The Conversation -- December 14, 2024
Army-Navy Game Features Rogues' Gallery. Michael Shear of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump attended the annual Army-Navy football game in Maryland on Saturday with Pete Hegseth, his embattled choice for defense secretary, sending a message of support ahead of Senate confirmation hearings that are likely to take place next month. Allies and aides of Mr. Trump’s posted video of the president-elect and Mr. Hegseth on the social media site X. In one video, the two men, along with Vice President-elect JD Vance, can be seen standing for the national anthem.... Mr. Trump was also accompanied at the game by Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted this week on a charge of criminally negligent homicide after putting a man in a chokehold in a New York subway car. Other allies of Mr. Trump’s, including Elon Musk and House Speaker Mike Johnson, were also at the game."
Alan Feuer & Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "ABC News agreed on Saturday to give $15 million to .... Donald J. Trump’s future presidential foundation and museum to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump concerning on-air statements made by the network’s star anchor George Stephanopoulos. The network and Mr. Stephanopoulos also published a statement saying they 'regret' remarks made about Mr. Trump during a televised interview in March. ABC News, which is owned by the Walt Disney Company, will pay Mr. Trump an additional $1 million for his legal fees, under the terms of a settlement agreement filed in Federal District Court in Miami. The outcome marks an unusual victory for Mr. Trump in his ongoing legal campaign against national news organizations. Several of his previous attempts to sue media outlets for defamation, including lawsuits against CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, ended in defeat.... The settlement agreement was signed on the same day that a federal magistrate judge ordered Mr. Trump to sit for a deposition in the case next week in Florida. Mr. Stephanopoulos was also on the verge of being deposed." ~~~
~~~ Read on. Of course the suits should not have caved. Maybe they were upset that NBC News got the only post-election MSM interview with Trump and they figured a $16MM suck-up would put them in Trump's good graces.
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Stopped Clock..., etc. Marie: OMG! I agree with Donald Trump about something: ~~~
~~~ Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: “'The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!' [Donald Trump] wrote Friday on his social media platform Truth Social. 'Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation.' Any effort to permanently change the nation’s clocks would require the cooperation of Congress, which has been gridlocked over recent time-change legislation — and whether it makes sense to end daylight saving time or adopt it year-round instead.... Trump’s announcement aligns him with public health professionals, who have long said that daylight saving time does not comport with humans’ natural circadian rhythms and that the clock changes each spring and fall are linked to a greater risk of heart attacks, stroke and car accidents. Other countries have banished daylight saving time, with Mexico in 2022 moving to abolish the practice.” The Hill has a story here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: When I was growing up in Florida, the state did not have Daylight Savings Time, and that may be the reason I have always found it to be an annoying practice.
Notes on the Billionaires' Club: Tim Apple Makes the Pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lardo. Theodore Schleifer & Tripp Mickle of the New York Times: Apple CEO "Tim Cook held a meeting on Friday with Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago.... Mr. Cook and Mr. Trump later dined on the patio at Mar-a-Lago.... The two men had a warm relationship during Mr. Trump’s first term — much warmer than Mr. Trump’s with other tech executives.... The meeting offers a chance for Mr. Cook to seek Mr. Trump’s support on several issues that could challenge Apple’s business in the coming years, including pressure on the App Store from European regulators and the potential that new tariffs could put the company’s iPhone business at risk." ~~~
~~~ Cade Metz of the New York Times: "OpenAI said on Friday that its chief executive, Sam Altman, was planning to donate $1 million to ... Donald J. Trump’s inaugural fund, joining a number of tech companies and executives who are working to improve their relationships with Mr. Trump.... Mr. Altman and OpenAI recently hired key executives who previously worked for Democratic administrations." ~~~
~~~ Theodore Schleifer & David Yaffe-Belany of the New York Times: "This was the week when many tech companies and their top executives, as reluctant as they may have been, acknowledged the reality of getting business done in Mr. Trump’s Washington. With their donations, visits and comments, they joined a party that has already raged for a month, as a cohort of influential Silicon Valley billionaires, led by Elon Musk, began running parts of Mr. Trump’s transition after endorsing him in the campaign. While businesses frequently try to get on an incoming president’s good side, the frenzy of tech activity stood out from other industries."
~~~ Niall Stanage of the Hill: "Trump has received a display of homage at home and abroad since winning November’s contest over Vice President Harris. It’s the kind of public pomp that eluded him after his shock victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. The nature of this acclaim is eliciting an unusual level of glee from Trump — a man who biographers say has never quite left behind the outer-borough imprint of his upbringing in Queens, N.Y., where his family’s wealth was never enough to buy him full entrée into the Manhattan cultural elite. The accolades and invites have come thick and fast this time." Stanage provides a short list of some of the more prominent flatterers.
The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease.... Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.... Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts. -- Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, in a statement Friday ~~~
~~~ Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader and a survivor of polio, issued a pointed statement in support of the polio vaccine on Friday, hours after The New York Times reported that the lawyer for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has petitioned federal regulators to withdraw the vaccine from the market. Without naming Mr. Kennedy, Mr. McConnell suggested that the petition could jeopardize his confirmation to be health secretary in the incoming Trump administration." The NBC News story is here. MB: The NYT article notes that "Kennedy has said he does not want to take away anyone’s vaccines," & the NBC News story reports, "Katie Miller, a spokesperson for RFK Jr, told NBC News in a statement, 'The Polio Vaccine should be available to the public and thoroughly and properly studied.'" But no mention in either report of this: ~~~
~~~ Tim Reid & Michael Erman of Reuters: "... Donald Trump in an interview published on Thursday said he will be talking to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his nominee to run the Department of Health and Human Services, about ending childhood vaccination programs. When asked if he would sign off if Kennedy decided to end childhood vaccinations programs, Trump told Time magazine, 'we're going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a level that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there's something causing it.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yes, I know it's disturbing that Trump is going to ruin the economy, increase income disparity and wreck our relations with leading democracies. But none of this is as frightening as these two dudes, both of whom are nutso and at least one of whom is quite stupid, getting together to determine healthcare (and outcomes) for the nation's children. It is true that many people will have their children vaccinated for at least some deadly diseases -- unless Kennedy & Trump outlaw those vaccinations. Then only people who are motivated and can afford to travel to other countries would be able to have their children immunized. Could they outlaw vaccines? Could they outlaw the polio vaccine? Well, notice that reference by Kennedy's spokesperson to "thoroughly and properly studying" polio vaccines. The purpose of studying something is to obtain information to help you decide on a course of action (or not.) So what if those thorough, proper studies suggest to Kennedy that the polio vaccine causes brain worms, or whatever? I think he'd recommend outlawing the vaccine, and it's quite possible he could get it done. ~~~
~~~ Scott Lemieux, writing in LG&$, is mightily unimpressed by McConnell's criticism of Trump's pick for HHS head: "Could McConnell have persuaded 16 other Republican senators to convict Trump for 1/6 had he made a serious effort to do it? I don’t know, and likely the odds were against it. But we do know that — having to know that his tenure as conference leader was coming to an end, and that he was never going to be majority leader again — he didn’t even try. He owns Trump (and RFK Jr.) lock. stock and barrel. And it’s also a little hard to take for someone whose most important initiative in his final four years as majority leader was a nearly successful effort to take healthcare away from tens of millions of people to pay for an upper-class tax cut. RFK Jr. is a logical culmination of the Republican contempt for the idea that public health is an important issue, and McConnell is as guilty of this as anyone." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Lemieux begins his post with a brief discussion of sanewashing RFK Jr. as essentially a healthy-eating/fitness advocate -- uh, kinda like that crazy leftist Michelle Obama. Philip Bump of the Washington Post has a much more-developed post along this line, and it's well-worth reading. ~~~
~~~ Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times: "It’s an idea as popular as it is incorrect: American babies now receive too many vaccines, which overwhelm their immune systems and lead to diseases like autism. This theory has been repeated so often that it has permeated the mainstream, echoed by ... Donald J. Trump and his pick to be the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.... But the idea that today’s vaccines are overtaxing children’s immune systems is fundamentally flawed, experts said. Vaccines today are cleaner and more efficient, and they contain far fewer stimulants to the immune system — by orders of magnitude — than they did decades ago. What’s more, the immune reactions produced by vaccines are 'minuscule' compared with those that children experience on a daily basis, said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatrician at Stanford University who advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines."
Adam Goldman, et al., of the New York Times: "Kash Patel..., Donald J. Trump’s pick to be F.B.I. director, often burnishes his credentials as a former prosecutor even as he portrays law enforcement agencies as an inept and politicized 'deep state.' A critical piece of that narrative is the investigation into the 2012 attack on a diplomatic compound and a C.I.A. annex in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. Mr. Patel, who worked at the Justice Department from early 2014 to 2017, was involved in that inquiry. He described it in his 2023 memoir ... and in a conversation on a September podcast of 'The Shawn Ryan Show.' But he has both exaggerated his own importance and misleadingly distorted the department’s broader effort.... Mr. Patel has repeatedly made it sound as if he led the government’s overall effort to investigate and prosecute militants involved in the 2012 attack. [But he was merely a member of a team who aided the Benghazi investigators, and he didn't work there when the investigation started or when it ended.]... He is said to have passed off the role to another colleague after friction with the prosecutorial team.” Read on. ~~~
~~~ And of course, "Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the Trump transition, stood by Mr. Patel’s description of his duties." MB: If Patel were a Democratic nominee, Comer & Jordan would have jump-started a whole 'nother Benghazi probe.
Marie: In yesterday's Conversation, I wondered why bankers would want the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. eliminated, something Trump aides are reportedly considering (in order, I guess, to boost the value of Trump's investment in cryptocurrency). Patrick explained in yesterday's Comments (in two seperate entries) several reasons why banks would want to ditch the FDIC, all based ultimately in the fact that it's the banks who pay FDIC insurance premiums. (Of course they pay the premiums with your money and mine, but they'd get to keep a little more of our money if they didn't have those darned premiums to pay.) RAS also noted the reason bank customers will stick with the banks. I do think other, non-bank companies could handle most of those transactions that RAS correctly notes are handled (at least in part) by banks today. So if you're wondering why bankers might be happy to get rid of FDIC insurance, see yesterday's Comments.
Meryl Kornfield & Maham Javaid of the Washington Post: "Vice President-elect JD Vance has invited Daniel Penny, a former Marine who was acquitted in the chokehold death of a fellow New York subway rider, to be his guest Saturday at the annual Army-Navy football game....Vance and Penny will join ... Donald Trump in his suite at the game.... A New York City jury found Penny, 26, not guilty Monday of criminally negligent homicide in the May 2023 choking death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old subway performer and homeless man with a history of mental health problems.... Penny has been lauded as a citizen hero by many Republicans who have pushed for a greater clampdown on crime in the city and criticized [Alvin] Bragg’s prosecution of Trump in a hush money case. [Bragg's office prosecuted Penny.] Meanwhile, city officials had decried Neely’s death after a video of the minutes-long chokehold went viral, leading to protests over what some saw as vigilante violence against someone in need of the city’s services." ~~~
~~~ Marie: How odd that people who say they're appalled by violent crime promote violent crime. Then they celebrate it by all going out to watch a violent game (guess there were no wrestling or boxing fight nights scheduled).
Annie Grayer of CNN: "Rep. Nancy Pelosi was admitted to a hospital in Luxembourg after she 'sustained an injury during an official engagement,' a spokesperson said. Pelosi, 84, is continuing to work, the spokesperson, Ian Krager, said, and is currently receiving 'excellent' treatment from doctors and medical professionals. 'While traveling with a bipartisan Congressional delegation in Luxembourg to mark the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge,' Krager said." (Also linked yesterday.)
Nitasha Tiku of the Washington Post: "OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, released emails and text messages from its co-founder Elon Musk on Friday that showed the billionaire in 2017 demanding majority control of the company and the title of CEO. The trove of messages were released by the artificial intelligence developer as part of its response to a federal lawsuit filed in August by Musk, who departed the company’s board in 2018."
Maria Cramer & Shayla Colon of the New York Times: "Investigators received a tip from the San Francisco Police Department identifying Luigi Mangione as a suspect before he was arrested in the killing of an insurance executive in Midtown Manhattan, the New York F.B.I. field office said Friday. The tip, which the bureau passed to the New York police, was one of many that law enforcement officials received in the days after the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, Brian Thompson, was fatally shot on Dec. 4. Mr. Mangione’s family had reported him missing in San Francisco weeks before the killing. The timing of when the bureau gave that information to the New York police remains unclear, as well as whether it might have helped speed his arrest."
Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe of the New York Times: "McKinsey & Company has agreed to pay $650 million to settle a Justice Department investigation of its work with the opioid maker Purdue Pharma. A former senior partner, Martin Elling, has also agreed to plead guilty to obstruction of justice for destroying internal company records in connection with that work. At the center of the government’s case was McKinsey’s advice that Purdue Pharma should 'turbocharge' sales of Purdue’s flagship OxyContin painkiller in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic that was killing hundreds of thousands of Americans. More than two dozen McKinsey partners consulted for Purdue over roughly 15 years, earning the firm $93 million." (Also linked yesterday.)
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California, et al. Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Biden administration is expected in the coming days to grant California and 11 other states permission to ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035, one of the most ambitious climate policies in the United States and beyond.... Donald J. Trump is expected to revoke permission soon after taking office, part of his pledge to scrap Biden-era climate policies. 'California has imposed the most ridiculous car regulations anywhere in the world, with mandates to move to all electric cars,' Mr. Trump has said. 'I will terminate that.' The state is expected to fight any revocation, setting up a consequential legal battle with the new administration."
California. Adam Liptak & Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to consider whether business groups may challenge an unusual federal program that lets California set its own limits on tailpipe emissions to combat climate change. The groups, including fuel producers and sellers, told the justices that the court’s intervention was needed to prevent California from effectively setting national policy. 'Without this court’s immediate review,' their petition seeking review said, 'California’s unlawful standards will continue to dictate the composition of the nation’s automobile market.' The challengers asked the court to decide two questions: whether they had suffered the sort of injuries that gave them standing to sue and whether the Environmental Protection Agency program granting California a waiver to set its own standards for greenhouse gas emissions was lawful."
North Carolina. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: "The stripper who accused Duke University lacrosse players of gang-raping her insisted in her 2008 memoir that she’d been attacked, a year after authorities determined she had lied and dropped the charges against her alleged assailants.... In an episode of the online interview show 'Let’s Talk with Kat' released Wednesday, [Crystal] Mangum, 46, said she lied about being gang-raped by the lacrosse players after they hired her to strip at their party — an accusation that sparked a national scandal and forced a reckoning across the country about sexual assault on college campuses. 'I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong,' she told interviewer Katerena DePasquale on Nov. 13.... The case dominated national news for months.... But as the months went by, the case against the lacrosse players unraveled.... Three months after taking over the case, [then state District Attorney (and now Gov.) Roy] Cooper dismissed the charges against the lacrosse players."
Texas/New York, et al. David Goodman & Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "The Texas attorney general opened a new front in the contentious battle over access to abortion this week by suing a New York doctor for sending abortion pills into Texas. It appeared to be among the first attempts to stop the mailing of such medication into states that ban abortion. The lawsuit from Attorney General Ken Paxton — filed on Thursday in state court in Collin County, north of Dallas — pits the laws of Texas, which has a near-total ban on abortion, against those of New York, where lawmakers have taken steps to shield doctors from out-of-state prosecution. Under shield laws, states like New York will refuse to cooperate with attempts by other states to prosecute or sue abortion providers who prescribe and send pills across state lines.
"Such laws exist in eight states and have allowed doctors there to send more than 10,000 abortion pills per month to women in states with bans. But legal experts say they expect Texas to try to pursue its case even if it is rebuffed by New York’s law. Such an effort could wind up in federal court, potentially imperiling the ability of women in other states with bans to receive abortion pills by mail, and becoming a major test of whether states can enforce contradictory laws across state lines.... In a statement on Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York said that she was 'committed to maintaining New York’s status as a safe harbor for all who seek abortion care.... I will do everything in my power to enforce the laws of New York State.'” The Texas Tribune story is here.
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France. Aurelien Breeden & Catherine Porter of the New York Times: "President Emmanuel Macron on Friday tapped François Bayrou, a veteran centrist politician and one of his top allies, as the new prime minister, a move that few expect would stabilize France’s roiling politics. Mr. Bayrou becomes the country’s fourth prime minister this year — an ominous record. The task ahead is immense: He must now form a cabinet capable of shepherding bills through a fractured, cantankerous lower house of Parliament that ousted his predecessor last week."
South Korea. Michelle Lee of the Washington Post: "The South Korean National Assembly voted Saturday to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol, forcing him to immediately hand over power to the prime minister following his short-lived attempt to impose martial law this month. The hundreds of thousands of South Koreans waiting outside the National Assembly, many singing along to K-pop-style songs with ad-libbed lyrics calling for Yoon’s departure, erupted into cheering and crying when the verdict was announced. But South Korea now enters a prolonged period of uncertainty: The Constitutional Court must decide whether to uphold the impeachment charges, a process that could take up to six months. If the court decides the legislature’s decision is constitutional, Yoon will be removed from office and a new presidential election will be held within 60 days."
Syria, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Saturday in Syria are here. ~~~
~~~ The New York Times live-updated developments Friday in Syria: "The Russian military appeared to be packing up equipment at one of its most critical bases in Syria on Friday, in what could be a prelude to Moscow’s military withdrawal from an important strategic foothold in the Middle East. The movements of Russian equipment came as jubilant crowds gathered in cities across Syria for the first Friday Prayers since rebels toppled President Bashar al-Assad.... Also on Friday, Travis Timmerman, an American citizen who was found outside Damascus earlier this week, was handed over to U.S. forces by Syrian opposition representatives.... Rebel fighters in Syria said that they had found vast stockpiles of an illegal amphetamine called captagon in a Damascus warehouse. The drug was the cornerstone of a narcotics-trafficking ring worth billions of dollars a year that was run by relatives and associates of ... Bashar al-Assad.... A federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged a former Syrian government official with torturing political dissidents at a prison in Damascus." ~~~
~~~ All Is Not Well in Paradise. Farnaz Fassihi of the New York Times: "In the days since the abrupt and unexpected obliteration of Iran as a dominant presence in Syria, the government has faced a fierce public backlash over the billions of dollars spent and the Iranian blood shed to back the Assad regime. The criticism has come from unexpected corners, including conservatives, and is flowing freely on television channels and talk shows, and in social media posts and virtual town halls attended by thousands of Iranians. It also appears on the front pages of newspapers every day.... While opponents of the government have long bristled at the money Iran has sent all over the Middle East, the sentiment now seems to have spread."
8 Comments
Reader Comments (8)
Another inevitability...to the privatizers. There's just so much money to be made by making public services private. Who wouldn't want to do it? After all, it's worked so well with healthcare....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/12/14/trump-usps-privatize-plan/
RFK Jr's new bumper sticker - Make Iron Lungs Great Again.
Maybe Elon will build a new self-breathing version.
Public Notice, when they aren't corrupt right wing judges already
"A toxic brew of money and threats is perverting the courts
Alex Jones and Elon Musk are using MAGA tactics to intimidate judges."
Lisa Needham
"Let’s Give Them Something to Talk About"
Agencies
"It’s an important reminder that the danger with some of Trump’s nominees isn’t that they’ll abuse their power and turn their agencies to evil ends, it’s that they’ll run their agencies into the ground, quite deliberately, in order to bring them to an evil end.
Last but not least, because conservatives had howled throughout the 1970s that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) had throttled economic growth with its excessive concerns for safe job sites and workers’ health, Reagan made sure to appoint Florida businessman Thorne Auchter — whose construction firm had repeatedly been fined by OSHA for its violations of federal laws — as its new head. Not surprisingly, Auchter drastically reduced the number of fines issued by OSHA, closed a third of its field offices and reduced the number of site inspections by 20%.
Two decades after Thorne Auchter gutted OSHA, there was a fatal accident at a Missouri coal plant when the planned demolition of two silos went wrong. Ignoring OSHA rules requiring a full engineering survey, the company tried to speed up the preparation for the implosion and wound up crushing a 22-year-old worker under a 70-ton chunk of concrete.
The worker’s name was Kevin Auchter, Thorne’s son."
Okay, we’ll try it without the HTML link…
Kash Patel is setting up Trump’s very own Gestapo.
“The alarm has come as Patel, who has called for shutting down FBI headquarters and drafted a so-called enemies list of people Trump feels wronged by, appears set to have his nomination supported unanimously by Republicans on the Senate judiciary committee.
The problem with Patel leading the FBI in the second Trump administration is that typical checks on the power of the FBI director would almost certainly be gone, according to former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi and other former officials familiar with the matter.
Patel is almost certain to install his own chief of staff and a new FBI general counsel to sign off on any campaign of retribution, while Pam Bondi, the Trump pick for attorney general, has previously echoed Patel’s aims to make the agency subservient to the White House.”
Here’s a f’rinstance. Patel gets into the FBI files and does a search for every file on Donald Trump. He sees the names of anyone giving information on or investigating Trump then sets the dogs on those people.
No one to stop him. He can open investigations on anyone, reporters, politicians, podcasters, anyone deemed a threat to the Reich. He can do an end around on the Justice Department and announce names and addresses of anyone on Trump’s enemies list, those not yet detained for questioning or not already arrested.
Think this is a fantasy?
He’s already promised to do these things.
Between this dangerous fool and Pee Wee German (Stephen Miller), Trump will have an army of deputized and armed agents ready to after anyone he doesn’t like.
Heil Trump!
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/14/kash-patel-fbi-director
Akhilleus,
There is a logic to the apparent lunacy.
Not only will the Pretender's Justice Department and FBI be poised to investigate and possibly bring trumped up charges against his political enemies, but it will also serve as a barrier to any possible investigations and prosecutions of him or of any of his loyal coterie of grifters.
A perfect marriage of self-serving law enforcement, both active and passive.
We had more than a hint of it the first time around, thanks to Bill Barr.
RAS: the bit about OSHA being crushed and then, karma? The son of that guy was in turn crushed? I don't think I will live to see any of the dire things that will be happening in several decades, nor whatever comeuppance that these people will have brought about with their evil intentions. Too bad. I would welcome some relief in the next couple of years as the appointed morons destroy what gains have been made since WWII. Can't wait for dirty air and water and unsafe highways, cars, railways, buildings and bridges. Meanwhile, like Dumpface, (whose face, posture and thatched hair all seem to be on a downward slide) they will all play in some bubble in Florida, merrily not caring about the citizens at all, oblivious to the fact that Dumpface has escaped his rightful imprisonment yet again, after frightening all the remaining judges with cases against him. Repeat after me: there WAS NO MANDATE, and thank you, MSM, for your "contributions" to our soon-to-be wretched lives.
What? You think I am angry? Tip of the ol' iceberg...