Will Anti-Vaxxers Tell The Truth About?
A good man who was also too gullible and too optimistic. He was rolled by Cheney and Bush.
Miami school says vaccinated students must stay home for 30 days to protect others, citing discredited info.
Washington Post link
Joe Manchin’s ugly new demands expose the absurdity of arbitrary centrism [I would put “centrism” in quotes.]
Washington Post link
Not a fan of horror movies . But I rewatched Blacula recently which I hadn’t seen since the 1970s. William Marshall was still elegant and the movie was still silly
Blade is another vampire movie that is fun and a bit campy, rather than the jump scares and gore genre of horror. Wesley Snipes is as indestructible as John Wick.
Axios
Trump sues National Archives, Jan. 6 committee to block records request
Zachary Basu
“Even if You Win, You Stay Locked Up”:
How ICE Uses Appeals to Keep Immigrants in Detention https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/even-if-you-win-you-stay-locked-up-how-ice-uses-appeals-to-keep-immigrants-in-detention/
From Britain
“Government Plan to Lengthen Medical Waiting Lists”
birgerjohansson, we don’t embed videos in this thread. By the time the thread racks up hundreds of comments, it is slow to load if videos are embedded. Please just link to the video to which you want to call attention.
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/civil-suit-trump-testifies-under-oath-more-four-hours-n1281841“>In civil suit, Trump testifies under oath for more than four hours
Trump participated in his first deposition in several years, and he “conducted himself in a manner that you would expect Mr. Trump to conduct himself.”
Gallup poll report:
Commentary:
Link
Hmmm. I wonder what is going to come of this:
Background:
Link
JFC.
What Prager is calling “natural immunity” has not been shown to be consistent when it comes to protection. Vaccines work better and the protection they provide lasts longer. Nothing is 100% a guarantee that you won’t get COVID, but vaccines are the best bet, statistically speaking.
It is utterly bonkers to contract COVID deliberately.
Get vaccinated. If you qualify, get a booster shot. Stay away from Dennis Prager.
Top Trump Fundraiser Boasted Of Raising $3 Million To Support Jan. 6 ‘Save America’ Rally
What a thing to boast about. More money for insurrectionists.
Lot’s of infighting, chaos and ill-will within the Trump camp:
Unsigned Supreme Court decision sides with police in two qualified immunity cases
This is more bad news.
Link
CDC data finds Pfizer vaccine 93 percent effective against hospitalization for youth
Wonkette:
Link
Russia allows methane leaks at planet’s peril.
Washington Post link
More details, including satellite imagery, charts and technical explanations of how methane can escape into the atmosphere all along a pipeline route are available at the link.
Covid-19 related news from Finland over the last few days:
The general recommendation for workplaces to have as many people as possible working from home has been revoked. This was planned and announced some weeks earlier, and my university announced we will gradually start operating in an almost entirely normal manner over October. The health authorities have specifically noted that office and school settings are now deemed to be lower risk than was previously estimated. On this basis, masking on university premises was also made optional (recommended in relatively crowded settings, as opposed to generally mandatory) a couple weeks ago.
Also a couple weeks ago, covid restrictions on restaurants and other such venues were almost entirely scrapped, a move that many health experts fear was premature. Last weekend, a much talked-about national “covid passport” was finally introduced. It only practically applies in the areas where some mild restrictions on restaurant crowding and opening hours are still in effect, and only on non-essential services. Restaurants etc. can now choose to either use the passport and be entirely exempt from aforementioned restrictions, or continue operating as previously. Pretty weaksauce, some here might say.
The city of St. Petersburg in Russia also plans to introduce a “covid passport” soon, while there are plans to gradually open more transport connections with Finland. However, Finland and Russia still do not approve each other’s covid vaccines, so travel between the countries remains restricted/impractical for even vaccinated people. The current high infection rates in Russia, and moreso in Baltic countries, are a topic of concern in Finland. Russia has a massive problem with vaccine refusal that apparently isn’t going away anytime soon.
Here in Finland, infection rates have been moderately high since late summer (not the least in Helsinki area, where I live). For a while, they seemed to be going down, and I postponed some of my errands. Then they went up again recently, and I can’t postpone my errands any more (at least I’m vaccinated). There’s a small but steady trickle of new covid deaths – the total toll just surpassed 200 per million people. Soon, about 80 % of the 12+ population will have been vaccinated twice, but getting upwards from there is going to be a slow and tedious struggle. Previously, there was talk of scrapping most restaurant restrictions only after the 80 % mark had been surpassed, but eventually the government didn’t wait that long, as noted above.
In short, awkward pandemic conditions continue, with no end in sight, while everyone has recently decided we should just try to live more normally. The government and local authorities are very reluctant to reintroduce restaurant restrictions in areas where infections surge. Various regional healthcare systems remain more or less burdened with covid patients, and cautious with masking rules etc., which affects everyone’s access to healthcare in the short and long term.
An armed gang is demanding a $17 million ransom for the group of American and Canadian missionaries kidnapped in Haiti last week, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
In other news, many thanks to lumipuna @110 for keeping us up to date on conditions in Finland. Being next door to Russia certainly complicates things.
Donald Trump’s bid to impede the work of the Jan. 6 committee hit an early roadblock. In other words, Judge Chutkan has a lot of common sense, is well-qualified, and her integrity is intact.
Judge Tanya Chutkan has been among the harshest critics of Jan. 6 defendants.
Link
NBC News:
Racism in America:
Washington Post link
The more we learn, the more we realize that we actually dodged a lot of bullets during the Trump administration.
Yes, it could have been worse.
New York Times: “Trump’s Pentagon Chief Quashed Idea to Send 250,000 Troops to the Border.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/politics/trump-border.html
https://twitter.com/existentialfish/status/1450437622128590852
Sigh. See the tweet for examples of Fox News being prolifically and constantly anti-vaccine and against all vaccine mandates. Lots of propaganda:
“Fauci’s credibility has been shot for over a year.”
An image that shows Biden and Fauci as “The Swamp Twins EXPOSED.”
“Biden’s vaccine mandate leading to mass job exodus.”
“Pandemic of the unvaccinated: Biden administration repeats the same lie over and over.”
Dangerous harassment:
Link
“El Chapo Refuses to Share a Prison Cell with Steve Bannon”
New Yorker link
High court declines to block Covid-19 vaccine mandate for Maine health care workers
KELSEY REICHMANN / October 19, 2021
McConnell: GOP should focus on future, not ‘rehash’ 2020
McConnell cannot face what happened on January 6. He doesn’t want you to think about January 6 when you go to vote.
McConnell can’t face the ever-increasing mountain of evidence against Trump and his cronies. He doesn’t want you to think about the past crimes, nor the ongoing crimes, of various Republicans.
Good news: Democrats are filling judicial vacancies at a pace unseen in more than a half-century.
Remember that the filibuster does not apply when it comes to confirming judges. The “narrow Democratic majority” is enough to get this important work done.
Link
Follow-up to comment 120.
Most GOP voters don’t see Jan. 6 as an attack on the government
New polling suggests that over the course of 2021, the Republican Party and its voters have gradually become even Trumpier.
As contempt proceedings against Steve Bannon move forward, the Jan. 6 committee is generating new and previously unreported details about the attack.
GOP Representative Prescribed Ivermectin For COVID, Griped That Pharmacists Wouldn’t Fill It
Biden’s team wins this one. Jen Psaki is smarter and she has a nimble mind. She is well-informed. Fox News lackeys …. not so much.
Link
See also: https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1450516802925211653
Lynna… @ # 91: A good man who was also too gullible and too optimistic.
No no no no no! Much as I tend to agree with your other observations, since nobody else has corrected this I feel I need to.
Though building his own career on the sacrifices of civil rights campaigners, Colin Powell had nothing but disdain for that movement. He did his damndest to support the worst aspects of the US war on Vietnam, particularly in the initial attempted cover-up of the My Lai Massacre:
Never (publicly) re-thinking Vietnam, he moved on to serving in Nixon’s White House, and rose to a high-level aide of Reagan’s DefSec Caspar Weinberger, whom Powell served particularly well by lying about the latter’s (major and incriminating) role in the massive Iran-Contra scandal.
That got him to the Chair of the Joint Chiefs, just in time to mastermind Dubya Daddy’s first Gulf War and cement his position as the most powerful Black man (and, probably, military figure) in Washington. he leveraged that into claiming the foremost Cabinet position (Dubya wanted to make Powell SecDef, but had to yield to CP’s superior leverage). There, he – yet again- went along with a criminal Republican administration’s lies and atrocities, but no one should ever characterize that as a fall from any previously respectable stance.
For supporting details, see the link above, and particularly the Consortium News Powell files.
Primarily through his ex-chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, in later years Powell did succeed in separating himself somewhat from the accelerating deterioration of his chosen political party, but we should consider that only a tactical withdrawal from a faction dominated by less-polished mobsters. Throughout his entire career, Colin Powell was a monster, and (pardon the redundancy) a Republican.
Pierce @126: I agree with you that I was too quick to give Colin Powell a pass.
He did admit that he was wrong concerning that speech to the U.N. about WMD in Iraq. He admitted it several times. That’s a low bar, but for a Republican it was at least some indication that he was ashamed of the role he played in getting us into that particular war.
I do not excuse nor forget Colin Powell’s failures.
‘Not a cult at all’: The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper heads to Iowa Trump rally
Photos and video are available at the link.
Lynna:
You’re welcome. I felt like writing a summary, since many small or subtle developments have happened lately. Overall, I should be just content that nothing very dramatic or “interesting” ever happens over here, with regard to the pandemic or otherwise.
Since most traffic between Finland and Russia occurs on the Helsinki-St. Petersburg axis, the current pandemic situation between these two city areas isn’t actually that dramatically different. Experts estimate that Russia’s covid disaster is showing signs of slowing down, particularly in large cities where most people are by now either vaccinated or “naturally immunized”. In Finland we now rely mostly on vaccination rather than other means of infection control, so it seems traffic between countries shouldn’t pose much threat. However, eventually we need to either find some legal workaround to the vaccine recognition issue, or just scrap travel restrictions altogether.
Personally, I kind of worry that this pandemic has severe long term damaging effects on Russia’s public health, economy and political stability. Presumably, huge numbers of Russians have survived covid but now suffer from long term health problems. Since vaccination remains unpopular in Russia, in the future people will largely maintain their immunity by getting repeatedly ill with covid, risking disability and death every time.
Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz walk into a committee hearing to defend Steve Bannon, it does not go well
lumipuna @129: “Personally, I kind of worry that this pandemic has severe long term damaging effects on Russia’s public health, economy and political stability. Presumably, huge numbers of Russians have survived covid but now suffer from long term health problems. Since vaccination remains unpopular in Russia, in the future people will largely maintain their immunity by getting repeatedly ill with covid, risking disability and death every time.”
Yeah, that pretty much summarizes my feelings as well.
Pretty much as expected: GOP blocks Senate Democrats’ revised elections bill
The Senate was not voting on the actual bill, they were just voting on whether or not to allow discussion of the bill. Republicans voted to NOT allow even discussion. Obstructionist dunderheads.
Follow-up to comment 132.
Link
Wonkette: “Trump Argues For Absolute Right Of Presidents To Loot And Pillage In Copyright Lawsuit”
Link
Russia’s Navalny awarded prestigious European human rights Sakharov Prize
Washington Post link
Vikings Were in the Americas Exactly 1,000 Years Ago
New York Times link
“All anti-vaxxers are bastards”, Ontario edition.
This is a truly brilliant demonstration of how to be a disgusting prick: Here in Ontario, Canada, a member of provincial parliment has been using the name and image of a recently deceased woman, without permission (of course), to shore up his fake anti-vaccine theories. The woman’s family has strongly objected, but their opinions (of course) are not important compared to the promotion of the Holy Cause.
The MPP in question, Randy Hillier, is a long-time anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist; I don’t know if he thinks fluoride in our drinking water is contaminating his Precious Bodily Fluids, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he did.
More, including a screen of Hillier’s social media post, at the CBC.
Oh, BTW, @136: Also brilliant, but in an entirely different way! I’ve been to L’anse aux Meadows – the reconstruction of the village is well worth seeing (as are the original mounds upon which it is all based, of course).
I could not help but think, though, just how unfortunate it was that the Greenlander settlers stopped just there, though – I was visting in August and already dreary and rather cold!
Yep, more legal trouble for Trump.
The trouble surrounding the Trump National Golf Club Westchester may become the latest in a long line of legal headaches for the former president.
Link
Yikes.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/oath-keepers-militia-republican-politics
Note the caveats concerning the membership list:
Ethnic disparities in state prisons are shocking:
Link
Donald Trump’s new ‘social media platform’ isn’t a Twitter rival. It’s an investment scam.
OMFG.
Gohmert Compares Sit-In Led By John Lewis To Capitol Attack
Comments from readers of the article:
Almost as important as snails, frog’s legs, MUSHROOMS!, and, of course, vin, is Camembert culture: Dipping into the world of France’s most iconic cheese (video):
I’ve not only never squeezed a Camembert, I’ve never seen anyone do that. Albeit when I buy cheeses, it’s usually from a specialist professional cheesemonger (fromager·ère), who typically offer samples. The mildly deranged penguin, when she simply doesn’t just run through the fromagerie collecting the cheeses, prefers to go to the source and hunts them down wherever they roam. She’s also confused by that introduction, and is looking at me very darkly…
The House of Representatives voted to refer Steve Bannon to the Department of Justice for contempt of Congress. (Bannon refused to comply with subpoena.)
Nine (9!) Republicans voted with Democrats for the contempt referral. These days, nine is a big number of Republicans who are reasonable. That’s kinda of sad. It means the rest of the Republicans voted that, essentially, anyone subpoenaed by Congress can just ignore that call to testify.
Follow-up to comment 145.
Congress is trying to get answers about an attack on our democracy. House Republicans suggested today that they’re largely indifferent to those answers.
Link
Layoff totals fall again, improve to pandemic-era low
The last time layoff totals were this low, the pandemic hadn’t even started in earnest. The numbers are starting to look … normal.
Jan. 6 probe getting very, very uncomfortable for Republicans
Let’s just note here that right outside the Willard Hotel on January 5 were members of various extremist militia groups who, on January 6, started their march toward the Capitol before Trump was even finished speaking. Why were those guys standing around outside the Willard Hotel?
blf @144, I too have never squeezed a camembert. I think I might like to squeeze one. We’ll see.
I don’t have access to a professional cheesemonger (fromager·ère), but I wish I did. Also, samples sound like a very good idea.
Alas, these days I order online. Someone else puts the cheese I order in a bag and brings that out for curbside pickup. The camembert story made me miss shopping in person.
Bad news for women in Afghanistan:
Link
Wonkette:
Link
New York Times link
NBC News:
NBC News:
Link
Link
Background:
New Yorker link
A system to transfer robotic dexterous manipulation skills from simulations to real robots
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-robotic-dexterous-skills-simulations-real.html
I like Sabine Hossenfelder’s science videos, they are brief without dumbing down the subject.
“don’t fall for quamtum hype” https://youtu.be/b-aGIvUomTA
Researchers successfully build four-legged swarm robots
https://techxplore.com/news/2021-10-successfully-four-legged-swarm-robots.html
Cat bacteria treats mouse skin infection, may help you and your pets as well
https://phys.org/news/2021-10-cat-bacteria-mouse-skin-infection.html
I am forwarding this because it pertains to blatantly immoral religious scriptures, and the need for religious people to have the courage to acknowledge the reality of such repugnant passages.
This example is from islam, but the old testament also comes to mind.
“Covardience or courage?” https://youtu.be/_uWzagN2jW0
Horror films or horrible films.
”Vijayendra Varma: Power of an Indian” review by Diamanda Hagan.
This is the Indian/Hindu answer to the islamic “International Guerrillas” and it is excruciatingly bad. So bad it’s good?
https://youtu.be/4ymyVBiSBtk
Liquid metal proven to be cheap and efficient CO2 converter
A ton of CO2 can be converted at 92% efficiency requiring 230 kWh at a cost of $100 per ton. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-liquid-metal-proven-cheap-efficient.html
Germaine meets her conspiracy-theorizing neighbours.
(Foamy the Squirrel). https://youtu.be/uwNc9e2Q9QI
Thanks to Harris Sultan, I learned someone named Sabboor had been dissing evolution on muslim social media. It was assumed he was a biologist, maybe even an evolutionary biologist but it now turns out his field is “the philosophy of biology”.
Does biology even have a philosophy, beyond “if it replicates, it works” ?
Partisan political hacks on the Supreme Court:
Link
Last fall, a Republican lawyer helped take the lead in Trump’s gambit to have the results of an election thrown out. Now he’ll oversee Texas elections.
Link
Ron DeSantis’ handpicked surgeon general has been described as a “COVID crank.” Dr. Joseph Ladapo seems eager to prove his critics right.
Link
Le Gasp! Biden Finally Embraces Changing The Filibuster
Link
Follow-up to comment 170.
Josh Marshall:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/trumper-privilege
Joe Manchin is full of bull pucky:
Link
Yeah, he has been enjoying his power … obviously. And he was looking for a way to exert even more leverage over the Build Back Better negotiations. It was a pure power play, without any sense of how much he might be hurting his own constituents in West Virginia.
He comes across as an asshole, a liar and a flip-flopper.
CNS Op-Ed
‘Texas values’ today: Pick on orphans and gay kids
Robert Kahn / October 22, 2021
Wonkette: “Even Republicans Not Sure Why Democrats Keep Hoping Republicans Will Have Some Moral Epiphany”
Link
From text quoted by tomh @173:
That’s a good summary.
In other news about dunderheaded Republican politicians:
Link
CDC signs off on Moderna and Johnson & Johnson boosters and says people can get a shot different from their original one.
Washington Post link
Tactics used to spread vaccine misinformation in the wellness community, and why they work.
Washington Post link
WaPo:
Texas GOP Lt. Gov. Patrick offered $25,000 for election-fraud tips. The first payout was for a Republican’s illegal vote.
By Julian Mark / October 22, 2021
The horrible thing is , when looking at Britain it seems like lying scum can make the public quite numb to scandals if they just stay in power long enough.
So if the Merican version of totally unhinged, corrupt and proud of it crazies get hold on power again they might keep it.
And don’t tell me demographic changes makes it impossible. They will just cheat harder.
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter, Ingenuity, and the rest of the international Mars fleet (orbiters, landers, rovers, and secret bases) are now back-in-action after a few weeks out-of-communication with Earth due to Solar conjunction (the Sun being in-between Earth and Mars). During conjunction the fleet talked to themselves, each other, and negotiated with the Martians. No monoliths or Ice Warriors were found. Nor were the secret bases.
Ingenuity has successfully passed its post-conjunction tests and will again attempt the higher-RPM test flight, its 14th, which was self-aborted prior to conjunction due to an anomaly being detected just prior to take-off. The flight attempt may occur as soon as today (October 23rd); it’s unclear to what extent the anomaly is understood (it hasn’t occurred again during tests post the aborted flight attempt). The 14th flight is similar to the first, and intended to flight-test spinning the rotors faster to accommodate the seasonal thinning of the Martian atmosphere. The rotors have never been spun as fast as intended during flight, not even here on Earth; the tips will spinning at about 0,8 Mach (Mars), or about 2800 RPM.
Ingenuity is waaaaay beyond its design lifetime (at most five flights during 30 Martian days (Sols)), and being built mostly of off-the-shelf parts (the rotors, albeit not the motor, are perhaps the most complex of the few-ish custom-designed parts), its continuing ability to support the main rover mission (and even do some science) is impressive. Current best guess is the mechanical parts involved in spinning the rotors and adjusting their angle-of-attack are wearing out, presumably affected by the very cold night-time temperatures on Mars (as well as the heavier / longer use than anticipated).
I can boil water again! I’ve one of those electric kettles which speaks French where you can program the temperature (and how long the tea should be submersed) — this one a replacement for an older model which went completely inert some yonks ago — and over the weekend it decided that any cold water was around 80℃ and hence didn’t heat up the water much. Most annoying.
Close inspection found a surprising amount of gunk all over… the usual sorts of things, bits of penguin feathers, small chunks of moldy cheese, garlic, snails, and a very uncooperative ninja prawn. Evicting the residents, followed by a very through cleaning inside and out, upside and down, and it’s now boiling water just fine again. I presume it will also again heat water to sub-boiling temperatures (the real point of this sort of kit, as it allows for proper temperatures for cafe, tea, etc.), but I’m waiting for all the parts to dry out before a final series of rinses and tests.
The Farmers to Families Food Box program was a Trumpian mess: “A $6 billion federal program created to provide fresh produce to families affected by the pandemic was mismanaged and used by the Trump administration for political gain, a new congressional report has found.”
Link
Axios
Anti-abortion activists’ Supreme Court dreams are coming true
Sam Baker / October 23, 2021
Turkey’s Erdoğan wants US, French [and eight other country’s] ambassadors declared ‘persona non grata’ (spelling of Erdoğan corrected throughout):
Highly appropriate, No Time for Love If They Come in the Morning (audio), Jack Warshaw’s 1976 classic (he updated it in 2019 but I don’t know of any high-quality recordings).
From text quoted by tomh in comment 183:
At the very least, they could have issued a stay so that the Texas law was not allowed to be in effect while the lawsuits were working their way through the court.
It’s like the conservative members of the court have zero empathy for women who need abortion care now.
Money, money, money: Lawmakers probing Jan. 6 are putting the pieces together
Fox News host catches COVID-19, puts out statement telling people to get vaccinated
A Nevada man cried to the cameras about voter fraud. He wasn’t wrong, but he was the fraudster.
And, of course, he was a Republican and a Trump supporter.
Not really “inexplicable” that some voters who have died are still on the voter rolls. It takes time and effort to keep voter rolls up to date. Sometimes the corrections lag at bit. The important part of the story is that this single instance of voter fraud was caught; that it was used to extrapolate to claims of massive voter fraud that were not true; and that is was fraud on the part of Republican.
Ha! Of course the Nevada GOP was not silent when they were using Hartle’s false claims for propaganda, over and over and over again. Tucker Carlson pontificated about this supposed voter fraud many times on Fox News. He did not issue a correction. Tucker performed his “sincere” and “objective” schtick when covering the story.
Link
‘Meet the Press,’ like the other Sunday shows, is a relic of a lazy, low-stakes era
Yep. That’s what I’ve noticed about Chuck Todd’s “reporting” for some time.
Votebeat:
Congress gives extra funding to the Pentagon but leaves elections vulnerable
Jessica Huseman / Oct 23, 2021
@ 185
Yeeeeah… it almost as if the majority of SCOTUS are stinking Catholics.
Addendum: Not that any other variety of theist is any better, but still…
Follow-up to tomh in comment 190.
MSNBC summary:
Link
In this 9:15 minute video, Chris Hayes compares budgets for military spending to budgets for spending that is proposed in non-military Democratic spending bills (Build Back Better, for example). Hayes also includes Trump’s tax cuts for comparison.
Hayes played a clip of Mitt Romney speaking as an example of how Republicans are responding to the Biden administration’s plans to spend money on everything from basic infrastructure to child care to addressing climate change (etc.). Money to improve the lives of regular people in the country. Quoting Mitt Romney:
Chris Hayes replies to Romney:
Hayes uses a lovely graphic showing one dinosaur icon per $1 trillion spent.
Much more in the video. And more dinosaurs!
AT&T has yet to answer for its support of OAN, and customers have had it.
Link
Might finally be the end of the big forest fires in California: An “extreme and possibly historic atmospheric river” is battering California.
Washington Post link
Animated graphics are available at the link.
Ha! Spot on and funny:
Link
Longer, more frequent outages afflict the U.S. power grid as states fail to prepare for climate change.
Washington Post link
Where Facts Were No Match for Fear
New York Times link.
Civic boosters in central Montana hoped for some federal money to promote tourism. A disinformation campaign got in the way.
No. NO. NO. Do not trust rightwing dunderheads with the details.
Rightwing dunderheads had a negative effect on the local economy.
RollingStone:
EXCLUSIVE: Jan. 6 Protest Organizers Say They Participated in ‘Dozens’ of Planning Meetings With Members of Congress and White House Staff
Two sources are communicating with House investigators and detailed a stunning series of allegations to Rolling Stone, including a promise of a “blanket pardon” from the Oval Office
By HUNTER WALKER
[…]
From Roll Call:
Commentary:
Link
Two Jan. 6 rally organizers are talking, and congressional Republicans should be nervous
Follow-up to comment 168.
Wonkette:
Link
Wonkette: “GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis Offers Unvaccinated Cops $5K To Come Infect And Serve Floridians”
Link
Sudan’s military detains prime minister and dissolves government in coup.
Washington Post link
Another Republican leaves the party:
Link
Cheeses, They’re Just Like Us!
New Yorker link
The wheels at Crown Finish Caves, in Crown Heights, have spent months quarantined indoors, growing mold. Sound familiar?
This sounds like a good idea.
Link
See also: https://www.sponsorcircles.org
White House details new international travel rules
Liberty University’s Honor Code Used To Punish Victims Of Sexual Assault
Wonkette:
Wonkette link
See also: https://www.wired.com/story/how-to-delete-your-facebook-account/
Strange as this may seem, I’ve never seen Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Earlier today, whilst idly browsing, I stumbled across a German band(? singer?), Berge, and found this, LET US ALL UNITE — Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator Spreech) (video). I do not know who the voice artist is — it could be Mr Chaplin but I doubt it, and is not Berge(‘s singer), a woman — this seems to be an atypical Berge performance — but is well-done… and the speech itself is from 80 years ago but still, unfortunately, applicable.
Politico:
Yale professor and expert on authoritarianism says 2024 Trump coup is ‘underway’
Video is available at the link.
Excerpts:
Ob #211, that is Chaplin.
Here is the speech from The Great Dictator:
Re: #199
WaPo:
Rep. Mo Brooks, denying planning role in Jan. 6 rally, says he’d be ‘proud’ if his staff helped out
By Timothy Bella / October 26, 2021
Texas Governor Greg Abbott approved his party’s gerrymandered district maps yesterday. As the Texas Tribune summarized, “The maps were drawn to keep Texas Republicans in power for the next decade. They simultaneously diminish the power of voters of color — despite new census numbers pointing to Texans of color as the main force behind the state’s population growth.”
tomh @215, Mo Brooks wore a bullet-proof vest when he spoke at events preceding the January 6th insurrection. So, yeah, I think he knew that crowd harbored the potential for violence.
Brooks claiming that he had nothing to do with organizing the attack on the capital is disingenuous.
Link
I think Brooks is just parsing words carefully when he claims he “had no role in organizing,” and that he would be proud if his staff did have a role in organizing the lead up to the insurrection.
Another Republican got caught committing nefarious deeds … so he is blaming others in order to muddy the waters.
[cough] Ummm, it was you, Senator Kelsey, that violated campaign finance laws, not the Biden Administration.
Link
Republicans are projecting … again.
To Trump: the answer is still, “No.”
NBC News:
Commentary:
Link
U.S. Senate confirms voting rights advocate Perez to 2nd Circuit
Nate Raymond / October 25, 2021
Facebook, YouTube take down Bolsonaro video with false vaccine claims:
Frustratingly, France24 does not provide a link to the apparent debunking, and some admittedly quick searching has not located any debunking (not even at the AFP’s fact-checking site).
I assume the claim is a hugely garbled variant of a report in Science (or its source, The Lancet, both of which are privately-owned journals, not the British government), Could certain COVID-19 vaccines leave people more vulnerable to the AIDS virus?:
Russia’s Sputnik V uses Ad5, and so some countries have suspended its use as a precautionary measure (e.g., Namibia to suspend use of Russian COVID-19 vaccine).
Also, apparently, an Ozland Covid vaccine candidate was scuppered because it resulted in false-positive HIV tests, Australia ends local COVID vaccine trials due to HIV false positives (December 2020), but this doesn’t seem to have had anything to do with Ad5.
No-one other than kooks — which certainly includes Bolsonaro — is claiming that any Covid-19 vaccine causes HIV / AIDS, or even is a known risk. At the moment, the Ad5 concern is a prudent warning of a bad result in the past.
This is a rarity, a zero-star review, Sex: Unzipped review — perverse Sesame Street is a TV disgrace. The conclusion of the fairly short review:
I’ve been unable to determine how many zero-stars reviews the Grauniad has awarded.
Apparently, Roger Ebert has awarded only c.60 out of c.10,000 reviews (Roger Ebert’s Zero-Star Movies).
Joe Manchin moved the goalposts … again.
Link
Wonkette: “Fox News Apparently Pro-Riot Now So Long As It’s About Spreading COVID-19”
Link
Videos are available at the link.
Wonkette: “MyPillow Guy Has Very Exciting Thanksgiving Prophecy To Share!”
Link
Video is available at the link.
Wonkette: “Mitt Romney Warns That Taxing Billionaires Will Force Them To Buy More Ranches, Paintings, Unicorns”
Link
Video is available at the link.
Trump Tells January 6th Panel He Has Diplomatic Immunity as Russian Official
New Yorker link
Vaccine news from NBC News:
Five points for anger, one for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s formula fostered rage and misinformation.
<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/26/facebook-angry-emoji-algorithm/"Washington Post link
The Supreme Court is about to decide whether states can blatantly ignore the Constitution
Erwin Chemerinsky / October 27, 2021
Erwin Chemerinsky is dean and professor of law at the UC Berkeley School of Law.
Yeah, this guy is all over the place.
After describing his own memo’s strategy as “crazy,” John Eastman quietly said there’s “no question” that he sees his memo’s legal reasoning as sound.
Eastman is also a liar. He lied to the National Review. He lied to The Washington Post. Good thing we have his actual memo in black and white.
Hi Lynna, how are you?
Marjorie Taylor Greene says more about Jan. 6 than she probably intended
How did a Pulitzer Prize winning Toni Morrison novel become a defining issue of Virginia’s gubernatorial campaign?
AP classes are, essentially, college courses offered to exceptional high school students. The “child” in question was a high school senior, but that fact does not appear in the Republican political ad.
And schools that offer AP classes are not, I believe, allowed to pick and choose which materials they cover. The courses are offered by an outside, private company. The AP exams that follow the courses are the same across the country, so it makes sense that the curriculum would have to be the same everywhere, too. I have problems with the whole AP process (my son took some courses, and I’m on the school board), but this argument is ridiculous.
Wonkette: “rump Tech LOLsuits Going Exactly As Well As You Expect”
Link
Paul K @235, good points. Thanks for the additional information.
In other news: some Fox News viewers are expressing the view that host Neil Cavuto should just die already. Why? Because he encouraged viewers to get vaccinated.
Link
Wonkette: “Judge Not Sure If Men Kyle Rittenhouse Shot Are Victims Or Satisfied Bullet Recipients”
Link
PZ also posted about this. See How to commit violence using only your words
Wonkette: “We Bet Democracy Would Work Better If Election Officials Didn’t Fear Being Murdered”
Link
Wonkette: We Bet Democracy Would Work Better If Election Officials Didn’t Fear Being Murdered
Disturbing details in this report will not get past PZ’s filter, so I am just posting the link.
In late July, Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said all the right things about Covid-19 vaccines. Alas, a lot can happen in three months.
rorschach @232, “Hi Lynna, how are you?”
Not dead yet.
Follow-up to comment 231.
Eastman Spins Wild Tales Of Jan. 6 As A Trap Sprung By Media And FB
Posted by readers of the article:
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 14th(!) flight. This very short flight was a test that higher rotor speeds work, as a means of dealing with the seasonal thinning of the Martian atmosphere. A previous test before Solar conjunction in late September self-aborted due to an apparently still unexplained anomaly.
blf @243 thanks for keeping us up to date on the little helicopter that could. Inspiring.
In other news, Republican dunderheads continue to stoke violence:
Link
So, yeah, these people are way too close to using their guns to settle all arguments.
A good thread from Aaron Rupar:
https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1453410673917059079
Videos are available at the link.
Some excerpts:
Good news … maybe: Iran will return to nuclear talks in Vienna next month.
Washington Post link
NBC News:
Attorney General Garland defends memo in school speech maelstrom
The Biden administration’s top lawyer appeared before lawmakers Wednesday as Republicans clamor for his resignation.
Samantha Hawkins / October 27, 2021
Unfortunately, that makes sense: QAnon streamer convinced Democrats are pedophiles turns out to be registered sex offender
The Wall Street Journal published letter from Trump: No facts, just no facts, and only no facts
Follow-up to comment 250.
The 14 things you need to know about Trump’s letter in the Wall Street Journal
Washington Post link
Biden Vastly Expands “Protected Areas” Where ICE Can’t Arrest Immigrants
Even as the administration disappoints immigration advocates, it’s providing real relief to undocumented people in the US.
Wonkette: “Fox News Imagines Merrick Garland Putting ‘Concerned Parents’ In Gun Sights, What Could Go Wrong?”
Link
Wonkette: “Tucker’s New ‘1/6 Was An Inside Job’ Documentary Looks Pretty Weird”
Link
Manchin Will Agree to Halloween Only if Candy Is Completely Removed
New Yorker link
NBC News:
Biden arrives in Europe, allies have a fear: Trump’s possible return
In other words, Trump is still a problem. And not just here in the USA. Trump is a problem for the entire planet.
JFC.
Some Republicans ‘lay the groundwork’ to question Virginia’s elections
If Youngkin loses, some in the GOP will say it was the result of “theft” — because in some Republican circles, results they dislike must be delegitimized.
Boise mall shooter was a far-right gun rights extremist who stalked local antifascists at rally
Link
Justice Department lays out the constitutional stakes of the Texas abortion vigilante law
He Was a Board Member of the Oath Keepers. Now, He’s Holding State-Approved Trainings for Law Enforcement in Texas.
Much more at the link, including an analysis of the activities of Michael Peroutka, a Maryland debt collection lawyer and founder of the Institute on the Constitution (IOTC), which has teamed up with Mack to provide “educational” content. Here’s just one example:
Mark Zuckerberg Changes Name to Mother Teresa.
New Yorker link
NBC News:
Roll Call:
The Hill:
Washington Post Fact Checker: The repeated claim that Fauci lied to Congress about ‘gain-of-function’ research
Trump’s Truth App Gets Formal Demand To Stop Violating Software License
It’s a step that could end in the license being revoked.
Follow-up to comment 267.
Posted by readers of the article:
Sens. Manchin, Sinema release grotesque tweets congratulating themselves. Twitter barks back
Whoa! Things are getting worse and worse for John Eastman.
Link
Group of 20 summit news:
New York Times link
https://twitter.com/RepKatiePorter/status/1453828603125420041
Video from Katie Porter:
Excerpt:
Commentary:
Link
Texas Cops Thought They Were Real Cute Ignoring Calls For Help From Biden Bus
Wonkette link
Tonight I did something I haven’t done for years (even pre-pandemic) — go to a nightclub (on my own initiative). The band was playing “Brazilian traditional” music — and was good — as was the beer (a witbier from Aix). As were the people I met — a Norwegian history professor (who lived / studied in Brazil) and is now moving to the village, his partner (who has lived in the village for awhile), a Brit whose parents are from the area, etc. The entry protocol was strict, and enforced, you had to show your Health Pass (proof of full-vaccination, etc.). The ventilation wasn’t good, but I knew that beforehand… and of course, it has hot, sticky, and a lot of fun. Only complaint is the volume seemed low, albeit once I stuck my head inside the sound-stack (speakers) it was almost bearable…
“Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) used a trunk full of rice to question oil executives about the amount of unused oil permits on federal land.”
“If each grain of rice were one acre.”
Also taking on oily executives were AOC and Jamie Raskin.
Axios:
What would immediately happen in each state if Roe v. Wade is overturned
Oriana Gonzalez / Oct. 28, 2021
A map at the link shows the immediate effect overturning Roe would have on every state.
Link
They put a spell on us: Black musicians and spooky tunes for Halloween
The article includes a lot of videos, including Screaming’ Jay Hawkins performing “Whistling Past the Graveyard.” Excerpt:
There’s also Nina Simone’s rendition of “I put a spell on you.”
And more.
Trump has found a way around his being banned from Facebook, and he is using the platform for fundraising … big time:
Link
Noisy NYC Anti-Vaccine Protests Are Hiding a Simple Fact
The mandates are working.
Kinzinger slams Republicans ‘who haven’t said a dang word’ about ‘lie and conspiracy’
https://twitter.com/dhookstead/status/1454603726711316484
Video of Trump performing the “Tomahawk Chop” at the World series in Atlanta.
Warning: the thread is rightwing-ish, and commenters still refer to Trump as “President.”
Dr. ‘Demon Sperm’ Warns Our Leaders Have Been Replaced With Blood-Drinking Clones
Well, okay, that explains a lot.
Washington Post link
“Misinformation online is bad in English. But it’s far worse in Spanish.”
Our research found Facebook, YouTube and other platforms aren’t doing enough to combat falsehoods
And we wonder why so many Spanish-speaking people voted for Trump.
Good news from New Jersey, as summarized by Steve Benen:
And about that tight gubernatorial race in Virginia:
Youngkin is a replica of Trump, just younger, and more careful about trying to occasionally hide his trumpish nature. If he is elected in Virginia it will be a disaster.
Related:
JFC.
“In May, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds rushed to get people off of jobless aid. For those fired over missed vaccinations, she’s changed her mind.”
Yeah, not good. I think this almost amounts to the Governor of Iowa paying people to NOT get vaccinated.
Link
“Three University of Florida professors want to give expert testimony on Republicans’ voter-suppression law. So why are they being blocked?”
Link
[…] One of the lingering questions is what kind of Jan. 6 documents Donald Trump is so eager to keep from Congress. Now we know.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/the-gathering-storm-3
Link
Much more at the link, including many quotes from parents eager to get their children vaccinated.
https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1454884233453834245
Note how specific he is, how he seems to have planned this out in his head:
Video is available at the link.
Covid-19’s global death toll has topped 5 million.
Link
BLOODSHED
Washington Post link
For 187 harrowing minutes, the president watched his supporters attack the Capitol — and resisted pleas to stop them.
Much more at the link.
Senator Joe Manchin screws the whole country … again.
Well, that’s totally par for the course. He’s still delaying and obstructing. He’s still looking for a way to may sure that the reconciliation bill fails in the senate. He sounds like a 74-year-old Republican.
See comment 193 for a realistic view of the cost.
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Passing both bills in tandem was always the Biden plan. Manchin is not only delaying and obstructing, he is also trying to rewrite history.
When Rubio criticizes corporate America, read the fine print
Marco Rubio intends to champion the interests of working people by steering business leaders away from “woke” corporate values. That won’t work.
Another one? Sheesh!
Another leading GOP Senate hopeful faces domestic violence allegations
Pennsylvania’s Sean Parnell, a Republican Senate candidate, is facing dramatic domestic violence allegations from his estranged wife.
People’s personal lives are messy, but even taking that into account the number of Republican men who abuse women is disturbing.
Why do Republicans keep complaining about fentanyl seizures?
Republicans keep complaining about the Biden administration stopping illegal fentanyl shipments at the border. It’s getting a little weird.
More farcical happenings being promoted by dunderheads: Roger Stone Threatens To Run For Florida Guv If DeSantis Doesn’t Do Trumpy Election Audit
Posted by readers of the article:
Wonkette: “Lord God Joe Manchin Demands More Temples In His Honor Before Supporting Reconciliation Bill”
Link
And the boring, repetitive, yet absolutely essential work of Congress proceeds.
Wonkette: “North Idaho Has A New Wingnut News Source, And It’s A Doozy”
Link
Washington Post link
In Virginia’s gubernatorial race, which is today, Trump held a tele-rally last night in support of Glenn Youngkin and the GOP ticket. “I’ve gotten to know him so well and our relationship is great,” the former president said of the Republican nominee, who chose not to participate in the virtual event.
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said in a statement yesterday that “there is no specific, credible threat to election infrastructure” this year.
A very good youtube channel.
https://youtube.com/c/IndisputableTYT
Wednesday, 11/3, at 10:00 AM EDT the SC will hear oral arguments on the NY concealed carry laws. Oral arguments can be heard live here.
NYT:
Opinion | If the Supreme Court Claims Power Over Gun Carry Laws, It Would Be Making a Grave Mistake
By J. Michael Luttig and Richard D. Bernstein / Nov. 2, 2021
Mr. Luttig is a former U.S. Court of Appeals judge. Mr. Bernstein is an appellate lawyer.
Luttig and Bernstein, along with others, have filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court in support of the State of New York in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.
Follow-up to comment 300.
Republicans Name Joe Manchin Employee of the Month
New Yorker link
NBC News:
Washington Post:
New York Times:
Democrats Bring Medicare Drug Pricing Negotiations Back From The Dead
Wonkette: “Stupid Arizona QAnon Idiot Has Racist Thing To Say About Virginia Elections”
Link
David Rothschild:
Taniel:
@ 314
We’re fucked.
Follow-up to SC @313:
Other campaign news: Voters in Boston yesterday chose Democrat Michelle Wu as the city’s new mayor, becoming the first woman ever elected to the office.
And: Voters in Pittsburgh yesterday chose Ed Gainey as their new mayor, easily defeating retired police officer Tony Moreno. The Democratic state representative will be the city’s first elected Black mayor.
Akira @315, the GOP didn’t even need voter suppression laws to win in Virginia. Democrats have done all kinds of good things in Virginia and now we’ll probably get to watch as the new Republican governor rolls all that progress back.
A slightly more hopeful analysis of yesterday’s election results:
Link
No matter what, there are still too many voters living in the sludge of disinformation and voting for doofuses like Youngkin. I think Youngkin will show his true trumpian colors now that he has been elected.
Mitch McConnell’s case against the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is so awful that it’s insulting to Americans’ intelligence.
Link
Senate Republicans Block John Lewis Voting Rights Bill With Filibuster
Link
Trump’s sedition team was paid by the Trump Campaign.
Bad news for GEO, good news for humanity: Private prison profiteer GEO Group has another bad day in court, and that’s a good thing
Ohio lawmakers introduce abortion bill that goes further than Texas law
Sheesh. They even have the bounty thing going on.
A predictable, yet revealing election result in Buffalo [Source from the WSWS]:
Remember that when the wealthy elite stratum who controls the Democratic party whines about “electability” and “uniting” behind the primary winner for the general election. They have no such intentions when the primary doesn’t go their way, and they will burn their own party to the ground to support a candidate who embodies their class interests. The left wing in the U.S. will be stuck in this endless, frustrating loop until enough of us learn to abandon the Democratic party and focus our energies in actual leftist organizations.
beholder@323,
How long do you think it would take to build an effective left alternative? Because it will only take one major national Republifascist win to end what remains of democracy in the USA – and any chance of avoiding climate catastrophe. Of course the “wealthy elite stratum who controls the Democratic party” will act in the class interests of the rich. But the constitutional setup and political situation in the USA mean that the only rational course for socialists who are interested in more than egotistical pseudo-radical posturing is to fight within the Democratic Party. And part of that strategy must be to divide that wealthy elite stratum itself, since (a) historically, the kind of radical change needed occurs only when the elite is divided, and (b) rational self-interest even for the ruling class is to act effectively to avoid such catastrophe.
Good news: Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy won a second term in New Jersey. He’s the first Democratic governor to win re-election in New Jersey since 1977.
That’s a Democratic Party win. And here’s another one: In New Jersey, Democrat Andrew Zwicker flipped a state Senate seat from red to blue, despite the fact that Republicans have held the seat since 1905.
KG @ 324
Yeah, that’s where the whole damn thing falls apart. Regardless of the most rose-tinted daydreams of the average liberal make claim, human beings are not rational They are greedy, selfish, and supersticious, and would rather let the world burn than go against their primitive base instincts. You don’t even have to go far for an example. Human beings, both rich and poor, spent nearly two-years of denying the severity of a global plague that’s killed millions. In some cases, literally turning to armed violence to oppose the mildest of public health measures aimed to mitigate the COVID-19, or allow others to do it.
What makes you think that lot is going to allow anything to be done about climate change?
Good news: As job market recovers, layoffs reach new pandemic-era low
With Latina and Black nominees, Biden unveils 10 new court picks
Bringing his total number of judicial nominees to 62 on Wednesday, the president has officially worked to fill empty court seats at a faster clip than any of his predecessors.
Alexandra Jones / November 3, 2021
Good news: Gabby Giffords’ group has filed a new suit against the National Rifle Association, which includes some campaign-finance allegations.
Link
tomh @328, that’s also good news!
More good news: ‘We never ran to be the first, we ran to be the best’: Michigan elects three Muslim mayors
More at the link.
@330
So the fact that the cowards at The Daily Kos is so deftly dancing around is that Ghalib IS a fucking homophobe… and a Islamic one at that.
No one has ever accused Tom Carper, a Democratic Senator from Delaware, of being a far-left ideologue. His endorsement of a filibuster carve-out for voting rights is likely to make a difference.
Finally! About damned time.
Link
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Schadenfreude moment:
Link
So, she is going to be in jail for 60 days.
Good News: Michigan is ending its tax on tampons and other feminine hygiene products.
Good News: New study shows HPV vaccine slashed cervical cancer rates
“Assuming most people continue to get the HPV vaccine and go for screening, cervical cancer will become a rare disease,” researchers said.
Link
Wonkette: “Special Counsel John Durham Arrests Russian Pee Tape Man For TERRIBLE LIES!”
Wonkette: “Green Bay QB Aaron Rodgers Got ‘Immunized.’ We Guess From Prosecution, Because It Wasn’t Against COVID-19!”
https://www.wonkette.com/antibody-aaron
Wonkette: Alito Wishes Good Guys With Guns Would Just Kill All The Bad People On Subways
Trump Claims He Is Now Governor of Virginia.
New Yorker link
During the Biden administration, the stock market is doing well. There’s growth.
No surprise, Trump was wrong again. Also no surprise, Trump has not offered an explanation. Hair Furor is slowly, all too slowly, becoming irrelevant.
Follow-up to comment 336.
Strzok calls out Durham’s Russia scandal investigation for pushing pro-Trump narrative
The video is about seven minutes long.
The Tampa Bay Times:
Commentary:
Link
How (and why) the Jan. 6 committee is making ‘real progress’
On the surface, the Jan. 6 committee is fighting with Team Trump for cooperation. Below the surface, the investigation is making surprising strides.
In related news:
Devastating New Deposition Videos Show Giuliani And Powell Flailing
The only thing new about this is that now we get to see the videos instead of just reading transcripts. CNN link
Giuliani is so awful in that deposition that it would be hard to over-emphasize how stumbling, bumbling and ridiculous he is. The commentary from CNN hosts is irritating and largely unnecessary.
Link
Eighth-grader recorded teacher’s seven-minute rant about vaccines and Joe Biden
CBS Los Angeles link. In the CBS video you can hear excerpts from the recording of the teacher spreading lies about Hunter Biden, about vaccines, etc.
The young student want home and told his parents that they were wrong about vaccines, and that “teachers know everything.”
Wonkette: “Newsmax Host Emerald Robinson Too Nutty For Newsmax!”
https://www.wonkette.com/emerald-robinson
If anyone actually tracked me they would die of boredom.
https://twitter.com/UR_Ninja/status/1456263730820358146
This thread shows how well it is going for Richard Spencer since he decided to act as his own lawyer.
Brennan Center:
Analysis
It’s Time to Stop Gerrymandering Latinos out of Political Power
Gabriella Limón / November 4, 2021
Agents tracking me:
“Ooh ooh, he’s getting up… walking towards the door… and… he put a different record on. And now, he’s laying down in front of the heater again.”
re Lynna @347:
Have any of these people considered that in order to track millions (or billions) of people, the time and resources required would be prohibitively expensive. I mean, that is what cell phones are for, right? Who needs a vaccine to do that?
Of course no-one is wholly rational – and some appear to be wholly irrational (selfishness, btw, is neither rational nor irrational, rational/irrational and selfish/altruistic are pretty near orthogonal dimensions). But your generalization is as faulty as the opposite one. I think it unlikely we will avoid climate catastrophe, but possible. And unlike you, I’ve no intention of spending my time and energies moaning about how awful (other) people are.
Manchin says U.S. is a ‘center-right’ country, but is he correct?
Yep. Joe Manchin is good at repeating rightwing talking points. That’s what he does.
Attempted voter fraud by a Republican: Youngkin’s Son Tried Twice to Vote Illegally on Election Day
Oh, FFS.
Link
Posted by readers of the article:
Flat-Earther With COVID Symptoms Dies After Denying Virus Even Exists
Jan. 6 panel weighs contempt after brief deposition with former Trump DOJ official Clark
“Clark’s attorney, the Atlanta-based MacDougald, previously worked alongside Sidney Powell to challenge election results in Georgia — one of the states where Clark wanted the DOJ to intervene.” Oh, I see. All the best people then.
Well isn’t that just peachy: “Top Catholic bishop calls social justice movements ‘pseudo-religion’ ”
Washington Post link
Say what now? No need to make sense, I guess.
More at the link.
NBC News:
Follow-up to comment 288.
Good news, as reported by the New York Times:
What kind of dumbfuckery is this?
NBC News
We hope this is good news for the Census Bureau, which needs good leadership:
NBC News
More at the link.
Facebook and Twitter censored the accounts of hundreds of pro-Sandinista activists, days before the election in Nicaragua.
[Source from the Grayzone]:
The Biden administration is trying to meddle in Nicaragua again, and Silicon Valley is happy to spook up and provide the propaganda muscle.
Dropping by to share a great quote from Silvia Federici’s 2004 Caliban and the Witch (p. 115):
LOL.
Good news! It is infrastructure week!
Houses Passes Infrastructure Bill, Sends To Biden’s Desk
@366 Lynna
Good news?
It reads like the sorry end of some half-assed political theater. The nominal progressives withdraw their only credible threat (hint hint, it’s to vote against both infrastructure bills), and unilaterally disarm after giving the right-wing Democrats what they want. The whole act was rotten from the start, and all it seems to show is that Biden successfully recruited the pseudo-left elements of the Democratic party to shill for his right-wing infrastructure agenda. For the progressives to cave now should be regarded as humiliating.
Betcha they’ll use it as a feather in their cap for re-election, before they get hosed by Republicans in the midterms.
Man injured during ‘Unite the Right’ rally stands up to Nazi organizers at Charlottesville trial
@ 367 beholder
I agree completely with the facts as you state them, but I think this was unavoidable because of the political reality of the way our government works. I had hopes that things would be different, but here we are. When so much power rests in the hands of so few people, or even one person, to stop what even the vast majority of the people want, and when money and its influence are involved, then one greedy bastard can stop everything. My own view is that this can still lead to better things for at least some folks, which is all I ever expected. Which sucks, but is good news compared to the alternative of nothing. I hope that some kind of BBB bill passes, and that it does enough good that Dems can use it to beat the Nuts party in the mid-terms. It’s a slim hope, but better than despair.
Follow-up to comment 366.
The legislative plan may well change again, but in the meantime Democrats in the House plan to vote on the social spending (Build Back Better) bill before Thanksgiving.
Follow-up to comments 366 and 370.
What’s in the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package
Charts and more details are available at the link.
In the “Transportation” section there are these guidelines for spending;
$110 billion on roads and bridges
$66 billion on railroads
$39 billion on public transit
$25 billion on airports
$17 billion on ports
$15 billion on electric vehicles
$11 billion on road safety
$1 billion for reconnecting communities
In the “Utilities” section there are these guidelines for spending:
$65 billion for power infrastructure
$65 billion for broadband
$55 billion for water infrastructure
$47 billion for resilience
$21 billion for pollution remediation
$8 billion for Western water infrastructure
@371
Of course, that won’t even begin to fix anything in the shithole country.
@ #372
$1.2 trillion might begin to fix something. Or maybe, if we can’t fix everything we shouldn’t bother to fix anything.
Appeals court sides with citizen journalist jailed for asking questions
ERIK DE LA GARZA / November 2, 2021
Federal appeals court issues stay on vaccine rule for U.S. companies
Axios / November 6, 2021
Rebecca Solnit, writing for The Guardian:
So, yeah, Youngkin won the governor’s race in Virginia. Now he has a trumpist base that is going to give him a lot of trouble:
The text above is quoted from the right-wing Twitter-wannabe social media outlet, Parler Chronicles. (Reddit’s r/ParlerWatch subreddit.)
Commentary:
Youngkin’s rightwing supporters are also insisting that he remove mask mandates “from everywhere.” And, by “Strengthen election laws,” they mean suppress the vote of anyone who is not a rabid rightwing Republican. Youngkin’s base is already having a fit over the fact that Youngkin said he wants to fight antisemitism.
Why would Youngkin want to audit a race that he won?
Link
Speaking of antisemitism:
Link
Another call for reform of the Supreme Court:
Link
Funny:
Scroll down at the link to see the video.
Link
Here’s a link where you can watch the Aaron Rodgers parody.
Wonkette: Big Bird Got Vaxxed, And Ted Cruz, Usual Assholes, Being Usual Assholes About It.”
Wonkette:
Wonkette link
Videos show Travis Scott’s Astroworld concert continued despite desperate pleas for help from the crowd.
Washington Post link
A crisis in Ethiopia has been looming for months. Now, it’s here.
Washington Post link
House GOPers Turn Against 13 Colleagues Who Voted For Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill
Examples of online “statements” by Republicans are available at the link. Those statements tend to lean toward’s this: “House Democrats’ Infrastructure Bill/Pathway to Socialism.”
The Border Patrol … still more trouble, and yet more unethical behavior:
Link
In case anyone still wondered if we still live in a demon-haunted world:
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/11/06/belief-in-supernatural-evil-is-a-strong-predictor-of-pro-gun-beliefs
These dumbasses not only believe in demons, they think they’re gonna take out demon hordes with their AR-15.
The RNC spent much of the year telling voters there’s a direct line between White House policies and job numbers. That wasn’t a smart strategy.
LOL
Link
Follow-up to comment 384.
A quarter of a century after Newt Gingrich went after funds for public broadcasting, some Republicans are apparently ready for Round Two against Big Bird.
Link
LOL
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-told-rnc-start-new-party
Well, that was amusing (sort-of), frustrating, and… whatever: I haven’t accessed my bank account on-line since early this year, and when I tried to do it from my computer, the site insisted on not the heretofore usual SMS 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication), but using their app on my mobile to do the 2FA. Ok, excellent really, since SMS
2FAis easily hacked and notoriously insecure. So start up the app (which I also hadn’t done in about as long).The app requires one passphrase to access it, a second passphrase to remotely access my account, and then — and this is what threw me — a third passphrase.† At first I was baffled, I could not remember ever entering a third passphrase, whose purpose (at that time) was not clear. Hum… decode, decipher, and consult my magic cheetsheet of secrets, and, er, nothing. Oh yeah, now I recall, I had deliberately decided to not enter banking secrets into that heavily-protected magic cheetsheet.
Er, well then, Ok, what is this mysterious third passphrase? Some digging through other material found an ciphered passphrase I didn’t recognise, in a context which suggested it had something to do with the app. Still didn’t remember ever entering it, but decided to give it a try. Yeah, it worked! Ok, 2FA passed, great. Then I recalled the main reason for having the app on my mobile in the first place — I’ve always tried to avoid having any banking or financial details on my mobile — is the bank had warned customers SMS 2FA would no longer be used due to regulations(? not sure if French, EU, PCI (Payment Card Industry), or others…), and that the third passphrase was specifically for 2FA.
So in addition to doing my banking business, I’ve now taken some additional precautions against “losing” (forgetting) certain vital related information. With secure backups (plural). Plus, this means I can now indeed do some on-line purchases, which is related to what started all this…
† Actually, there’s more than three authentications required. In addition to the three listed, the mobile must be unlocked (at least one more), and I must be logged into my computer (at least three more), and be trying-to login to the site (at least one more). So that’s eight or more electronic authentications (nominally passphrases), not to mention physical protections like the keys to the lair. All of which is fine by me, and rarely an issue. And yes, every passphrase is unique. I use various tricks to (usually) remember them, with things like my magic encrypted ciphered cheetsheet, securely backed-up, as a backup.
@ 390
More likely they think they’re going to take out humans either willingly in league with Satan or are possessed by demons. Because NO ONE comes to leftist opinions on their own. Oh no! Socialism, civil rights, secularism, and public health are so abominable and diabolical on their face that only those under the thrall of the personification of pure evil would believe them.
Good news:
Link
Yes, you need a booster shot:
There are good reasons for the CDC to recommend vaccine booster shots. I got my Moderna booster shot, (it’s 1/2 dose for the Moderna booster), and experienced about 12 hours of muscle and joint pain, along with some fatigue. All side effects were gone after 24 hours.
Link
Link
U.S. and European authorities target ransomware hackers.
Washington Post link
An anti-vaccine propaganda call by leading religious figures, echoed by prominent politicians and social media, helps explain why Romania now has the world’s highest Covid death rate.
NYT link
For comparison: 44.16% of Idaho’s population have been fully vaccinated. So, yeah, that’s bad. I live among one of most anti-vaccine populations in the USA.
US man who survived Covid says sorry to doctors for not getting vaccinated:
Exasperated sigh and hitting head with desk…
, another exasperated sigh. And I need a new desk…
Congratulations to Mr Soliz on surviving, being a honest gent about it, and apologising.
From the Grauniad’s current live pandemic blog:
Here in France, in comparison, the national incidence rate is just over one third (c.73), albeit in my general area, it’s c.114, according the track-and-trace app (which is also the famous Health Pass). France’s R has crept up to slightly over one (not good), albeit in my area it’s lower than the national rate but still above one. President Macron will be addressing the nation tomorrow, at least partly due to the pandemic. I haven’t seen trailered any hints of anything he might announce, albeit I can think of two: A widening of eligibility for booster shots, and an extension (possibly with some tweaks) to the Health Pass. And maybe (pre-)authorising vaccinations for children? Currently, the Health Pass is due to expire next Monday (15th), albeit Parliament did pass the legislation necessary to allow for it to be extended or reimposed. One measure has already been announced, “face masks would again be compulsory from
next[this] week for school children in 39 regional departments where infection rates are high” (Macron to address the nation on Tuesday as Covid-19 cases surge).Well, that worked surprisingly well… What started as an attempt to “use up” some elderly vegetables — a large carrot and large sweet potato (not a yam) — turned into possible accident, and wound up being delicious! Also, as it happens, essentially-veterinarian and almost-vegan (known non-vegan ingredients marked with § below — and all have reasonable substitutes).
In anticipation of making a soup or chowder, I’d purchased some garlic and fresh tomatoes. Whilst rummaging through the ‘fridge, I found the remains of a rice-and-maize(corn) risotto§†, and also of a cheesy§ guacamole — so the plan was to make a soup or chowder of the sweet potato & carrot, with tomatoes & garlic, and use the guacamole as a topping when serving. But I didn’t carefully check what I was putting in, the first ingredient into the cooking food processor was the guacamole. Oops.
After thinking about it, I decided it might work. So I added the rest of the ingredients plus some “Cajun” curry powder, a dash of both wine§† & soya sauce, and Arabian-style fermented milk§‡ (similar to proper churned buttermilk), let the machine do its thing (it smelled wonderful!), and… Yup! It (burp) worked (especially with some added pepper to taste).
Unusually, I’d pared the skin off the sweet potato (it was a bit elderly). Fortunately, it was a large one, so I didn’t have to discard too much.
(burp!)
† The risotto isn’t vegan because it was originally a lamb risotto with a metric feckton of butter. (Very tasty, but I made a bit too much!) There were no bits of lamb in the leftovers. The wine — which is both “natural” and organic — doesn’t claim to the vegan, which probably means it was filtered and/or fined with isinglass, gelatin, etc. (As far as I know, not all vegans object; Also, “natural” is not, as far as I know, defined either legally or technically — “low intervention” is another term — and specifically, does not mean “does not contain added sulfites” (some, including the the one I used, do (actually, all wines contain some sulfites as part of the, ahem, natural process)).)
‡ The only(?) non-organic ingredient. (The risotto’s lamb, which perhaps added some taste, also wasn’t organic.)
A snippet from the end of How the French [conspiracy] theory conquered the far right:
Zemmour is similar to fecker carlieson in the States, a nazi radio nutcase. He’s widely expected to make a run for the French presidency next year, much to the annoyance of Marine Le Pen, teh führer of the le penazis, since the presumption is he’ll split the nazi vote with the possible result teh le penazis won’t make it into the second around (against the presumed Macron). That’s not a bad thing, of course, but as the sensible left is currently staring at its own navel and arguing about how dust gets inside, Macron’s second-round opponent will possibly be right-wing. Hence, some speculate Macron may shift — or perhaps is shifting — (further) rightwing-ish.
A snippet from the end of the article about Zemmour (link embedded in above excerpt; France24 edits in {curly braces}):
Whilst I hope Zemmour, as quoted in the above excerpt, is correct about teh le penazis having no chance, he is an extreme rightwing nutcase, hence the , just on general principles.
Oscar the Grouch Cuts Ties with Ted Cruz
New Yorker link
Text quoted by blf in comment 403:
Hmmm. That’s exactly right. I’m surprised that this fact is presented as if were not really a bad thing. Yes, “people in the far right” are “willing to go beyond contradictions,” which just means that they are willing to do anything to win. Anything. And, it means that they really do not hold any principles at all, not even those they profess.
I wonder why the cognitive dissonance does not bother them more.
In other news, as reported by the Associated Press:
NBC News:
Related information from The Washington Post:
Washington Post:
Simple.
John Eastman And Colleagues Worked On 2020 Election Simulation That Is Drowning In Irony
Fucking fascist movie script.
Link
Some Republicans believe Donald Trump deserves at least partial credit for Joe Biden’s infrastructure bill. No, seriously.
Well, that’s laughable.
Yep, all too true.
Link
Good news.
Judge Promptly Shoots Down Trump’s 11th-Hour Attempt To Block Jan. 6 Docs
Link
Trump Inauguration Corruption Case Involving Ivanka and Don Jr. Moves Ahead
Corruption from top to bottom.
How Kyle Rittenhouse Almost Killed The ‘Good Guy With A Gun’
Wonkette:
Follow-up to comment 407.
Link
‘Presidents are not kings’: Judge rejects Trump’s bid for Jan. 6 secrecy
Donald Trump didn’t just lose his case demanding secrecy for his Jan. 6 materials, he did so in dramatic fashion.
Wonkette:
Link
Despite GOP pushback, Build Back Better plan remains popular
Correct.
Summary from Steve Benen:
OMFG. Janice McGeachin is the worst of the worst.
From past reporting in October:
Well that figures. DeSantis’s pick for surgeon general is a liar. He mischaracterized his experience treating Covidd-19 patients, for example.
Link
Sounds to me like Ladapo has caught the Rightwing Fucking Bugnuts Crazy Virus.
Liz Cheney: Donald Trump represents a unique ‘domestic threat’
“Will we put duty to our oath above partisan politics or will we look away from the danger and the threat, embrace the lies and enable the liar?”
Interesting. A defeat, at least temporarily, for anti-vaxxer Robert Kennedy.
Link
Children in New York talk about getting the vaccine:
Good news.
Good news: “California Lettuce Workers Are Vaccinated AF”
Link
@ 423
And yet, not one word about the real threat… millions of armed, angry, bigoted, largely-whites willing to commit murder for whoever is going to protect their white Christian privilege.
Link
Followup to comment 418.
Well, at least that part of Trump’s farcical demands did not result in a significant delay. Trump’s game is to delay proceedings until the 2022 elections put Republicans in power in the House (he hopes). But so far, his tactics have caused delays of only a few days. Judge Chutkan acted quickly.
Link
Good news:
Source is NBC News.
Colorado has seen such a big increase in Covid cases that the hospital system in that state is now using crisis standards of care. Hospitals are allowed to prioritize staff for emergencies and reduce the level of care provided for non-emergencies.
Good news: Abbott’s ban on masks has been blocked:
Link
It would be funny if it did not also convince some parents to reject vaccination for their children:
Link
Video is available at the link.
For the GOP’s new attack ad, the truth wasn’t quite good enough
Shouldn’t the National Republican Congressional Committee have been able to create an honest ad?
Wonkette:
Link
Sounds to me like Lori has been brainwashed and now she spouts whatever nonsense the men leading the charge want her to spout.
Facts be damned:
Link
Rightwing Anti-Vaxxers No Longer Big Fans Of Pharmacists Refusing To Fill Prescriptions
Threats: Belarus’s Lukashenko warns Europe: Sanction us again and we could cut gas supply.
Washington Post link
Followup to comments 418 and 430.
Uh-oh, the trumpian delay tactic is back on:
NBC News
Troops to receive Purple Hearts from attack Trump downplayed
Now that’s a Veteran’s Day story we need to remember.
Republicans still want to let their colleagues get away with the worst behavior, including posting fantasies about killing Democrats:
Link</>
Why the White House openly mocked Trump’s ‘active imagination’
“Outside of his very active imagination,” the White House said, “Donald Trump is no longer president and doesn’t have any ‘envoy ambassadors.'”
https://twitter.com/jonkarl/status/1459116740407930882
Josh Marshall:
Link
Paul Krugman: “History Says Don’t Panic About Inflation”
New York Times link
Campaign news summarized by Steve Benen:
Link
On Nextdoor I jokingly committed myself to smelling Joe Biden if I ever met him because it’s fair. Now I’m wondering about any actual symbolic usefulness of such an act.
Russia’s Saber Rattling In Eastern Europe
Vikings used to come from the north.
Facebook again! Fucking Facebook is hosting hundreds of groups that pump up rage against masks and against Critical Race Theory, … and ultimately, against public schools.
Yep. It’s organized. And there’s conservative big money behind it.
Link
Steve Bannon indicted for contempt of Congress
Wow! That was fast, and that is good news.
Steve Benen comments: “The last time Bannon was indicted, he got a presidential pardon. I have a hunch that won’t happen now that he’s been indicted by federal prosecutors again.”
Followup to comment 451.
From the Justice Department, the indictment:
None of this matters. Bannon is a man of wealth and power and they slide out of trouble with a wink and a nod. If he didn’t already take an unlisted flight to some fascist-run shithole without extradition, he’s going to.
Even if he was punished, the
presidentdictator installed after Biden will just pardon him… again.Roughly 1,300 children evacuated to U.S. from Afghanistan are waiting to be reunited with parents
Here’s some good news: Democrats and moderate Republicans thwart South Dakota conservatives on new redistricting plan.
Link There’s a map available at the link.
We’ll see what happens with this. Kristi Noem is reliably dunderheaded. She tries to be a female Trump.
Suddenly the Far Right Wants to Fix the DC Jail. It Just Took Locking Up Some White Insurrectionists.
In other words, the white detainees were already being held in a better part of the prison, the treatment facility.
Link
Worse:
So Marjorie Taylor Green went on Fox News and proposed that unvaccinated people should be allowed to visit prisoners. [head/desk]
Judge ends Britney Spears conservatorship after 13 years
I have always thought that the courts would never have imposed a conservatorship on a male pop star in similar circumstances.
Wonkette: “Steve Bannon Plays Stupid Games, Wins Stupidest Prize”
Link
Historians found a WWI bunker ‘frozen in time’ in the Alps. Climate change makes it a bittersweet discovery.
Washington Post link
Researchers even found frozen mounds of hay that soldiers used to sleep on, containing seeds that were preserved so well that they were put in the sun to dry and were later planted. They are now growing 100 years later.
Followup to comments 439 and 449.
From the Washington Post:
Followup to comment 446.
Here’s Why All The Inflation Fearmongering Over The Reconciliation Bill Is Nonsense
I have said before that I think Joe Manchin has been searching for a way to kill the Build Back Better bill all along. Occasionally, he pretends otherwise, but then he always reverts to spouting Republican talking points. His fossil-fuel-related donors also want him to kill that bill. Don’t buy Joe Manchin’s bullshit.
That’s a good summary, and a good explanation.
Fox News caught (again!) deceptively editing video of Joe Biden’s Veterans Day speech
Climate news from Scotland:
Link
Wonkette:
Link
Tempest in THEE French teapot.
Worse and worse:
Link
I think a lot of far right religious people agree with Flynn, they are just not saying so for the cameras.
Link
Video is available at the link. Andy Bryant captures Ted Cruz’s unctuousness. Cruz is so anxious to please the trumpian base that he makes all kinds of unforced errors, like going after Big Bird.
re Lynna @466: Not sure if you just fat-fingered it, but the cast member is Aidy Bryant, not Andy Bryant. And she mocks the prick so well.
johnson catman @467, thanks for the correction. Yes, I did fat-finger that, and then I didn’t see that I had done so.
In other news, a Southwest employee was hospitalized after an alleged assault by a passenger.
Link
Yep, seems like the increased fines are going to be necessary.
Nasa/JPL’s Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 15th(!) flight about a week ago (Nov 6th), the first in a series of 4–7 flights to return to its original airfield (Wright Brothers Field), where it will rendezvous with the Perseverance rover, which is also returning to the site. From there, both of them will then travel north along the east edge of Séítah, then west to reach the Jezero ancient river delta. There may also be a software update during this time. This was the first flight at distance & speed (400m, 129s, 5m/s (all figures approximate)) at the higher rotor speed tested during flight 14.
At the present time, I have no idea when they might rendezvous, or what may happen when they rendezvous (although it seems obvious Perseverance will thoroughly image Ingenuity so JPL can get a better of idea of its condition, etc (as well as for the publicity)).
What looks like really bad and anti-democracy news, but may be less bad than you think:
Link
From the Washington Post, a WTF moment:
Commentary:
Link
Bye Bye, Trump Hotel
Judge rejects Sidney Powell’s challenge to Pentagon’s vaccine mandate
Followup to comment 145 and 146.
Steve Bannon surrendered to law enforcement today. He is facing two charges of criminal contempt of Congress.
When I was last living in Ireland and teh “U”K, Tesco, a supermarket chain,
wasbecame one of my least-liked such chains (not that I’m too fond of any of them, anywhere I’ve lived). However, they do sometimes get it right, this time annoying anti-vaxxers and other loons, Tesco Christmas ad: 1,500 complain over Santa with Covid vaccine passport:A video of the advert is at the link.
What remains to be seen if is whether or not they or the ASA will cave.
Why would anyone try to undo vaccinations after getting Covid-19 shots?
Putting aside the fact that no one should want to de-vaccinate themselves, it’s important to note that these efforts don’t work.
I think the purveyors of the “detox the vaxx” nonsense just want to sell more bogus goods. It’s a way for them to continue to rake in money from gullible viewers.
Fox News Zaps ‘White Nationalist’ From Story On White Nationalists
Fox News allowed itself to edited by the “white advocates,” AKA white supremacists, AKA wannabe Nazis.
Bannon Arrested for Contempt of Soap
New Yorker link
NBC News:
Comedy stylings of rightwing dunderheads:
Link
About Stew Peters:
Followup to comment 479.
Link
Note the difference in the $1.2 trillion reported here and the $555 billion that sometimes is highlighted in media headlines about this bill. The second paragraph above explains some of the discrepancy.
I do wish the messengers would stop confusing U.S. voters regarding the infrastructure bill.
Looking to the near future:
Wonkette: “It’s Official: Beto O’Rourke Running For Texas Governor”
Link
Which coup memo?
Link
More details are available at the link, including a report about the memo drafted by Jenna Ellis, one of Trump’s campaign lawyers at the time. That’s the newest revelation about coup memos.
Fox News will require vaccine passports for Fox News event in … DeSantis’ Florida
The infrastructure law aims to clean up pollution in your community
Congress will inject unprecedented funding into replacing dirty school buses, lead pipes, and more.
Link
Oh, FFS.
Wyoming GOP Votes To Oust Liz Cheney For Crimes Against Trump
Link
Yikes!
A maternity ranch is born.
Washington Post Link
How evangelical women in Texas are mobilizing for a future without abortion.
Anti-vaxx news from Oklahoma:
Link
Forgot what time of day it was and accidentally tuned into Chuck Todd pontificating on MSNBC. Before I tuned out, I heard Todd ask his guest, “Do you think the Democratic Party has moved too far to the left?”
Todd has been repeating that Republican talking point for months. He asks the same question of almost all of the guests on his show, Meet the Press Daily.
It’s as if Chuck Todd is trying really hard to establish that stupid, overly simplified premise as truth. He is working, alongside Republicans, to block progressives from achieving their legislative goals. He’s also boring and repetitive. He doesn’t have a substantive contribution to make to the discussion, so he just repeats the talking points he cherishes. He seldom listens to whatever answer he receives when he asks the question. It’s past time to replace Chuck Todd with a host that can think.
Flynn And Powell’s Batsh*t Attempts To Get Military To Overturn Election
Followup to comment 491.
Posted by readers of the article:
More dirt under the rug:
Link
A sad story from the UK. A rejected Iraqi-Syrian asylum-seeker with mental health problems, Emad al-Swealmeen, blew himself up in a taxi outside a Liverpool hospital. He died, the taxi-driver was injured but has left hospital, no-one else was hurt. The UK “terrorist threat level” was instantly raised to “severe”, and people who shared an address with him (not the one where the bomb was constructed) were arrested by armed police in what must have been extremely frightening circumstances. It now appears al-Swealmeen acted alone, and no ideological motive has been found. It is not known whether he detonated his bomb intentionally, and if not, what he intended to do with it.
If I had known al-Sweelmean, I’m by no means sure I’d respond to the police request – any such association will surely get you on a police “watch-list” of possible terrorists. I certainly wouldn’t have done so in the intial aftermath. The incident will be used by the Tories, and specifically the loathsome Priti Patel, Home Secretary and certified bully, to press for asylum-seekers to be imprisoned outwith the UK while their cases are considered, and deported back to the countries they fled without a right of appeal if their claim is rejected.
Further to #494. Al-Swealmeen officially converted from Islam to Christianity during his time in the UK. Some asylum-seekers are rumoured to do this because they think it will improve their chances of being accepted, but his church associates (who lost touch with him some time ago) seem convinced his conversion was genuine.
Starting out okay, and then slipping into stupidity?
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GOP voter gets light sentence after casting ballot for deceased wife
A white voter in Nevada cast an illegal ballot for his dead wife. He received a vastly lighter sentence than Crystal Mason. This keeps happening.
At the time, right wing media, especially Tucker Carlson on Fox News, made a really big deal out of this, saying that it absolutely proved that there was massive voter fraud in the 2020 elections. Repetition drove the point home: the election was stolen from Trump.
Republican seeks credit for infrastructure bill he voted against
More intense weather systems … and the resulting damage: “A record heatwave killed hundreds in BC just months ago; today, rain cuts off Vancouver from Canada.”
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A few photos and short videos are available at the link.
White House seeks to boost Covid vaccine manufacturing by 1B doses a year
The new initiative is aimed at ramping up the vaccine supply needed abroad.