The Commentariat -- September 12, 2021

Afternoon Update:

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Sunday are here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "As they traveled the country laying wreaths, strolling through crash sites in pastoral meadows and comforting families whose wounds are ripped open anew each year, two living presidents used the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to urge Americans to come together in an effort to weather deep political and cultural divisions. 'On America's day of trial and grief, I saw millions of people instinctively grab for a neighbor's hand and rally to the cause of one another,' former President George W. Bush said from the United Flight 93 memorial outside Shanksville, Pa. 'That is the America I know.' But on Saturday, both he and President Biden acknowledged that what has happened in the years since has only challenged the notion that Americans prized coming together over choosing to grow hostile to one another's differences. Mr. Bush's decisions as president two decades ago led to a war in Afghanistan and another in Iraq, and he equated the ensuing rise of domestic extremism in the United States to the same poisonous beliefs that had inspired the hijackers. Shortly after Mr. Bush spoke, Mr. Biden ... arrived near Shanksville to lay a wreath and visit a boulder where, in 2001, a plane filled with passengers and crew members, who had wrestled control from hijackers, had hit the ground.... 'Are we going to, in the next four, five, six, 10 years, demonstrate that democracies can work, or not?' Mr. Biden asked reporters gathered outside Shanksville. 'We actually can, in fact, lead by the example of our power again.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be damned if I can figure out how George saw millions of people. I suppose it's nice to know the former President has a vivid imagination, after all.

In the weeks and months following the 9/11 attacks, I was proud to lead an amazing, resilient, united people. When it comes to the unity of America, those days seem distant from our own. Malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together. -- George W. Bush, in a speech at Shanksville, Saturday ~~~

~~~ Amy Wang & Caroline Anders of the Washington Post: "... former president George W. Bush on Saturday warned there is growing evidence that domestic terrorism could pose as much of a threat to the United States as terrorism originating from abroad, and he urged Americans to confront 'violence that gathers within.' Without naming it, Bush seemed to condemn the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.... Bush compared those 'violent extremists at home' to the terrorists who had hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, and crashed them in New York City, Arlington, and Shanksville, Pa...." An AP story is here.

Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "A solemn President Biden on Saturday marked two decades since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, leading a day of nationwide grief and remembrance at all three sites of the terrorist attacks and emphasizing the importance of memorializing the painful assault that left nearly 3,000 people dead. Biden deliberately stayed in the background as he participated in the anniversary of the attacks for the first time as the nation's commander-in-chief.... Biden began his day at the Sept. 11 memorial in Lower Manhattan, alongside dozens of other political dignitaries including former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. He later traveled to Shanksville, Pa., to meet privately with family members of the victims of Flight 93 and finally, to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington, Va., to participate in another wreath laying ceremony." The AP's story is here.

"Also Attended." Marie: There's a photo at the top of this AP story on the commemoration of 9/11 that shows Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, President Biden, Jill Biden, Michael Bloomberg, Diana Taylor, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer standing for the national anthem in New York City. That got me to wondering where "America's Mayor" was. According to this NPR story, which also features the same photo, "Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York City at the time of the attacks, also attended the ceremony."

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The attacks [of September 11, 2001], and our response to them, catalyzed a period of decline that helped turn the United States into the debased, half-crazed fading power we are today. America launched a bad-faith global crusade to instill democracy in the Muslim world and ended up with our own democracy in tatters. Bin Laden didn't build the trap that America fell into. We constructed it ourselves.... America could have credibly declared itself the war's winner at the end of 2001, sparing countless lives, trillions of dollars and our national honor.... Tthe United States in September 2021 is in truly terrible shape. Twenty years ago we were credulous and blundering. Now we're sour, suspicious and lacking in discernible ideals.... The sheer waste of it all is staggering.... We midwifed worse terrorists than those we set out to fight. We thought we knew what had been lost on Sept. 11. We had no idea."

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "... when I look back at 9/11 and the torrent of tragic, perverse blunders that followed, I think about men seized by a dangerous strain of hyper-masculinity; fake tough-guy stuff; a caricature of strength -- including the premature 'Mission Accomplished' scene of George W. Bush strutting on an aircraft carrier in his own version of 'Top Gun.'... In the ramp-up to the Iraq war, Washington was a veritable bro-fest, men at the top of government and journalism egging on the war or turning a willful blind eye to the weak casus belli."

Paul Street in CounterPunch on how we must "never forget" what "they" did but we already have forgotten the atrocities we committed at home and abroad. His short list is devastating. Thanks to Whyte for the link.

Mark Mazzetti & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "The F.B.I. released a newly declassified document late Saturday describing connections that the agency examined between the hijackers and the Saudi government in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, although it contained no conclusive evidence about whether the kingdom played a role in the attacks. The 16-page report, which was issued hours after President Biden arrived at the World Trade Center memorial in Lower Manhattan, is the first document to be released since the president last week moved to declassify materials that for years have remained secret.... Mr. Biden instructed the Justice Department and federal agencies in recent days to release declassified documents over the next six months after a group of hundreds of affected people -- including survivors, emergency medical workers and victims' relatives -- told him to skip the memorial event at ground zero this year if he did not move to disclose some of those documents." The AP's story is here.

"Come From Away." Peter Marks of the Washington Post: "Thousands of people gathered ... on the National Mall [Friday evening] for ... the performance of a Broadway musical enshrining acts of extraordinary grace that occurred amid the indelible horrors of 20 years ago. With the renowned visage of Abraham Lincoln gazing on from his memorial, the cast of 'Come From Away' -- the story of a Canadian town that sheltered 7,000 airline passengers stranded there on 9/11 -- sang for what had to be one of the largest audiences ever for theater in the nation's capital. Theatergoers in folding chairs and on picnic blankets ringed the Mall's Reflecting Pool for 100 minutes of boisterous harmonies and anecdotes about the largesse of a small Newfoundland community."

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Capitol Police investigators have recommended disciplinary action against six police officers for their actions during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, when Trump supporters stormed the building in an effort to stop the certification of President Biden's victory. Three officers were singled out for unbecoming conduct, one officer for failure to comply with directives, one officer for improper remarks and one officer for improper dissemination of information, the Capitol Police said in a statement on Saturday.... No criminal charges will be filed, after the U.S. attorney's office did not find sufficient evidence to do so.... Even as the majority of the police force grapple with the trauma of the attack, videos widely circulating on social media appeared to show some officers treating the rioters sympathetically or doing little to stop them from entering the complex.

Vimal Patel of the New York Times: "A Georgia man who had an assault rifle and was headed to Washington for the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally at the U.S. Capitol pleaded guilty on Friday to sending threatening text messages about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The man, Cleveland Grover Meredith Jr., wrote to an acquaintance the day after the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol that he would put 'a bullet in her noggin on Live TV ' and included a purple devil emoji, the federal authorities said. In other messages, he said he would run over Ms. Pelosi. 'I predict that within 12 days, many in our country will die,' he wrote. Mr. Meredith had been staying at a Holiday Inn in Washington and had weapons in his camper-style trailer, including a Glock handgun, a Tavor X95 assault rifle and thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to court records." Meredith is a QAnon adherent.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here.

David Lynch of the Washington Post: "Instead of directly mandating Americans take the vaccine, [President] Biden effectively outsourced the job to the business community. But unlike previous White House interventions in the market -- notably including President Barack Obama's 2010 health insurance mandate -- Biden's action was welcomed by many bosses.... The vocal Republican opposition to the president's initiative threatens to leave the GOP at odds with its traditional business constituency.... Biden's new covid plan also drew backing from some national business groups, such as the Business Roundtable, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the American Apparel and Footwear Association...."

Alabama. Hadley Hitson of the Montgomery Advertiser, republished in USA Today: "The family of a man who died of heart issues in Mississippi is asking people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 after 43 hospitals across three states were unable to accept him because of full cardiac ICUs."

Alaska. Derek Hawkins of the Washington Post: "An Alaska lawmaker who is banned from flying on the state's leading airline for refusing to wear a mask was excused from attending floor votes for the rest of the year after telling legislative leaders she has no way to fly to and from the state capital. State Sen. Lora Reinbold, a Republican representing an Anchorage suburb, said this week that Alaska Airlines offered the only flights between her district and Juneau from now through the end of the year. The airline banned her indefinitely in the spring after she clashed with staffers over the airline mask mandate issued by federal transportation officials.... The action involving Reinbold comes as Alaska, like other states, is facing a sharp rise in infections."

Kim Bellware & Adela Suliman of the Washington Post: "Employees at Miami International Airport who go through the standard security check for weapons and other prohibited items now have another layer of screening before they start work: a sniff test from Cobra and One Betta. Cobra, a female Belgian Malinois, and One Betta, a Dutch shepherd, are 7-year-old dogs trained to detect the presence of the coronavirus.... Cobra and One Betta will spend their shifts sniffing the face coverings of employees passing through a checkpoint to detect the presence of the virus.... The canines' accuracy rivals traditional coronavirus tests and even some lab equipment, Furton said. He cited a double-blind study published by FIU, which found the animals achieved 96 to 99 percent accuracy rates for detecting the virus. One Betta's accuracy rate was 98.1 percent, while Cobra's was an astonishing 99.4 percent.... If deployed more widely to sniff out passengers, the dogs may also deter would-be travelers inclined to fib about their coronavirus exposure or infection status." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

Beyond the Beltway

Alabama. AP: "A lawsuit has been filed that could decide the fate of a Confederate monument that has stood in a square at the center of nearly all-Black Tuskegee for 115 years. WSFA-TV reported that the Macon County Commission has filed suit against both the local and state chapters of the United Daughters of the Confederacy arguing that the county owns the property where the statue is located and wants title to the plot."

The Commentariat -- September 11, 2021

The New York Times is live-updating 9/11 memorial events 7 remembrances. The Washington Post's live updates are here. The Guardian's liveblog is here.

My deepest sympathy to those affected directly and indirectly by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As horrible as they were, the attacks seem less significant now that some 25 percent of Americans, including their elected leaders, have commenced upon a second civil war in which they wantonly, knowingly and with malice kill some 1,500 of their fellow Americans every day and in which some continue to plot to take over the government by force so that they may preserve their own "freedoms" at the expense of the rest of us. -- Marie 

Paul Krugman: "... that golden moment of unity [many claim enveloped the U.S. right after 9/11] never existed; it’s a myth, one that we need to stop perpetuating if we want to understand the dire current state of American democracy. The truth is that key parts of the American body politic saw 9/11, right from the beginning, not as a moment to seek national unity but as an opportunity to seize domestic political advantage. And this cynicism in the face of the horror tells us that even at a time when America truly was under external attack, the biggest dangers we faced were already internal. The Republican Party wasn’t yet full-on authoritarian, but it was willing to do whatever it took to get what it wanted, and disdainful of the legitimacy of its opposition. That is, we were well along on the road to the Jan. 6 putsch — and toward a G.O.P. that has, in effect, endorsed that putsch and seems all too likely to try one again." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

2020 -- The Most Hate Crimes Since 2001. David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "The state of Ohio said it has sent an updated tally of hate crimes to the FBI that would dramatically increase the nationwide total for 2020 to 8,305, the most since 2001 and third-highest since the federal government began tracking such data nearly three decades ago. The FBI issued its annual hate crimes report Aug. 30 and said it had tallied 7,759 incidents. But Ohio reported just 34 bias crimes, less than 10 percent of the previous year, which state officials now attribute to a technical glitch. The state’s new figures show that 580 hate crimes were reported last year, according to Bret Crow, a spokesman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, representing a 41 percent increase over 2019."

** As We Were Leaving.... Matthieu Aikins, et al., of the New York Times: “It was the last known missile fired by the United States in its 20-year war in Afghanistan, and the military called it a 'righteous strike' — a drone attack ... on Aug. 29 against a vehicle that American officials thought contained an ISIS bomb and posed an imminent threat to troops at Kabul’s airport. But a New York Times investigation of video evidence, along with interviews with more than a dozen of the driver’s co-workers and family members in Kabul, raises doubts about the U.S. version of events.... Times reporting has identified the driver as Zemari Ahmadi, a longtime worker for a U.S. aid group. The evidence suggests that his travels that day actually involved transporting colleagues to and from work. And an analysis of video feeds showed that what the military may have seen was Mr. Ahmadi and a colleague loading canisters of water into his trunk to bring home to his family. While the U.S. military said the drone strike might have killed three civilians, Times reporting shows that it killed 10, including seven children, in a dense residential block.” ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post has a more cautious report on the same subject.

Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: “The Department of Homeland Security flagged 44 Afghan evacuees as potential national security risks during the past two weeks as the government screened tens of thousands for resettlement in the United States, according to DHS vetting records reviewed by The Washington Post. Of the more than 60,000 evacuees who have arrived on U.S. soil since Aug. 17, the lists show 13 Afghans remain in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody awaiting additional screening and review procedures, including interviews with FBI and counterterrorism teams. Another 15 evacuees who were considered security concerns have been turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sent back to transit sites in Europe or the Middle East, or in some cases approved for release after additional review. There are 16 Afghans on the DHS lists who have not been cleared to travel and remain overseas at the transit sites U.S. officials call 'lily pads.'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) 

Uh, Wow! Betsy Swan of Politico: “Just two days before armed rioters stormed and ransacked the Capitol, about 300 law enforcement officials got on a conference call to talk about the possibility that Donald Trump’s supporters would turn violent on Jan. 6. They specifically discussed the possibility that the day’s gatherings would turn into a mass-casualty event, and they made plans on how to communicate with each other if that happened.... The extent of the FBI’s awareness that the rally by Trump backers could turn violent raises fresh questions about why national security and law enforcement officials didn’t do more to protect the Capitol on that volatile day. A few days after the riot, a top FBI official told reporters that the Bureau 'did not have intelligence suggesting the pro-Trump rally would be anything more than a lawful demonstration,' according to The Washington Post. But the call summary shows that hundreds of officials at fusion centers around the country in fact saw the threat coming....” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Kevin Williamson of the (right-wing) National Review, in a New York Times op-ed: "What happened at the Capitol on Jan. 6 ... was half of a coup attempt — the less important half. The more important part of the coup attempt — like legal wrangling in states and the attempts to sabotage the House commission’s investigation of Jan. 6 — is still going strong. These are ... parts of a unitary phenomenon that, in just about any other country, would be characterized as a failed coup d’état.... The attempted coup’s foot soldiers have dug themselves in at state legislatures.... [Their] obviously political object is to legitimize the 2020 coup attempt in order to soften the ground for the next one — and there will be a next one. In the broad strategy, the frenzied mobs were meant to inspire terror — and obedience among Republicans — while Rudy Giuliani and his co-conspirators tried to get the election nullified on some risible legal pretext or another.... When it comes to a coup, you’re either in or you’re out. The Republican Party is leaning pretty strongly toward in."

Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: “A Soviet-born businessman who assisted Rudolph W. Giuliani in his Ukrainian political efforts on behalf of ... Donald Trump pleaded guilty Friday to violating campaign finance laws, as others charged in the case prepare to stand trial. Igor Fruman, 56, who was arrested with co-defendant Lev Parnas at Dulles International Airport in 2019, entered a guilty plea to one count of soliciting foreign campaign contributions and is expected to be sentenced Jan. 21 by U.S. District Court Judge J. Paul Oetken. Prosecutors previously said there were two wire transfers from a Russian national totaling $1 million — in September and October 2018 — given with the expectation that the money would be donated to politicians in states where Fruman and his business associates believed they could get retail marijuana licenses. In federal court in Manhattan, Fruman admitted to knowing he could not make donations to candidates in U.S. elections on behalf of a foreign national.... Fruman’s attorney, Todd Blanche, said in a statement after the court appearance that his client 'is not cooperating with the government....'” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Sarah Nir & Precious Fondren of the New York Times: "... a bronze statue of a Black soldier sitting astride a stallion, a tribute to the U.S. Army’s famed Black cavalry — the Buffalo Soldiers — who for decades taught military horsemanship to white cadets ... [was unveiled at] the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Friday.... The Buffalo Soldiers unit, formally known as United States Army’s 9th and 10th Cavalry, was established in 1866, a year after the Civil War ended, and held an important and confounding position within a military that would remain officially segregated until 1948.... But even as they were brought to West Point as revered experts to teach the all-white cadets horsemanship and riding, they were housed in segregated barracks and forced to do menial work."

Capitalism Is Scary. Elizabeth Dwoskin & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Facebook executives have been meeting with senior Biden administration officials in recent weeks as the social media giant tries to assuage concerns about its controversial cryptocurrency project, but the effort is running into some of the same fears from regulators that have plagued it for more than two years. Despite rebranding and overhauling the project — which aims to establish a global network for instantaneous payments — Facebook and its partners still face scrutiny from some Treasury Department officials who feel the plans could undermine the stability of the financial system, according to two people briefed on the deliberations.... Government officials are concerned that the proposed new network — an independent association backed by Facebook that is now known as Diem — could proliferate and then threaten the broader economy if its value crashed.... Though Diem is formally independent, its association with Facebook compounds the risk because Facebook has the ability to scale its products to billions of people all over the world." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I think pretty much everything Facebook does is alarming, and messing with currency would top that list. Governments around the world are bad enough; allowing a private company to run the world -- which seems to be Facebook's aim -- is intolerable.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Apoorva Mandavilli & Roni Rabin of the New York Times: "Just a day after President Biden issued broad mandates aimed at encouraging American workers to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, federal health officials released new data showing that unvaccinated Americans are 11 times as likely as vaccinated people to die of Covid-19. Three large studies, published on Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also highlighted the effectiveness of the shots at preventing infection and hospitalizations with the virus. The research underscored a deep conviction among scientists that vaccine hesitancy and refusal have prolonged the pandemic." An Axios item is here.

Anabelle Timsit of the Washington Post: "Republican leaders are blasting President Biden’s sweeping new coronavirus vaccine mandates for businesses and federal workers, decrying them as unconstitutional infringements on personal liberties and promising to sue. Biden took not-so-thinly-veiled swipes at Republican politicians in his address on Thursday outlining his plan to mandate immunization for federal employees and contractors, as well as health-care workers in facilities that treat patients on Medicare or Medicaid. Biden aims to require businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccinations or test their employees weekly." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)  ~~~

~~~ Max Boot of the Washington Post: “If there was any doubt about the necessity of President Biden’s expanded vaccine mandate for millions of Americans, it was dispelled by the hyperbolic Republican reaction to his Thursday announcement. 'Republicans explode with fury,' noted Fox 'News' Channel. Republican governors threatened to file suit to stop what Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) called 'this blatantly unlawful overreach.' Fox News accused Biden of being 'an authoritarian' and declaring 'war on millions of Americans.' Breitbart claims he went 'full totalitarian' and the Federalist called it a 'fascist move.' Blinded by partisanship and populism, Republicans have lost all perspective.... The Republican reaction to [Biden's] sensible mandate shows that much of the right is beyond the reach of reason. It is now time to use federal power to protect the most basic of civil rights — the right to life.” Boot does quite a good job of running through Republicans' hypocrisy & inanity on vaccines. ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: “On Friday, facing accusations from Republicans of an abuse of power and threats of lawsuits, [President] Biden had a simple retort. 'Have at it,' he said. The right of government to impose vaccines has been established since at least 1904, when the Supreme Court issued a 7-to-2 ruling that Cambridge, Mass., could require all adults to be vaccinated against smallpox. But more recent cases — including the first Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act — call into question whether Mr. Biden or any president could simply order all Americans to get shots. That is not what Mr. Biden is doing. By requiring that companies maintain safe workplaces through vaccination, legal experts said Friday that the president was relying on the federal government’s well-established constitutional power to regulate commerce and the 51-year-old law establishing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Politico's story is here.

Reid Epstein & Lisa Lerer of the New York Times: "After President Biden resisted comprehensive vaccine mandates for months, his forceful steps on Thursday to pressure the 80 million unvaccinated Americans to get their shots put him squarely on the side of what had been a fairly quiet but increasingly frustrated majority: vaccinated Americans who see the unvaccinated as selfishly endangering others and holding the country back.... Now, by taking direct aim at the unvaccinated and Republican officials who encourage or condone vaccine refusal, Mr. Biden is returning to a central posture of his campaign, casting himself as a sober voice on behalf of science and reason standing up to an angry and conspiratorial minority."

Florida. Lori Rozsa & Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post: "An appeals court on Friday sided with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, reinstating for now his ban on mask mandates in the state’s public schools while a lawsuit over the issue moves through the courts. The decision by the First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee reversed a decision by Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper that had temporarily allowed school districts to enforce their mask rules as the court looks at the substance of a lawsuit filed by parents. Also Friday, the [federal] Education Department said its Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether Florida was violating the rights of students with disabilities who are at heightened risk of severe illness from the coronavirus by preventing school districts from requiring masks. The department has opened similar probes in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah." CNN's story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Louisiana. Sophie Kasakove & Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: “... in New Orleans East sits a new, 128-megawatt gas power plant that ... tens of thousands of ... New Orleans residents help fund each month when they pay their bills to Entergy, the city’s sole electric utility. The plant went online last year with a promise that it would provide quick, reliable start-up power to a city that has struggled to withstand the ever-more-powerful storms that blow in from the Gulf of Mexico. But more than a week after the Category 4 storm toppled transmission lines and severed the city’s connection to the outside power grid, [many of the residents of] New Orleans were still sitting in dark, humid homes, with the last major parts of the city brought back online only on Wednesday. As many as 10 deaths may have been caused by the heat in the midst of the extended power outage, the coroner said, after the city’s new power plant did not achieve the 'black start' that Entergy had promised — a quick delivery of power in the middle of a blackout.... Why it took so long to ramp up and how an entire U.S. city could have remained without power for so long is now the subject of extensive finger-pointing and blame, with the city pledging a full investigation that could take months.” (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, I know why: because no commercial operation that sells you stuff has less of a commitment to delivery than your power company. Whether it's Entergy, or Pacific Electric or Florida Power & Light, those companies will tell you to your face they don't guarantee you power, and they'll get it to you when the get it to you, maybe around the time you get your next rate hike.

Massachusetts.  Anemona Hartocollis of the New York Times: “Harvard University has announced that it 'does not intend' to make any future investments in fossil fuels, and is winding down its legacy investments because, the university’s president, Lawrence S. Bacow, said in an email to the Harvard community, 'climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity.' The announcement, sent out on Thursday, is a major victory for the climate change movement, given Harvard’s $42 billion endowment and prestigious reputation, and a striking change in tone for the school, which has resisted putting its full weight behind such a declaration during years of lobbying by student, faculty and alumni activists. Since last year, the activism has succeeded in getting four pro-divestment candidates elected to Harvard’s Board of Overseers.... Divestment battles are based on the idea that university endowments, being tax-free, have an obligation to pay attention to the public good, and that huge endowments like Harvard’s may be instruments for change.”

The Commentariat -- September 10, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Elizabeth Dwoskin & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Facebook executives have been meeting with senior Biden administration officials in recent weeks as the social media giant tries to assuage concerns about its controversial cryptocurrency project, but the effort is running into some of the same fears from regulators that have plagued it for more than two years. Despite rebranding and overhauling the project -- which aims to establish a global network for instantaneous payments -- Facebook and its partners still face scrutiny from some Treasury Department officials who feel the plans could undermine the stability of the financial system, according to two people briefed on the deliberations.... Government officials are concerned that the proposed new network -- an independent association backed by Facebook that is now known as Diem -- could proliferate and then threaten the broader economy if its value crashed.... Though Diem is formally independent, its association with Facebook compounds the risk because Facebook has the ability to scale its products to billions of people all over the world." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I think pretty much everything Facebook does is alarming, and messing with currency tops that list. Governments around the world are bad enough; allowing a private company to run the world -- which seems to be Facebook's aim -- is intolerable.

Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "The Department of Homeland Security flagged 44 Afghan evacuees as potential national security risks during the past two weeks as the government screened tens of thousands for resettlement in the United States, according to DHS vetting records reviewed by The Washington Post. Of the more than 60,000 evacuees who have arrived on U.S. soil since Aug. 17, the lists show 13 Afghans remain in U.S. Customs and Border Protection custody awaiting additional screening and review procedures, including interviews with FBI and counterterrorism teams. Another 15 evacuees who were considered security concerns have been turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), sent back to transit sites in Europe or the Middle East, or in some cases approved for release after additional review. There are 16 Afghans on the DHS lists who have not been cleared to travel and remain overseas at the transit sites U.S. officials call 'lily pads.'"

Paul Krugman: "... that golden moment of unity [many claim enveloped the U.S. right after 9/11] never existed; it's a myth, one that we need to stop perpetuating if we want to understand the dire current state of American democracy. The truth is that key parts of the American body politic saw 9/11, right from the beginning, not as a moment to seek national unity but as an opportunity to seize domestic political advantage. And this cynicism in the face of the horror tells us that even at a time when America truly was under external attack, the biggest dangers we faced were already internal. The Republican Party wasn't yet full-on authoritarian, but it was willing to do whatever it took to get what it wanted, and disdainful of the legitimacy of its opposition. That is, we were well along on the road to the Jan. 6 putsch -- and toward a G.O.P. that has, in effect, endorsed that putsch and seems all too likely to try one again." Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the link.

Uh, Wow! Betsy Swan of Politico: "Just two days before armed rioters stormed and ransacked the Capitol, about 300 law enforcement officials got on a conference call to talk about the possibility that Donald Trump's supporters would turn violent on Jan. 6. They specifically discussed the possibility that the day's gatherings would turn into a mass-casualty event, and they made plans on how to communicate with each other if that happened.... The extent of the FBI's awareness that the rally by Trump backers could turn violent raises fresh questions about why national security and law enforcement officials didn't do more to protect the Capitol on that volatile day. A few days after the riot, a top FBI official told reporters that the Bureau 'did not have intelligence suggesting the pro-Trump rally would be anything more than a lawful demonstration,' according to The Washington Post. But the call summary shows that hundreds of officials at fusion centers around the country in fact saw the threat coming...."

Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post: "A Soviet-born businessman who assisted Rudolph W. Giuliani in his Ukrainian political efforts on behalf of ... Donald Trump pleaded guilty Friday to violating campaign finance laws, as others charged in the case prepare to stand trial. Igor Fruman, 56, who was arrested with co-defendant Lev Parnas at Dulles International Airport in 2019, entered a guilty plea to one count of soliciting foreign campaign contributions and is expected to be sentenced Jan. 21 by U.S. District Court Judge J. Paul Oetken. Prosecutors previously said there were two wire transfers from a Russian national totaling $1 million -- in September and October 2018 -- given with the expectation that the money would be donated to politicians in states where Fruman and his business associates believed they could get retail marijuana licenses. In federal court in Manhattan, Fruman admitted to knowing he could not make donations to candidates in U.S. elections on behalf of a foreign national.... Fruman's attorney, Todd Blanche, said in a statement after the court appearance that his client 'is not cooperating with the government....'"

Anabelle Timsit of the Washington Post: "Republican leaders are blasting President Biden's sweeping new coronavirus vaccine mandates for businesses and federal workers, decrying them as unconstitutional infringements on personal liberties and promising to sue. Biden took not-so-thinly-veiled swipes at Republican politicians in his address on Thursday outlining his plan to mandate immunization for federal employees and contractors, as well as health-care workers in facilities that treat patients on Medicare or Medicaid. Biden aims to require businesses with more than 100 employees to mandate vaccinations or test their employees weekly." This is an expansion of an item in Friday's WashPo Covid-19 live updates, linked below. ~~~

~~~ Michael Shear, et al., of the New York Times: "On Friday, facing accusations from Republicans of an abuse of power and threats of lawsuits, [President] Biden had a simple retort. 'Have at it,' he said. The right of government to impose vaccines has been established since at least 1904, when the Supreme Court issued a 7-to-2 ruling that Cambridge, Mass., could require all adults to be vaccinated against smallpox. But more recent cases -- including the first Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act -- call into question whether Mr. Biden or any president could simply order all Americans to get shots. That is not what Mr. Biden is doing. By requiring that companies maintain safe workplaces through vaccination, legal experts said Friday that the president was relying on the federal government's well-established constitutional power to regulate commerce and the 51-year-old law establishing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration."

Louisiana. Sophie Kasakove & Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "... in New Orleans East sits a new, 128-megawatt gas power plant that ... tens of thousands of ... New Orleans residents help fund each month when they pay their bills to Entergy, the city's sole electric utility. The plant went online last year with a promise that it would provide quick, reliable start-up power to a city that has struggled to withstand the ever-more-powerful storms that blow in from the Gulf of Mexico. But more than a week after the Category 4 storm toppled transmission lines and severed the city's connection to the outside power grid, [many of the residents of] New Orleans were still sitting in dark, humid homes, with the last major parts of the city brought back online only on Wednesday. As many as 10 deaths may have been caused by the heat in the midst of the extended power outage, the coroner said, after the city's new power plant did not achieve the 'black start' that Entergy had promised -- a quick delivery of power in the middle of a blackout.... Why it took so long to ramp up and how an entire U.S. city could have remained without power for so long is now the subject of extensive finger-pointing and blame, with the city pledging a full investigation that could take months." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, I know why: because no commercial operation that sells you stuff has less of a commitment to delivery than your power company. Whether it's Entergy, or Pacific Electric or Florida Power & Light, those companies will tell you to your face they don't guarantee you power, and they'll get it to you when the get it to you, maybe around the time you get your next rate hike.

~~~~~~~~~~

Annie Linskey, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden announced sweeping new coronavirus vaccine mandates Thursday designed to affect tens of millions of Americans, ordering all businesses with more than 100 employees to require their workers to be immunized or face weekly testing. Biden also said that he would require most health-care facilities that accept Medicare or Medicaid funding to vaccinate their employees, which the White House believes will cover 50,000 locations. And the president signed an executive order compelling all federal employees to get vaccinated -- without an option for those who prefer to be regularly tested instead -- in an effort to create a model he hopes state governments will embrace. He is also ordering all staffers in Head Start programs, along with Defense Department and federally operated schools for Native Americans, to be vaccinated. (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Although President Biden is not much of an orator, it was a pretty good speech:

     ~~~ Lauren Hirsch of the New York Times: "Some 80 million workers will be affected. The requirements will be imposed by the Department of Labor and its Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is drafting an emergency temporary standard to carry out the mandate, according to the White House. The move, though, is sure to face political pushback and litigation.... OSHA oversees workplace safety, which the agency is likely to contend extends to vaccine mandates." ~~~

     ~~~ Here's the White House's breakdown of President Biden's plan. ~~~

~~~ Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden's aggressive move to expand the number of vaccinated Americans and halt the spread of the Delta variant is not just an effort to save lives. It is also an attempt to counter the continuing and evolving threat that the virus poses to the economy.... After weeks of playing down the threat that a new wave of infections posed to the recovery, the president and his team blamed Delta for slowing job growth in August. 'We're in a tough stretch,' he conceded on Thursday, after heralding the economic progress made under his administration so far this year, 'and it could last for a while.'... A surge in deaths crippled consumer confidence in August and portends a possible chill in fall spending as people again opt for limited in-person commerce.... The explosion of new cases and deaths also appears to have deter red many would-be workers from accepting open jobs in businesses across the country, economists say." ~~~

~~~ Mary Astor of the New York Times: "On Monday, Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, tweeted that vaccine mandates were 'un-American.' In reality, they are a time-honored American tradition. But to be fair, so is public fury over them.... The roots of U.S. vaccine mandates predate both the U.S. and vaccines. The colonies sought to prevent disease outbreaks by quarantining ships from Europe and sometimes, in the case of smallpox, requiring inoculations: a crude and much riskier predecessor to vaccinations in which doctors rubbed live smallpox virus into broken skin to induce a relatively mild infection that would guard against severe infection later. They were a source of enormous fear and anger. In January 1777, George Washington mandated inoculations for the soldiers under his command in the Continental Army.... Over the next century, many local governments [mandated inoculations].... But by the end of the 1800s, opposition was louder and more widespread.... One thing distinguishes today's anti-vaccination protesters from those of the past. The opposition was always political. It wasn't always partisan." An interesting read. Thanks to Ken W. for the link. ~~~

~~~ Speaking of Partisan.... Oliver Darcy of CNN: "'An Authoritarian.' 'Rotting bag of oatmeal ... tyrant.' 'Very frail and very weak.' Those are only a handful of the vile attacks directed at President Biden on Fox News Thursday night following his address to the nation announcing sweeping new vaccine mandates. Biden's move has prompted an all-out declaration of war in right-wing media. While he is getting a fair amount of praise from mainstream sources, with some analysts even saying he still did not go far enough, the reality is entirely different in the media consumed by the individuals Biden actually needs (and has tried) to persuade. It is difficult to overstate the degree to which right-wing commentators are slinging venom at Biden, the White House, and public health officials following the speech.... Their language -- which essentially characterizes Biden and public health officials as evil tyrants -- is key to understanding why so many Americans are not protecting themselves with a vaccine. Huge communities of Americans are being lied to and misinformed by bad-faith media personalities and politicians who seek profit and power." See also a bit about the response from GOP "leaders" linked under The Pandemic, Ctd.

Devlin Barrett & Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "President Biden's Justice Department sued the state of Texas on Thursday to try to block the nation's most restrictive abortion law, which bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy and allows private citizens to take legal action against anyone who helps a woman terminate her pregnancy. At a news conference to announce the lawsuit filed in federal court in Austin, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the ban 'is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent.' The suit asks a judge to declare the measure unlawful, block its enforcement and 'protect the rights that Texas has violated.'" The AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

Marie: Yesterday I suggested, based on no information, that Joe Manchin might be the reason President Biden withdrew his nomination of David Chipman, a gun-control advocate, to head the ATF. It turns out I was right. Manchin & Angus King (I-Maine) both said that would not vote to confirm Chipman.

There Is a Debt Ceiling Only When the President Is a Democrat. Hayes Brown of MSNBC (Sept. 8): "During the Obama presidency, Republicans used the threat of the U.S. defaulting on its loans to force sharp budget cuts to nonmilitary spending. And now they're set to do the same to President Joe Biden as Congress prepares to pass the cornerstone of his economic agenda. However, when Donald Trump was in the White House, and the GOP controlled Congress, the debt ceiling apparently was less of a concern. The cap on government debt was boosted under Trump first in late 2017 for three months in a deal with the Democrats. That had to be raised again -- thanks to the GOP's huge tax cuts for the wealthy and businesses -- as part of a broader spending bill he signed in 2018. Then, after Democrats took control of the House in 2019, Trump signed a budget that suspended the debt ceiling, then $22 trillion, entirely until this July.... Now ... Republicans have suddenly started warning that they won't support another boost to the debt ceiling. 'I can't imagine there will be a single Republican voting to raise the debt ceiling after what we've been experiencing,' Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Punchbowl News in July."

Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is asking the Supreme Court to review and overturn the House's proxy voting rules, which were adopted last year to allow lawmakers to cast votes remotely as a pandemic precaution. In a statement Thursday, McCarthy blasted proxy voting as a 'power grab' and 'a raw abuse of power' by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who along with many Democrats pushed for the historic rule change at the beginning of the pandemic. The House adopted the new protocols in May 2020 in a 217-189 vote along party lines.... Left unmentioned was that lawmakers from both parties, including nearly 100 GOP members of the House, have since taken advantage of the ability to cast votes remotely -- and not always for reasons directly related to covid.... Meanwhile, the Supreme Court -- which stopped conducting in-person hearings last March -- announced this week it would resume in-person hearings but keep the buildings closed to the public." MB: Yeah, convenient timing, Kev.

Dana Farrington of NPR: "Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., announced Thursday that she underwent radiation treatment for breast cancer earlier this year and her doctors recently confirmed that the treatment went well.... A mammogram in February alerted Klobuchar to a possible issue, and a biopsy later confirmed it was stage 1A breast cancer. She completed a course of radiation in May. In her post, Klobuchar noted that many people have delayed routine exams because of the pandemic -- including her." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Jeanna Smialek of the New York Times: "Federal Reserve officials traded stocks and other securities in 2020, a year in which the central bank took emergency steps to prop up financial markets and prevent their collapse -- raising questions about whether the Fed's ethics standards have become too lax as its role has vastly expanded. The trades appeared to be legal and in compliance with Fed rules. Million-dollar stock transactions from the Dallas Fed president, Robert S. Kaplan, have drawn particular attention, but none took place when the central bank was most actively backstopping financial markets in late March and April. However, the mere possibility that Fed officials might be able to financially benefit from information they learn through their positions has prompted criticism of perceived shortcomings in the institution's ethics rules, which were forged decades ago and are now struggling to keep up with the central bank's 21st century function."

Gene Robinson of the Washington Post: "... the architects of Jim Crow repression ... chose [Robert E.] Lee as the dignified, slightly tragic hero of their fanciful retelling of what they called 'The War Between the States.' They painted Lee as an honorable man, personally opposed to slavery, who reluctantly chose loyalty to his state of Virginia over allegiance to the Union -- and who, albeit in a losing cause, was the most brilliant general in U.S. history. Lie after lie after lie. Lee was, first and foremost, a traitor. A graduate of West Point, he decided to take up arms against the nation he had sworn an oath to serve. The choice he made cost hundreds of thousands of Americans their lives. Treason was, and remains, a capital crime.... Not only did Lee and his wife, Mary Custis, own slaves inherited from his mother and her father, but Lee actually petitioned Virginia courts to allow him to keep some of those people enslaved for longer than the five years specified in his father-in-law's will." Read on. See also Akhilleus' commentary in yesterday's thread, which runs along these same lines and isn't subscriber-firewalled.

Dan Friedman of Mother Jones: "The FBI is investigating 'seditious conspiracy' charges related to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, according to a search warrant served Tuesday night on a lawyer for the far-right Oath Keepers' militia group. Kellye SoRelle, the Oath Keepers' general counsel, tweeted Wednesday that the FBI had seized her phone. The action would seem unusual, since SoRelle is a lawyer who says she has provided advice to defendants facing prosecution or investigation due to their actions on January 6. '[T]hey have all my clients and my comms,' she commented in a message to Mother Jones. '[It's] unethical as shit on their part.' SoRelle is close to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who has not been charged with crimes related to the siege of Congress, but who remains a subject of investigation.... Prosecutors have charged 17 Oath Keeper members with conspiring to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden's electoral victory; Rhodes is not named, but is identifiable as 'PERSON ONE' in court documents detailing his extensive online and phone communications with Oath Keeper members ahead of and during the siege of Congress. FBI agents seized Rhodes' phone in May as part of their investigation."

Jordan Green of the Raw Story: "A neo-Nazi terror cell enmeshed in the US Marine Corps made plans to attack the power grid last fall, hoping to set the stage to carry out assassinations in their quest to create a white ethno-state, according to a new indictment issued last month. Arrests in the government's takedown of the terror cell, whose members called themselves 'BSN,' began in October 2020, starting with founders Liam Montgomery Collins and Paul James Kryscuk, and gradually expanding to include three others through June 2021.... Members fantasized about shooting Black Lives Matter protesters in Boise, Idaho in the summer of 2020. The most recent indictment, handed down on Aug. 18, adds a new charge of conspiracy to sabotage an energy facility. The purpose, according to the government was 'to attack the power grid both for the purpose of creating general chaos and to provide cover and ease of escape in those areas in which they planned to undertake assassinations and other desired operations to further their goal of creating a white ethno-state.'"

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Friday are here: Republicans are livid that President Biden is trying to save American lives & improve the economy: "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called the mandates 'an assault on private businesses' and said the state is 'already working to halt this power grab.' Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon said he asked his state's attorney general 'to stand prepared to take all actions to oppose this administration's unconstitutional overreach of executive power,' and South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem said, 'See you in court.' Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the group 'will sue the administration to protect Americans and their liberties.':

California. Dakin Andone, et al., of CNN: "All eligible students attending Los Angeles Unified public schools -- the nation's second largest school district -- will be required to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by the end of the calendar year, the school board of education has voted. In a special meeting held Thursday, the Los Angeles Unified School Board decided by unanimous vote that a mandate was appropriate based on the sudden surge of the virus brought about by the Delta variant and data showing lower rates of infection and hospitalization among those who are vaccinated. The proposal approved Thursday requires all eligible students 12 years of age and older to receive their first Covid-19 vaccine doses by no later than November 21, and to be fully vaccinated by December 19. Students who participate in in-person extracurricular activities, including sports, face an earlier deadline of October 3 for a first dose of the vaccine and a second dose no later than October 31."

Florida. Mychael Schnell of the Hill: "Lawyers for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) filed an emergency appeal Wednesday evening after a circuit judge earlier that day rejected a previous appeal from the governor, a move that put his ban on school mask mandates on hold and allows school districts to require face coverings in academic buildings for the time being. DeSantis's lawyers are now calling for the automatic stay on his mask mandate ban to be reinstated, which would allow the ban on the mandates to once again take effect." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mississippi. Ashton Pittman of the Mississippi Free Press: "Fetal deaths have doubled among unvaccinated pregnant women who suffer COVID-19 infections, State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs said during a Mississippi State Department of Health press conference today. 'We've identified 72 fetal deaths associated with pregnant moms who had COVID, which is twice the background rate of what we would've expected' prior to the pandemic, he said. A 'fetal death,' also known as a 'stillbirth,' refers to deaths that occur after 20 weeks gestation. The statistic does not include miscarriages, which are deaths that occur at 20 weeks or earlier.... Dr. Dobbs revealed the statistic on fetal deaths hours after MSDH reported the state's first known COVID-19 death involving an infant younger than 1 year old.... Mississippi health leaders said last week that multiple pregnant women died with COVID-19 at a single hospital in August, with health-care workers delivering babies by c-section shortly before their mothers' deaths. Today, Dr. Dobbs said that MSDH is currently investigating eight deaths that occurred during the past four weeks. The infants in those cases 'were born premature but were alive,' Dr. Dobbs said [Wednesday]."

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Lori Rozsa of the Washington Post: "... a federal judge on Thursday squelched one of [Gov. Ron DeSantis]'s key pieces of legislation by blocking enforcement of a so-called anti-riot law, saying that it chills free speech. U.S. District Judge Mark Walker wrote that DeSantis's 'new definition of "riot"' is vague and overbroad and criminalizes 'vast swaths of core First Amendment speech.' DeSantis (R) made passage of the measure his top priority in the 2021 legislative session. He and the Republican-controlled legislature sought the law in response to the massive civil rights protests that took place nationwide in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. While acknowledging that most of the protests in Florida were tame, DeSantis said in April that he was glad to sign 'the strongest anti-rioting, pro-law enforcement piece of legislation in the country.'"

Kansas. AP: "A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted former Kansas state Rep. Michael Capps [R] on 19 counts alleging that he tried to defraud federal, state and county government organizations out of more than $450,000 in coronavirus relief funding. The U.S. Attorney's office in Kansas said in a news release that Capps, a Republican from Wichita, filed forms inflating the number of employees he had at two businesses and a sports foundation, and then applied for loans to pay the non-existent employees. The alleged fraud involved the Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program and Emergency Injury Disaster Loan programs, which are designed to provide assistance to businesses that struggled during the pandemic."

Way Beyond

Afghanistan. Victor Blue, et al., of the New York Times: "Ten days after the chaotic evacuation of Afghanistan came to an end, a lone jetliner lifted off from Kabul's airport on Thursday, the first international passenger flight since American forces ended their 20-year presence in the country. The departure of the chartered Qatar Airways Boeing 777, with scores of Americans, Canadians and Britons on board, was hailed by some as a sign that Taliban-ruled Afghanistan might be poised to re-engage with the world, even as reports emerged that the group was intensifying its crackdown on dissent.... More flights were promised in the days ahead. But an untold number of people remained in limbo, including at the airport in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where dozens of Americans and hundreds of Afghans were waiting for the Taliban to let them leave on charter flights."

Iceland. Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post: "A major new facility to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere started operating in Iceland on Wednesday, a boost to an emerging technology that experts say could eventually play an important role in reducing the greenhouse gases that are warming the planet. The carbon capturing plant, perched on a barren lava plateau in southwest Iceland, is the biggest of its kind, its builder says, increasing global capacity for the technology by more than 40 percent. Many climate experts say that efforts to suck carbon dioxide out of the air will be key to making the world carbon neutral in the coming decades.... The plant in Iceland will be able to capture 4,000 metric tons annually -- just a tiny fraction of what will be necessary, but one that Climeworks, the company that built it, says can grow rapidly as efficiency improves and costs decrease."

News Lede

Some Would Be Heroes. New York Times: "Joseph I. Kramer, who tended to the afflictions of the poor as the self-described 'country doctor' of Manhattan's Lower East Side for nearly three decades, a period, beginning in 1969, when the neighborhood was infamous for urban squalor, died on Aug. 30 at his home in Leonia, N.J. He was 96." An obituary worth reading.