"How to Steal an Election"

Senator Doctor Rand Paul is a well-educated man. Admittedly, his undergraduate degree is from a southern university where trustees later thought it would be a good idea to select Ken Starr as its president & chancellor. But despite Li'l Randy's flirtation with the little-known god Aqua Buddha (a religious episode he later could not recall), and despite the fact that he wasn't actually graduated from Baylor University, Duke University's School of Medicine found him good enough to accept into its program, possibly as a legacy (Li'l Randy's doctor-congressman father Ron Paul was a graduate of the same school of medicine).

All that education notwithstanding, Rand Paul does not seem very bright. I haven't the space to catalog all of stupid ideas Rand has shared with the public. A Google search for "stupid things Rand Paul has said" elicited about 4.7 million hits. And the hits just keep on coming. Steve Benen of MSNBC wrote Tuesday,

"The American Conservative website published this piece [by William Doyle] last week, which described the Democratic electoral strategy in Wisconsin this way: "Seeding an area heavy with potential Democratic votes with as many absentee ballots as possible, targeting and convincing potential voters to complete them in a legally valid way, and then harvesting and counting the results."

Rand Paul then republished Doyle's observation in a tweet, describing it as a lesson in "how to steal an election."

As Akhilleus wrote in Wednesday's Comments thread, "This is how democracy works." Benen agrees: what Democrats were doing "was simply democracy at work: Democrats targeted a competitive battleground state — a state the Democratic ticket has won in eight of the last nine presidential election cycles — implementing a strategy that involved messaging, access, and legal voter participation. There was nothing nefarious or untoward about it."

If you parse Doyle's sentence & Paul's analysis, you will no doubt come to the same conclusion Akhilleus & Benen did. But there are clues -- dogwhistles, you might say -- in Doyle's description of just how he and Randy believe this Democratic "election stealing" works:

Doyle describes Democrats "harvesting and counting the results." "Harvesting" is a loaded word. "Ballot harvesting" is a practice in which a partisan group distributes and collects ballots and takes them to polling locations. Particularly unscrupulous "harvesters" might "accidentally lose" any ballots they believe could be for the "wrong candidates."

AND built into Doyle's construction is the implication that it was Democrats who were doing the counting, not polling machines & elections officials.

Doyle also writes in that loaded sentence that ballot harvesters were "convincing potential voters to complete [ballots] in a legally valid way." In other words, harvesters were coaching voters on how to fill out their ballots so that they marked their votes for Democratic candidates.

In addition, Doyle describes this Democratic activity as taking place in "an area heavy with potential Democratic votes." That of course makes sense; Democrats would seek out Democratic voters & let Republicans get their own voters to participate in the election. But Doyle also is building in racist and ageist implications: those "areas" "with potential Democratic votes" are apt to be neighborhoods with a majority ethnic minority population, or -- in the case of Madison -- with lots of "leftist" students.

Doyle also is particularly exercised over the cost of the Democrats' outreach programs, which he addresses at the top of his article. He charges that a "shadow campaign" was secretly financed by none other than ... Mark Zuckerberg. and his wife Priscilla Chan. Zuckerberg is Jewish & Chan is Buddhist (but not Aqua Buddhist!). So besides leftist kids & Black people, we're to assume that an international cabal of non-Christians financed the "big steal."

While there was no evidence of vote harvesting in Wisconsin during the 2020 election (that I could find in a Google search), evidently Wisconsin Democrats mounted a robust GOTV effort in the 2020 election, one made crucial by the coronavirus pandemic. What Rand Paul, William Doyle and other right-wingers find galling is that GOTV activities tend to bring out more Democratic-leaning people: people who may not have time to stand in line to vote, may be preoccupied with student activities or may not have ready transportation to the polls. Or, as Rand Paul himself put it more euphemistically earlier this year, "The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for."

December 30, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Sarah Nir, et al., of the New York Times: "A jury on Thursday ruled that an opioid manufacturer and distributor contributed to a public nuisance by inundating New York with pills that killed thousands of people. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and a handful of its subsidiary companies were found liable in a sprawling, six-month trial that sought to reckon with the role that the pharmaceutical industry played in the opioid epidemic in two hard-hit New York counties and across the state. New York State was also determined to be partially responsible. The trial began in June and was argued jointly by New York State and Suffolk and Nassau counties. The case began with more than two dozen defendants, and was the first of its kind to target the entirety of the opioid supply chain: the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured pain pills, the distributors of the drugs and the pharmacy chains that filled the prescriptions."

Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Aina Kahn of the New York Times: "On Wednesday evening, BBC viewers heard from the American lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz about the guilty verdict in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted that day of helping the billionaire Jeffrey Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls. What they were not appraised of was that Mr. Dershowitz had helped defend Mr. Epstein and has himself been accused of abuse by one of Mr. Epstein's accusers -- an accusation he denies. The British broadcaster, which introduced Mr. Dershowitz as a 'constitutional lawyer,' said later in a statement released on Twitter that the interview did not meet its editorial standards: 'Mr. Dershowitz was not a suitable person to interview as an impartial analyst, and we did not make the relevant background clear to our audience,' the statement said. 'We will look into how this happened.'" The Guardian's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: In the most egregious part of the interview, "... Dershowitz said that Ms. Maxwell's trial undermined the credibility of [Virginia] Giuffre, and her case against Prince Andrew." Giuffre has accused Dershowitz of being one of Epstein's friends to whom she was offered as a sex partner, & she and Dershowitz have brought lawsuits -- still ongoing -- against each other. No mention of that! If the BBC team was too damned dumb to know of Dershowitz's huge conflict of interest, he had an ethical obligation to raise it himself. (I acknowledge that it's kind of wrong to even use "Dershowitz" & "ethical" in the same sentence.) You often hear people on U.S. TV do just that; as in, "I should reveal I worked on So-and-So's first presidential campaign."

Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "The Food and Drug Administration is expected by early next week to authorize booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for 12-to-15-year-olds, according to two people familiar with the FDA's plan.... The FDA decision would then be reviewed by vaccine advisers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and that agency's top official [-- Director Rochelle Walensky --] this week vowed to move quickly on recommending the booster shots if the advisers concurred with FDA."

Ted Cruz Confuses Western Australia (WA) with Washington State (WA). John Wright of the Raw Story: "Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz apparently confused 'Western Australia' with 'Washington State' in an attempted attack on Democrats over COVID-19 restrictions on Wednesday night. [After an Australian official explained the government's ban on dancing on New Year's Eve, Cruz tweeted,] 'Blue-state Dems are power-drunk authoritarian kill-joys.'" There's a big world outside U.S. borders, Ted. Cancun, for instance.

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David Sanger & Andrew Kramer of the New York Times: "President Biden will talk to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Thursday about the grinding crisis at the Ukrainian border, White House officials said, the second time in a little over three weeks that the two leaders will speak directly about what Washington sees as Moscow's effort to redraw the map of Europe. Mr. Putin requested the call, the officials said. His desire to speak directly with Mr. Biden again set off speculation in Washington and Europe about whether Mr. Putin was trying to de-escalate a situation largely of his own creation, or whether he was seeking a response to a series of demands about Russian security concerns that, if left unfulfilled, may provide him with a pretext to initiate the military action he has threatened in Ukrainian territory."

Carol Rosenberg of the New York Times: "The Pentagon is building a second courtroom for war crimes trials at Guantánamo Bay that will exclude the public from the chamber, the latest move toward secrecy in the nearly 20-year-old detention operation. The new courtroom will permit two military judges to hold proceedings simultaneously starting in 2023. On those occasions, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the four other men who are accused of plotting the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, would have hearings in the existing chamber, which has a gallery for the public. Smaller cases would be held in the new $4 million chamber. Members of the public seeking to watch those proceedings at Guantánamo would be shown a delayed video broadcast in a separate building."

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "Lawyers for ... Donald Trump told the Supreme Court on Wednesday that a Washington Post interview with the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol shows the committee is trying to establish a criminal complaint against Trump, something the lawyers say is beyond the committee's authority. The lawyers filed a supplemental brief alerting the justices to a Dec. 23 Post article featuring an interview with Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), the committee's chairman. In the article, Thompson said the committee is looking intently into Trump's actions on Jan. 6 as it considers whether to recommend that the Justice Department open a criminal investigation into the former president.... Trump lawyer Jesse R. Binnall ... said the committee is acting as 'an inquisitorial tribunal seeking evidence of criminal activity,' which he said is 'outside of any of Congress's legislative powers.'" An Axios item is here.

"A Slow-motion Insurrection." Nicholas Riccardi of the AP: "In battleground states and beyond, Republicans are taking hold of the once-overlooked machinery of elections. While the effort is incomplete and uneven, outside experts on democracy and Democrats are sounding alarms, warning that the United States is witnessing a 'slow-motion insurrection' with a better chance of success than Trump's failed power grab last year.... 'The [Republican] party itself has become an anti-democratic force,' [said political scientist Steven Levitsky.]" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Though it gets little or no mention in the many articles reporters write about the ways state Republicans are giving themselves easy access to control of elections outcomes, Congressional Republicans are just as committed to stealing elections. Almost none of them support any kind of voting rights bill because they want GOP state legislatures to be able to throw out Democrat victories and make it harder for likely Democratic voters to vote. (in the Senate, Lisa Murkowski was the only Republican to vote for one provision of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act; she has opposed other voting rights measures.)

Tom Hays & Larry Neumeister of the AP: "The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein's palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico." (Also linked yesterday evening.) ~~~

     ~~~ Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "The jury found Maxwell guilty on five of six counts, including conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and sex trafficking of an individual under 18. She was found not guilty of enticement of one individual under 17.... Maxwell faces up to 65 years in prison. No sentencing date has been set."

Michael Sainato of the Guardian: "Workers say Amazon's "excessively rapid work pace", surveillance and disciplinary systems have created a dangerous environment[.]... Reports of high injury rates and high turnover rates at Amazon warehouses around the US as a result of immense productivity pressures and quota rates on workers have been documented by numerous media outlets and organizations over the past several years and confirmed by OSHA logs. Amazon shareholders have recently called for an independent safety audit of the company." MB: A little more than ten years ago I linked to a story researched & written by reporter Spencer Soper of Allentown, Pennsylvania's Morning Call that detailed the horrible working conditions at an Amazon warehouse in Allentown. That should have been enough to shame Amazon into making their warehouses worker-friendly, but a number of other stories written over the years about other Amazon warehouses, make it clear that Amazon kept up its bad practices everywhere.

Emily Yahr of the Washington Post on what happened when Ted Koppel went to "Mayberry": "... while Mayberry was not real, the city of Mount Airy, N.C., claims to be the prototype on which it was based, and still draws thousands of tourists every year looking to relive their beloved show.... [In] one of the most striking TV segments of the year..., Koppel was visibly taken aback by the fierce nostalgia for a time and place that literally never existed -- and how it connects to the misinformation that has infiltrated America's politics.... 'The Andy Griffith Show' ... a viewing experience that Koppel compared to 'chomping down on a marshmallow, was an antidote to everything going on in the world at the time, which never showed up on the sunny series: Tens of thousands of American troops killed in Vietnam War. Race riots throughout the country. Assassinations." The scene on the tour bus is the clincher. MB: Those dimwits on the bus would be all surprised if they knew that in 2008, Andy Griffith & Ron Howard (and Henry Winkler) cut a 3-minute ad endorsing Barack Obama. ~~~

Marie: As an indicator of how frivolous our society is, all day Wednesday, the New York Times featured football fan John Madden's obituary above that of former Senate Leader Harry Reid. By late in the day, Reid's obituary had been relegated to a spot near the bottom of the page and there were two new feature stories about Madden. BTW, former Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said on MSNBC that at a budget committee hearing he once attended, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asked with some incredulity at Republican callousness, "What kind of Christian religion would condone cutting food stamps?" Franken answered, "Southern Baptist." Harry Reid was the only senator who laughed.

David Li & Whitney Lee of NBC News: "A heavily armed California man was arrested in Iowa after he told law enforcement officers that he would 'do whatever it takes' to kill government leaders on his 'hit list,' including President Joe Biden and his chief medical adviser, Dr. Anthony Fauci, authorities said in court papers Wednesday. The man, Kuachua Brillion Xiong, 25, has been held in the Pottawattamie County Jail in Council Bluffs since Thursday, according to sheriff's records. Xiong was pulled over Dec. 21 in Cass County and found to have an AR-15 rifle, ammunition, loaded magazines, body armor and medical kits, Secret Service Agent Justin Larson wrote in a criminal complaint."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "With a caseload nearly twice that of the worst single days of last winter, the United States shattered its record for new daily coronavirus cases, a milestone that may still fall short of describing the true toll of the Delta and Omicron variants because testing has slowed over the holidays.... Record caseloads are being reported in a long list of U.S. cities where vaccination rates are relatively high, including New York, Washington, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Atlanta and Detroit. Experts say there are two reasons for the high numbers in urban areas: population density and more testing." ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Thursday are here: "Coronavirus cases are soaring across the United States as the more transmissible omicron variant spreads, but hospitalizations remain 'comparatively low,' Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told reporters Wednesday."

Carl Zimmer of the New York Times: "A Johnson & Johnson booster shot provided strong protection against the Omicron variant, greatly reducing the risk of hospitalization, according to a clinical trial in South Africa. The study, which compared more than 69,000 boosted health care workers with a corresponding group of unvaccinated South Africans, found that two shots of the vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization from Omicron by about 85 percent. In comparison, another study in South Africa found that two shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine reduced the risk of hospitalization by about 70 percent."

Florida. Where's Ron? AP: "The mayor of one of Florida's largest counties on Tuesday blasted Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying he has been missing in action during the latest wave of COVID-19.... [Jerry Demings,] the mayor of Orange County, home to Orlando, said local governments had been forced to figure out on their own, without help from the state, how to respond to the omicron variant that has rapidly overtaken the delta variant as the dominant strain of the coronavirus in Florida.... 'Our residents, all Florida residents, should be outraged and they should ask the question, "Where is our state? Where is our governor? Where is Ron DeSantis now?" When is the last time you saw the governor do a press briefing on COVID-19?' said Demings, a Democrat." MB: As far as I can tell (and I'm having a horrible time loading the page so I could be wrong), the story doesn't mention that Mayor Demings' wife Val is running for governor against DeSantis. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: According to a guest on MSNBC yesterday, Ron really is missing. He hasn't been seen in public in days, and a video his office recently put of his dining (unmasked, of course) at a popular restaurant was made 12 days earlier. Maybe Cancun Ted knows where Ron is.

Oklahoma. Grow Up, Guv. Andrew Jeong & Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "A federal court Tuesday denied a lawsuit filed by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) that challenged the Pentagon's military-wide coronavirus vaccination mandate by asking that the requirement be suspended for his state's National Guard members. Judge Stephen P. Friot sided with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who has said the mandate is needed to maintain a healthy force that is ready to act quickly. Friot also disagreed with Stitt's assertion that the Pentagon was overstepping its constitutional authority, noting that Guard members are already required to receive nine immunizations. 'Adding a tenth ... vaccine to the list of nine that all service members are already required to take would hardly amount to "an enormous and transformative expansion [of the] regulatory authority" the Secretary of Defense already possesses,' he wrote in his ruling."

Beyond the Beltway

Michigan. Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "A decade after Michigan Republicans gave themselves seemingly impregnable majorities in the state Legislature by drawing districts that heavily favored their party, a newly created independent commission approved maps late Tuesday that create districts so competitive that Democrats have a fighting chance of recapturing the State Senate for the first time since 1984. The work of the new commission, which includes Democrats, Republicans and independents and was established through a citizen ballot initiative, stands in sharp contrast to the type of hyperpartisan extreme gerrymandering that has swept much of the country, exacerbating political polarization -- and it may highlight a potential path to undoing such gerrymandering. With lawmakers excluded from the mapmaking process, Michigan's new districts will much more closely reflect the overall partisan makeup of the hotly contested battleground state."

News Ledes

Colorado. New York Times: "Fast-moving wildfires fanned by powerful winds swept across parts of suburban Boulder County, Colo., on Thursday, prompting the evacuation of tens of thousands of people and burning at least 500 homes, a shopping complex and a hotel, the authorities said. The Boulder County Office of Emergency Management announced evacuation orders for Superior and Louisville, urging residents to leave quickly, as the sky turned orange, ash swirled in the wind, and buildings were engulfed in flames. Residents in parts of Broomfield and Westminster, Colo., were also ordered to evacuate. Gov. Jared Polis declared a state of emergency in response to the grass fires, allowing the state to tap emergency funds and to deploy state resources, including the Colorado National Guard. He said wind gusts of up to 110 miles per hour had pushed the fires with astonishing speed across suburban subdivisions where residents are not as accustomed to the kind of wildfires that have frequently menaced mountain towns and forests across the West." ~~~

     ~~~ An AP story is here.

Biden's Booming Economy, Ctd. CNBC: "Initial filings for unemployment insurance dipped last week and remained close to their lowest level in more than 50 years, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Jobless claims for the week ended Dec. 25 totaled 198,000, less than the 205,000 Dow Jones forecast and a dip of 8,000 from the previous period.″

December 29, 2021

Evening Update:

Tom Hays & Larry Neumeister of the AP: "The British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell was convicted Wednesday of luring teenage girls to be sexually abused by the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein. The verdict capped a monthlong trial featuring sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14, told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein's palatial homes in Florida, New York and New Mexico."

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** Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "Harry M. Reid, the Democrat who rose from childhood poverty in the rural Nevada desert to the heights of power in Washington, where he steered the Affordable Care Act to passage as Senate majority leader, died on Tuesday in Henderson, Nev. He was 82. ~~~

     ~~~ The Nevada Independent's obituary, by Megan Messerly, is here. ~~~

     ~~~ President Biden's statement is here. The AP reports partial statements from other leaders, including Presidents Obama & Clinton.

Maria Sacchetti & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations say they have been kicked out of joint drug operations, shunned by local police departments and heckled at campus career fairs. Their parent agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, carries a stigma that is undermining their investigative work across the country, the agents said in an internal report. The agents say they face a backlash in liberal 'sanctuary' jurisdictions where authorities strictly limit contact with ICE but also in some Republican-led states where oliticians are vocal in their support for the agency. And the toll on HSI agents is 'getting worse,' according to the report that was prepared by a working group of agents formed by HSI to consider changes to the agency's place within the Department of Homeland Security. The HSI agents assembled dozens of these examples to convince DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas that they should leave ICE. They say their affiliation with ICE's immigration enforcement role is endangering their personal safety, stifling their partnerships with other agencies and scaring away crime victims...."

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has agreed to delay or withdraw demands for hundreds of Trump White House records at the request of the Biden administration, out of concern that releasing some of the documents could compromise national security. The deal, made public on Tuesday, does not represent a major policy shift for the administration: President Biden still rejects ... Donald J. Trump's claim that all internal White House documents pertaining to the riot be withheld on the grounds of executive privilege. The White House counsel, Dana A. Remus, has been negotiating in recent weeks with the House committee to set aside requests for all or part of 511 documents her staff has deemed sensitive, unrelated to the probe or potentially compromising to the long-term prerogatives of the presidency." An AP story is here.

You Do Not Have a First Amendment Right to Violent Insurrection. Duh. Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "A federal judge is allowing a major January 6 conspiracy case against four Proud Boys leaders to move forward, rejecting their bid to throw out the charges. Judge Timothy Kelly, in a 43-page opinion issued Tuesday, sided with the Justice Department on several key legal questions, giving momentum to prosecutors as they prepare for the first wave of US Capitol riot-related trials beginning in February. Kelly greenlit prosecutors' use of a felony obstruction charge, among several other charges, against Proud Boys leaders Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Charles Donohoe and Zachary Rehl. (They have all pleaded not guilty.) The judge also rejected the defendants' claims that the riot could have been a protected First Amendment demonstration."

Alaska Senate, Gubernatorial Races. A Bizarre "Endorsement." Max Greenwood of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Tuesday endorsed Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy's (R) reelection bid, but only on the condition that Dunleavy doesn't back Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) in 2022. 'Alaska needs Mike Dunleavy as Governor now more than ever,' Trump said in a statement. 'He has my Complete and Total Endorsement but, this endorsement is subject to his non-endorsement of Senator Lisa Murkowski who has been very bad for Alaska.... In other words, if Mike endorses her, which is his prerogative, my endorsement of him is null and void, and of no further force or effect!'... Of the seven Republican senators who voted to convict the former president, Murkowski is the only one facing reelection in 2022.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "... while the White evangelical political movement has done immeasurable damage to our democracy, its descent into MAGA politics, conspiratorial thinking and cult worship has had catastrophic results for the religious values evangelicals once held dear.... [As Peter Wehner wrote in the Atlantic,] '... If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go. Decency is for suckers.' Understanding this phenomenon goes a long way toward explaining the MAGA crowd's very unreligious cruelty toward immigrants, its selfish refusal to vaccinate to protect the most vulnerable and its veneration of a vulgar, misogynistic cult leader. If you wonder how so many 'people of faith' can behave in such ways, understand that their 'faith' has become hostile to traditional religious values such as kindness, empathy, self-restraint, grace, honesty and humility.... As self-identified evangelicals reject small inconveniences and show disdain for others' lives, [Robert P.] Jones [Public Religion Research Institute] observes, 'there is no hint of awareness that their actions are a mockery of the central biblical injunction to care for the orphan, the widow, the stranger, and the vulnerable among us.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm not sure how true this is. I'm familiar with Southern white Christians. They've never been all that generous to people who aren't, well, just like them. The orphan & the widow had better be white Southerners. Trump is simply exposing ugly truths to people who weren't paying attention.

Jesse Drucker & Maureen Farrell of the New York Times: Silicon Valley investors are taking advantage of a "tax break ... known as the Qualified Small Business Stock, or Q.S.B.S., exemption. It allows early investors in companies in many industries to avoid taxes on at least $10 million in profits.... Thanks to the ingenuity of the tax-avoidance industry, investors in hot tech companies are exponentially enlarging the tax break. The trick is to give shares in those companies to friends or relatives. Even though these recipients didn't put their money into the companies, they nonetheless inherit the tax break, and a further $10 million or more in profits becomes tax-free. The savings for the richest American families -- who would otherwise face a 23.8 percent capital gains tax -- can quickly swell into the tens of millions. The maneuver, which is legal, is known as 'stacking,' because the tax breaks are piled on top of one another.... 'Q.S.B.S. is an example of a provision that is on its face already outrageous,' said Daniel Hemel, a tax law professor at the University of Chicago. 'But when you get smart tax lawyers in the room, the provision becomes, in practice, preposterous.'"

Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "A New York State appeals court on Tuesday temporarily lifted a judicial order requiring The New York Times to turn over or destroy copies of legal memos prepared for the conservative group Project Veritas, in a case that has drawn the focus of First Amendment and journalism advocates. The stay, issued by the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court, followed objections by The Times to an order issued late last week in an escalating legal dispute between the newspaper and Project Veritas, which is suing The Times for defamation. But one major component of that order, issued by a trial judge, Justice Charles D. Wood of State Supreme Court in Westchester County, will stay in place: The Times remains temporarily barred from publishing the Project Veritas documents." Politico's story is here.

BBC News: "Amazon has updated its Alexa voice assistant after it 'challenged' a 10-year-old girl to touch a coin to the prongs of a half-inserted plug. The suggestion came after the girl asked Alexa for a 'challenge to do'. 'Plug in a phone charger about halfway into a wall outlet, then touch a penny to the exposed prongs,' the smart speaker said. Amazon said it fixed the error as soon as the company became aware of it.... The Echo speaker suggested partaking in the challenge that it had 'found on the web'. The dangerous activity, known as 'the penny challenge', began circulating on TikTok and other social media websites about a year ago." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Fortunately, the child's mother was supervising Alexa's "challenges" to her daughter. If I lived in a home with minors, including teenagers, or with adults with limited cognitive abilities, I would think twice about buying an Alexa device, or of keeping it if I already owned one. Alexa obviously is programmed to get some of its "advice" from idiots on the Web.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Wednesday are here: "The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says omicron is now the dominant variant nationwide -- making up an estimated 59 percent of infections for the week ending Dec. 25. However, it also revised down the estimated proportion of omicron cases for the week before that -- a change that suggests the delta variant was in fact responsible for many more recent infections than previously expected. The latest CDC data suggests omicron was responsible for 23 percent of cases in the week ending Dec. 18, a significant drop from its earlier estimate of 73 percent. Also on Tuesday, the CDC released the findings of an investigation into one of the earliest omicron clusters in the United States that indicates the variant could have a shorter incubation period, of about three days, than previous versions of the virus."

Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: "The decision by federal health officials to shorten isolation periods for Americans infected with the coronavirus drew both tempered support and intense opposition from scientists on Tuesday, particularly over the absence of a testing requirement and fears that the omission could hasten the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.... Letting hundreds of thousands of infected people forgo those tests -- even if, crucially, their symptoms were not entirely gone -- risks seeding new cases and heaping even more pressure on already overburdened health systems, experts said in interviews on Tuesday."

Ben Leonard of Politico: "The U.S. logged its highest single-day total of new Covid-19 cases on Tuesday, with 441,278 infections surpassing the previous daily record by close to 150,000. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's tally represents a grim new milestone in the coronavirus pandemic and comes as the Omicron strain has quickly taken hold throughout the U.S., leading to long lines at testing sites and sold-out rapid tests at many stores."

Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "Healthy individuals who have been vaccinated, and especially those who have been boosted, appear unlikely to develop severe infections from the omicron variant that would land them in the hospital, say medical experts who have monitored the effects of the newest coronavirus variant since it was identified over four weeks ago.... Factors that might lead to greater risk include an individual's age, the type of vaccine or booster they received, and whether they have underlying health problems, such as heart disease or obesity, said Michael Osterholm..., a member of President Biden's covid-19 transition task force."

Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times: "The latest coronavirus surge sweeping the United States, much of it driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant, has produced a worrisome rise in hospitalizations among children ... nationwide.... But even as experts expressed concern about a marked jump in hospitalizations -- an increase more than double that among adults [[ doctors and researchers said they were not seeing evidence that Omicron was more threatening to children. In fact, preliminary data suggests that compared with the Delta variant, Omicron appears to be causing milder illness in children, similar to early findings for adults.... Much of the rise in pediatric admissions results from the sheer number of children who are becoming infected with both Delta and the more contagious Omicron variant..., experts said, as well as low vaccination rates among children over age 5."

Beyond the Beltway

Michigan. Beth LeBlanc of the Detroit News: "Michigan's Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission adopted three plans Tuesday for the voting districts that will govern Michigan's 13 congressional districts, 38 state Senate seats and 110 state House seat for the next decade.... The commission mustered a nine-member coalition supporting the 'Linden' Senate map, 11 members supporting the 'Hickory' House map and an eight-member group supporting the 'Chestnut' congressional map. Each vote by the 13-member panel included the constitutionally required '2-2-2' majority, or support from two Democratic members, two Republicans and two Independents. No plan required more than one vote to reach a majority. Tuesday's vote marks the commission's first adoption of maps since it was created via a ballot initiative in 2018. Prior to that, the maps were drawn by the political party in power.... Several U.S. House, state Senate and state House candidates and incumbents began announcing where they would run immediately after the adoption of the maps Tuesday. But commissioners are expecting to encounter legal challenges to the maps in the coming weeks."

New York, Where It's Still Legal to Kiss Women Without Their Consent. Dana Rubinstein of the New York Times: "A second New York prosecutor has decided not to pursue criminal charges against former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over sexual harassment allegations that helped prompt his resignation. Miriam E. Rocah, the Westchester County district attorney, said on Tuesday that her office had investigated accusations of unwanted kisses that two women -- one a state trooper -- made against Mr. Cuomo. The women said the episodes had occurred within her jurisdiction. The women's allegations were 'credible' and Mr. Cuomo's conduct was 'concerning,' but his conduct was not criminal under state law, Ms. Rocah said in a statement. The announcement came five days after Joyce Smith, the acting district attorney in Nassau County, on Long Island, reached a similar conclusion after investigating a separate allegation made by the trooper involving an incident at Belmont Park racetrack in Elmont, N.Y." Politico's story is here.

Virginia. Gregory Schneider of the Washington Post: "Now we know the mundane truth of what literally lay at the root of [Richmond]'s grandiose monument to Gen. Robert E. Lee: Confederate pride, local commerce and a whole lot of Masonic tradition. That was the preliminary message of dozens of items recovered Tuesday from a copper time capsule that had been buried at the monument site in 1887. Chamber of Commerce yearbooks, Masonic bylaws, artifacts from the Civil War, a brochure from a local real estate office (complete with a telephone number: 114) -- all jam-packed into a copper box that did a surprisingly good job of weathering 134 years. The big payoff hinted at in news coverage of the time -- a 'picture of Lincoln lying in his coffin' -- turned out not to be an ultrarare photograph. Instead, an engraved double-page spread from Harper';s Weekly of 1865 depicting a woman mourning at Lincoln's casket had been folded up and entombed beneath the Confederacy's beloved Lee." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: So I was right yesterday when I let on that what was of great moment to 19th-century Confederates probably would be of little interest to me.

Way Beyond

China-Hong Kong. Coming Soon to the USA? Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "Hundreds of Hong Kong police officers arrested six current or former senior staff members of an outspoken pro-democracy news website and raided the site's headquarters on Wednesday, in yet another crackdown by the government on the city's once-vibrant independent press. The six were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to publish seditious material, according to a statement from the police, which did not specify the news outlet. But Stand News, a seven-year-old online publication, posted brief video footage on Facebook showing police officers at the doors of one of its deputy editors, Ronson Chan, about 6 a.m. Officers then asked Mr. Chan to stop filming, claiming he was interfering with their work." The Guardian's report is here.

Poland. Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "Wary of jeopardizing Poland's relations with the United States, its closest ally and military protector, the Polish president, Andrzej Duda, on Monday announced that he would veto a contentious media bill that could have led to an American-owned television station [-- TVN, majority-owned by the Discovery network --] losing its license. The veto frustrated a yearslong effort by more hard-line elements in Poland's nationalist governing party to restrict foreign influence and shrink the country's media space to outlets that share the party's deeply conservative and sometimes xenophobic views. Mr. Duda last year won a second term with support from the governing party, Law and Justice. His veto is likely to strain an already fractious coalition government bitterly divided over how far to push a conservative agenda rooted in fealty to the Catholic Church and the belief that Polish sovereignty trumps commitments to partners in the European Union and NATO, which Poland joined in 1999." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Vanessa Gera of the AP: "Poland's president on Monday vetoed a media bill that would have forced U.S. company Discovery to give up its controlling share in Polish television network TVN." (Also linked yesterday.)

Russia. Coming Soon to the USA? Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "Russia's Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the liquidation of Memorial International, one of the nation's oldest and most revered human rights organizations, which chronicled political repression and became a symbol of the country's democratization that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. The decision comes after a year of broad crackdown on opposition in Russia and more than three decades after Memorial was founded by a group of Soviet dissidents who believed that the country needed to reconcile with its traumatic past to move forward. In particular, the group dedicated itself to preserving the memory of the many thousands of Russians who died or were persecuted in forced labor camps during the Stalin era. Over the past year, the Kremlin has moved aggressively to stifle dissent in the news media, in religious groups, on social networks and especially among activists and political opponents, hundreds of whom have been harassed, jailed or forced into exile." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)