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The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

Washington Post: “An early Titian masterpiece — once looted by Napolean’s troops and a part of royal collections for centuries — caused a stir when it was stolen from the home of a British marquess in 1995. Seven years later, it was found inside an unassuming white and blue plastic bag at a bus stop in southwest London by an art detective, and returned. This week, the oil painting 'The Rest on the Flight into Egypt' sold for more than $22 million at Christie’s. It was a record for the Renaissance artist, whom museums describe as the greatest painter of 16th-century Venice. Ahead of the sale in April, the auction house billed it as 'the most important work by Titian to come to the auction market in more than a generation.'”

Washington Post: The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., which houses the world's largest collection of Shakespeare material, has undergone a major renovation. "The change to the building is pervasive, both subtle and transformational."

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A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. -- Edward R. Murrow

Publisher & Editor: Marie Burns


Friday
Jul232021

The Commentariat -- July 24, 2021

Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden made a gleeful return to the campaign trail on Friday evening, joining former Gov. Terry McAuliffe of Virginia, who is seeking to regain his old job in November, for his first campaign event since his inauguration. In a park in Arlington County, a short drive from Washington, Mr. Biden appeared to be back in his electoral element, shedding his necktie, whipping up the crowd and repeatedly casting Mr. McAuliffe as a crucial ally in his fight for a sprawling agenda to remake American capitalism.... Trading his more serene presidential demeanor for a fiery campaign one, Mr. Biden sought to tie the coming elections to his own political project. Instead of his typical practice in White House speeches of leaning into the microphone and whispering to emphasize his points, the president leaned in and shouted." ~~~

~~~ Turns Out Biden Remembers the Former Guy's Name. Christopher Cadelago & Zach Montellaro of Politico: }For six months, Joe Biden managed to mostly ignore his predecessor, viewing Donald Trump's lies and conspiracies as a distraction. But returning to the campaign trail Friday in Northern Virginia, the president rolled Trump into his emerging pitch for down-ballot Democrats. 'I ran against Donald Trump, and so is Terry,' Biden said at a rally for former Gov. Terry McAuliffe's comeback bid, joining in comparing his Republican opponent, Glenn Youngkin, to the former president. 'I whipped Donald Trump in Virginia, and so will Terry. Biden ... suggested Youngkin was 'an acolyte for Donald Trump -- for real.'"

Celine Castronuovo of the Hill: "President Biden has authorized up to $100 million in additional aid for Afghan refugees and those impacted by ongoing violence between the Taliban and Afghan forces as the U.S. nears completion of its goal to remove all its troops from the country. Biden announced the foreign aid in a memo from the White House Friday, citing a need for '>meeting unexpected urgent refugee and migration needs, victims of conflict, and other persons at risk as a result of the situation in Afghanistan, including applicants for Special Immigrant Visas.'"

Anne Gearan & Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "President Biden is expected to name Caroline Kennedy as the United States ambassador to Australia, according to people familiar with the selection.... Kennedy served as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 2013 to 2017 and is the daughter of President John F. Kennedy.... Kennedy's previous experience in Asia is likely to prove valuable as Australia finds itself facing an increasingly assertive China. Biden's choice of Kennedy was first reported Friday by CNN. The Washington Post confirmed it with officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity...."

Marie: Lawrence O'Donnell & Norm Ornstein, two political veterans who really know what they're talking about, asserted Friday night that Joe Biden is more-or-less faking it on his Adoration of the Filibuster until after the Senate deals with the infrastructure bills and that he'll amend his remarks when it comes to voting rights. I sure hope they're right, but I'm not counting my chickens.

When we last heard from Assistant FBI Director Jill Tyson, she was making excuses for Chris Wray's failure to address the fake "investigation" into Bart O'Kavanaugh's history of raunchy behavior. Now, there's this: ~~~

~~~ Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "A senior FBI official violated agency policies in her handling of a romantic relationship with a subordinate, according to findings of the Justice Department's inspector general, and the bureau's disciplinary office is now weighing what, if anything, to do about the findings, according to current and former law enforcement officials familiar with the matter. Jill C. Tyson, who has a close working relationship with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray..., was criticized in a report issued Thursday by Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. The inspector general did not name Tyson, but concluded that 'the Assistant Director was engaged in a romantic relationship with a subordinate and failed to timely report the relationship, in violation of FBI policy.'... The inspector general investigation 'also found that the Assistant Director allowed the relationship to negatively affect an appropriate and professional superior-subordinate relationship and to disrupt the workplace by interfering with the ability of other FBI employees to complete their work, and that the Assistant Director participated in a hiring or organizational decision involving the subordinate, all in violation of FBI policy.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Apparently "inappropriate sexual relationships" are not, generally speaking, of great concern to Tyson.

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Todd Frankel of the Washington Post: "At least a dozen profitable major U.S. companies ... paid little or no U.S. income tax in 2020 -- or, in some cases, over several years -- and today are active in industry groups that object to helping fund with taxes the same public projects they want to profit from, according to interviews and data compiled by The Washington Post.... These companies -- construction and engineering firms, along with manufacturers -- support a deal to fix America's crumbling bridges and antiquated water pipes that will give them a surge in new business. They also belong to industry groups that argue against raising corporate taxes to fund new infrastructure projects, claiming it will hurt their ability to compete against foreign firms -- three years after U.S. corporate tax bills were slashed to the lowest level in more than half a century. 'I think it's completely outrageous,' said Steven Rosenthal ... [of] the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center." (Also linked yesterday.)

Tanaya Macheel & Hannah Maio of CNBC: "U.S. equities rose Friday with the the major averages hitting new records as they overcame concerns about economic growth from earlier in the week. The Dow closed above 35,000 for the first time ever, bringing its gain for 2021 to more than 14%. The blue chip average rose 238.20 points, or 0.68%, to 35,061.55, gaining for a fourth straight day. It made the 1,000-point trek rather quickly, having closed above 34,000 for the first time ever back in mid-April. The S&P 500 gained 1.01% to 4,411.79 and the Nasdaq Composite climbed 1.04% to 14,836.99, both new closing highs for the benchmarks." A Washington Post story is here.

Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "Thomas J. Barrack Jr., a longtime Trump fund-raiser and friend, has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to be released on $250 million bond while awaiting trial on charges that he illegally lobbied the U.S. government on behalf of leaders in the United Arab Emirates. The agreement, announced on Friday, requires Mr. Barrack -- a wealthy investor who served as chairman of Mr. Trump's inaugural committee -- to wear a GPS location monitoring bracelet at all times, according to a Justice Department spokesman. The deal restricts his movements to Southern California, where he lives and works, and New York, where he has been charged. It also prohibits Mr. Barrack, who was arrested and detained in Los Angeles on Tuesday, from transferring money from his domestic accounts overseas. Prosecutors, citing his wealth and access to private jets, claimed he was a flight risk and pushed for the high bond." Politico's story, by Josh Gerstein, is here.

     ~~~ Via the Raw Story.

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Surprise, Surprise. Michael Luciano of Mediaite: "Last month, Tucker Carlson told his Fox News audience that the National Security Agency had been monitoring his communications 'in an attempt to take this show off the air.'... Now, The Record has reported, 'The NSA has found no evidence to support Tucker Carlson's accusations that the agency had been spying on him in an effort to knock his show off the air,' according to two sources the outlet spoke with. What the NSA did find was that Carlson had been mentioned by third parties in their communications, and that his name was revealed through 'unmasking,' whereby qualified government officials may request the divulgence of the identities of U.S. citizens who are mentioned in intelligence reports."

Marie: Oh, just read Katharine Seelye's NYT obituary of one-time journalist Laura Foreman. I hope Foreman's executors discover her unpublished autobiography among her papers.

Emily Heil of the Washington Post: "Once high-flying celebrity chef Mario Batali, his business partner Joseph Bastianich and their former restaurant company will pay $600,000 to more than 20 former employees, after a New York attorney general investigation found that management at three of their famed restaurants had suffered sexual harassment and discrimination."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

** Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times: "Biden administration health officials increasingly think that vulnerable populations will need booster shots even as research continues into how long the coronavirus vaccines remain effective. Senior officials now say they expect that people who are 65 and older or who have compromised immune systems will most likely need a third shot from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna, two vaccines based on the same technology that have been used to inoculate the vast majority of Americans thus far. That is a sharp shift from just a few weeks ago, when the administration said it thought there was not enough evidence to back boosters yet. On Thursday, a key official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [-- Dr. Amanda Cohn --] said the agency is exploring options to give patients with compromised immune systems third doses even before regulators broaden the emergency use authorization for coronavirus vaccines, a step that could come soon for the Pfizer vaccine."

Emmanuel Morgan of the New York Times: N.F.L. "Commissioner Roger Goodell on Thursday sent a memo to all 32 teams outlining Covid-19 guidelines for the 2021 season that detail drastic penalties for teams with unvaccinated personnel, including the forfeiture of games. Any forfeits could result in players' not being paid -- if their infections are known to have caused an outbreak. The N.F.L. ... will postpone contests only under government or medical orders. If an unvaccinated player or staff member is shown to have caused an outbreak that forces a schedule change, the team experiencing the outbreak will be held financially responsible for the other club's expenses, the memo said. If the game cannot be rescheduled, the team experiencing the outbreak will forfeit. For playoff-seeding purposes, that team will be credited with a loss, while the other will be credited with a win. If an outbreak occurs among vaccinated individuals in a 'breakthrough' infection, the N.F.L. will try to minimize the competitive and fiscal disruption for both teams. The terms of the memo were agreed upon with the N.F.L. Players Association, said Dawn Aponte, the league's chief football administrative officer." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As some pundit -- I think he was a former pro football player -- said on the teevee Friday, it's pretty ridiculous that big, tough pro players, who put their lives on the line every time they walk onto the field by risking injury, including permanent brain injury, are bent out about getting a couple of life-saving shots. ~~~

     ~~~ Courtney Cronin of ESPN: "After refusing to receive a vaccine for COVID-19, Rick Dennison is out as a Minnesota Vikings assistant coach, sources told ESPN on Friday.... Another coach in the league, New England Patriots co-offensive line coach Cole Popovich, also won't be with his team in 2021 in a decision related to the COVID-19 vaccine and NFL guidelines, league sources confirmed to ESPN. The vaccine is required for all Tier 1 staff, including coaches, front-office executives, equipment managers and scouts."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)

Dan Diamond & Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "Seven months after the first coronavirus shots were rolled out, vaccinated Americans -- including government, business and health leaders -- are growing frustrated that tens of millions of people are still refusing to get them, endangering themselves and their communities and fueling the virus's spread.... Despite the growing anger, including from some GOP officials, a number of prominent Republicans and conservative media voices continue to shower vaccines with skepticism, and social media disinformation continues largely unabated. 'The Biden administration wants to knock down your door KGB-style to force people to get vaccinated!' Rep. Jason T. Smith (R-Mo.) tweeted this month, distorting a new campaign to share information about the shots."

~~~ Alabama. Praise the Lord, Kay Saw the Light. Alabama. Quint Forgey of Politico: "Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued an impassioned plea for residents of her state to get vaccinated against Covid-19, arguing it was 'time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks' for the disease's continued spread. 'I want folks to get vaccinated. That's the cure. That prevents everything,' Ivey, a Republican, told reporters in Birmingham, Ala., on Thursday.... Ivey went on to describe the shots as 'safe' and 'effective,' saying: 'The data proves that it works. [It] doesn't cost you anything. It saves lives.'... Alabama remains the state with perhaps the lowest vaccination rate in the country...." (Also linked yesterday.)

Florida. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "A month ago, the number of Covid-19 patients admitted at two University of Florida hospitals in Jacksonville was down to 14. Now more than 140 people are hospitalized with the coronavirus ... -- and the highest number of Covid-19 patients this system has seen during the pandemic.... A national uptick in coronavirus cases has led ... to a steep rise in hospitalizations in some spots around the country where people have been slower to get vaccinated.... Nationally, hospitalizations remain relatively low, nowhere near earlier peaks of the pandemic. But in some regions with lagging vaccination rates and rising virus cases -- such as northeastern Florida, southwestern Missouri and southern Nevada -- the highly contagious Delta variant has flooded intensive care units and Covid-19 wards that, not long ago, had seen their patient counts shrink.... Florida, Missouri and Texas account for about 34 percent of all new cases nationwide."

Tennessee. Timothy Bella & Paulina Villegas of the Washington Post: "The state of Tennessee announced Friday that it will resume nearly all forms of coronavirus vaccine outreach for children and teenagers after advocacy was halted this month because of pressure from Republican legislators upset by the state health department's efforts to vaccinate minors. Tennessee Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey said at a news conference that the state will jump-start efforts to promote vaccination for adolescents as early as next week, including by offering the shots at events on school property.... Piercey also announced that health officials will provide vaccinations to minors without their parents' permission in what she described as 'fringed and nuanced' circumstances. Her statement Friday contradicted an announcement this week by state Republicans who claimed that Piercey privately agreed 'to stop vaccinating children for covid-19 without parental consent...,' according to the Tennessean newspaper." The Hill's story is here.

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Audra Burch & Sophie Kasakove of the New York Times: "As the search for bodies at the collapse site [of a Surfside high-rise condominium building] was officially declared over on Friday, Estelle Hedaya is the last believed -- and still unaccounted for -- casualty.... The search for the final remains -- believed to be Ms. Hedaya's -- would be done off-site, Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County, which includes Surfside, said in a statement this week."

** Tennessee. Good News/Idiotic News. Johnny Diaz of the New York Times: "After years of protests, the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the slave trader, Confederate general and early Ku Klux Klan leader, was removed from the State Capitol in Nashville on Friday and sent to the Tennessee State Museum, state officials said. The operation also included the removal of the busts of Adm. David Farragut, the first leader of the U.S. Navy, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and another Tennessean, Adm. Albert Gleaves, a commander in World War I and naval historian. The move came after the Tennessee State Building Commission, including Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, voted 5-2 on Thursday in favor of relocating all three busts. The removal of the two admirals was intended to avoid singling out the Confederate general.... Before the Civil War, Forrest owned, bought and sold slaves in Memphis. As a general, he led a notoriously gruesome massacre of surrendered Black and white Union troops at Fort Pillow in 1864. And after the South was defeated, he became the original grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan." MB: "You dock me one Confederate traitor; I'll dock you two American war heroes. And we're even."

Texas. Eva Moravec of the Washington Post: "Support is growing among Texas Republicans for a push to audit the results of the 2020 election in a state that former president Donald Trump won handily. But the proposal, introduced in the House earlier this month, would only re-examine votes in Texas's largest counties, most of which went for President Biden. The legislation, House Bill 241, calls for an independent third party appointed by the state's top GOP officials to conduct a forensic audit of results in counties with more than 415,000 people. Of the 13 counties that meet that criteria, 10 voted for Biden last year." (Also linked yesterday.)

Way Beyond

Haiti. Catherine Porter of the New York Times: "Heckled by protesters and surrounded by phalanxes of heavily armed guards, foreign diplomats and Haitian politicians attended the funeral of Haiti's assassinated president on Friday, a tense event that laid bare a fractured nation's problems instead of providing an opportunity for healing. Less than a half-hour into the funeral, foreign dignitaries including an American delegation led by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, departed over safety concerns set off by gunshots fired outside the event. White House officials said that the delegation members were safe and that they had flown back to the United States, cutting the trip short." The Guardian's story is here.

Japan. The New York Times' Olympic games updates Friday are here. (Also linked yesterday.) The Washington Post's live updates for Friday are here.

Comments Off
Thursday
Jul222021

The Commentariat -- July 23, 2021

Late Morning Update:

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

Alabama. Praise the Lord, Kay Saw the Light. Alabama. Quint Forgey of Politico: "Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey issued an impassioned plea for residents of her state to get vaccinated against Covid-19, arguing it was 'time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks' for the disease's continued spread. 'I want folks to get vaccinated. That's the cure. That prevents everything,' Ivey, a Republican, told reporters in Birmingham, Ala., on Thursday.... Ivey went on to describe the shots as 'safe' and 'effective,' saying: 'The data proves that it works. [It] doesn't cost you anything. It saves lives.'... Alabama remains the state with perhaps the lowest vaccination rate in the country...."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Todd Frankel of the Washington Post: "At least a dozen profitable major U.S. companies ... paid little or no U.S. income tax in 2020 -- or, in some cases, over several years -- and today are active in industry groups that object to helping fund with taxes the same public projects they want to profit from, according to interviews and data compiled by The Washington Post.... These companies -- construction and engineering firms, along with manufacturers -- support a deal to fix America's crumbling bridges and antiquated water pipes that will give them a surge in new business. They also belong to industry groups that argue against raising corporate taxes to fund new infrastructure projects, claiming it will hurt their ability to compete against foreign firms -- three years after U.S. corporate tax bills were slashed to the lowest level in more than half a century. 'I think it's completely outrageous," said Steven Rosenthal ... [of] the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center." ~~~

~~~ Speaking of Outrageous: ~~~

~~~ Texas. Eva Moravec of the Washington Post: "Support is growing among Texas Republicans for a push to audit the results of the 2020 election in a state that ... Donald Trump won handily. But the proposal, introduced in the House earlier this month, would only re-examine votes in Texas's largest counties, most of which went for President Biden. The legislation, House Bill 241, calls for an independent third party appointed by the state's top GOP officials to conduct a forensic audit of results in counties with more than 415,000 people. Of the 13 counties that meet that criteria, 10 voted for Biden last year."

The New York Times' Olympic games updates Friday are here.

~~~~~~~~~~

Katie Rogers & Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times: "A quiet divide between President Biden and the leaders of the voting rights movement burst into the open on Thursday, as 150 organizations urged him to use his political mettle to push for two expansive federal voting rights bills that would combat a Republican wave of balloting restrictions. In the letter, signed by civil rights groups including the Leadership Conference and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, activists argued that with the 'ideal of bipartisan cooperation on voting rights' nowhere to be found in a sharply divided Senate, Mr. Biden must 'support the passage of these bills by whatever means necessary.'... Republicans have passed roughly 30 laws in states across the country this year that are likely to make voting harder, especially in Black and Latino communities, which lean Democratic. Several of the laws give state legislators more power over how elections are run and make it easier to challenge the results. In a fiery speech in Philadelphia last week, Mr. Biden warned that the G.O.P. effort was the 'most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War.' But ... Mr. Biden ... has faced calls to push Democratic senators to eliminate the filibuster, which would allow the two major voting bills proposed by th party to pass with a simple majority." ~~~

~~~ Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: President "Biden's answer [in yesterday's town hall about why the Senate should preserve the filibuster] was weak and unrealistic.... The arguments in favor of eliminating the filibuster are almost absurdly overwhelming, but they haven't managed to change many minds in the Senate.... You get change not by convincing politicians to do the right thing for its own sake, but by altering the political landscape in such a way that the path you want them to take winds up being the only logical choice for them.... The reality is that the only way Democrats will get filibuster reform -- and thereby get action on the rest of their agenda -- is to elect enough Democrats to the Senate so that they don't need Manchin and Sinema's votes on the question.... That's what would produce change. And Biden? He'd go right along with it, no matter what he says now." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Unfortunately, what Waldman suggests -- democracy from the bottom up -- is nearly as pie-in-the-sky as Biden's filibuster dreams. There's a circular problem here: if the Senate doesn't pass voting rights legislation, then many Democratic-leaning Americans will be deprived of the right to vote, and, obviously, if Democrats can't vote, Republicans will win elections & will continue to put tighter & tighter squeezes on Democratic voters. AND Republicans will choose the judges & justices who are inclined to go along with the plan. When you insist on minority rule, even when you're in the majority, there's an awfully good chance you'll get minority rule. Nice work, Joe!

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions against Cuba's defense minister and a special forces unit of the Interior Ministry it said was directly involved in human rights abuses during a government crackdown on widespread protests on the island this month. President Biden said in a statement that the measures were 'just the beginning' of efforts to sanction 'individuals responsible for the oppression of the Cuban people.' The measures were unveiled as Biden faces increasing pressure from Congress, activist groups and Cuban Americans to take decisive action in support of protesters on the island." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) Politico's story is here.

Becky Sullivan, et al., of NPR: "CIA Director William Burns says he has redoubled the agency's efforts to uncover the cause of Havana syndrome -- the mysterious set of ailments that has afflicted more than 200 U.S. officials and family members around the world. That includes the assignment of a senior officer who once led the hunt for Osama bin Laden to lead the investigation and tripling the size of a medical team involved in the probe, Burns told NPR on Thursday in his first sit-down interview since being confirmed as the agency's chief in March." A transcript of the full interview, conducted by NPR's Mary Louise Kelly, is here.

Jennifer Steinhauer & John Ismay of the New York Times: "Long before the Biden administration pledged to evacuate thousands of Afghan interpreters and others at risk of Taliban reprisals, military veterans were laboring to get their trusted partners to the United States. These private efforts -- often spurred by desperate WhatsApp and Facebook messages from former colleagues in Afghanistan -- have taken on renewed urgency as U.S. and NATO forces complete their withdrawal from the country, and Taliban fighters take over large swaths of land. Passage for thousands of Afghans was promised under two special visa programs, but the documentation and security requirements have bedeviled many applicants. The House voted on Thursday to speed up the process and increase the number of visas available, but the bill faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where there is bipartisan support for the visa program but issues over funding."

Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department on Thursday began putting in place a plan to reduce violent crime in the nation's largest cities, detailing the work of five federal strike forces aimed at disrupting illegal gun traffickers who flood urban streets with illicit firearms. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland traveled to Chicago, where one of the strike forces will be located, to highlight the plan and underscore the Biden administration's efforts to curb the spread of illegal firearms.... [Garland] also appealed to lawmakers, who have not yet confirmed President Biden's nominee to lead the [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives], David Chipman. 'A.T.F. is on the front lines of our efforts to battle gun violence," Mr. Garland said. "We are very hopeful that the Senate will soon act.'"

GOP: The Party of White Supremacists & Tax Cheats. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "The Treasury Department believes that there is a 'tax gap,' taxes owed but not paid, of more than $500 billion every year; some estimates put the number much higher. And the Biden administration proposes giving the I.R.S. enough resources to reduce this gap as a way to help pay for investment in America's future. But if the administration goes this route, it will apparently do so with little if any Republican support.... I'm not surprised to learn that a significant number of senators are sympathetic to the interests of wealthy tax cheats.... I am, however, surprised that they are willing to be so open about their sympathies.... Maybe one way to understand the opposition to strengthening the I.R.S. is that it represents an unholy alliance between white supremacists and tax cheats. Is this country amazing, or what?"

Melanie Zanona & Manu Raju of CNN: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is weighing new ways to help beef up the bipartisan credibility of an investigation into the deadly Capitol riots -- an issue that has taken on renewed importance after the GOP walked out on the January 6 select committee.With extra seats on the panel, Pelosi is now seriously considering naming GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois to the committee, multiple sources tell CNN.... And the speaker is also looking to potentially hire a Republican as an outside adviser or staffer for the committee, sources tell CNN. Former Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Virginia Republican and former intelligence officer who has been an outspoken critic of ... Donald Trump, was seen heading into the speaker's office for a meeting Thursday afternoon."

Tom Jackman of the Washington Post: "J. Thomas Manger, who spent 21 years as a police chief in the wealthy Washington suburbs of Montgomery and Fairfax counties, was named Thursday to take over the U.S. Capitol Police as it tries to regain its footing in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.... Manger was selected by three members of the Capitol Police Board -- the sergeant-at-arms of the House and the Senate, and the architect of the Capitol -- as well as top congressional leaders, who oversee the police department. He succeeds Chief Steven A. Sund, who resigned days after the insurrection amid heavy criticism of the department's lack of preparation, and interim chief Yogananda D. Pittman, who was head of Capitol Police intelligence before Jan. 6."

Shannon Bond of NPR: "Democratic senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would hold Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies responsible for the proliferation of falsehoods about vaccines, fake cures and other harmful health-related claims on their sites. Co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the Health Misinformation Act targets a provision in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects platforms from being held liable for what their users post in most cases. The bill would strip the companies of that legal shield if their algorithms promote health misinformation during a public health crisis."

Richard Pildes, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that the two-year Congressional term is a major reason Congress doesn't get anything done. MB: Frankly, I find his thesis about as useful as "We must keep the filibuster so everything will be great." In both arguments, there is no acknowledgment of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy & their ilk. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Calling Roe v. Wade 'egregiously wrong,' Mississippi's attorney general urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to do away with the constitutional right to abortion and to sustain a state law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court will hear arguments in the case in the fall, giving its newly expanded conservative majority a chance to confront what may be the most divisive issue in American law: whether the Constitution protects the right to end pregnancies. Lower courts blocked the Mississippi statute, calling it a cynical and calculated assault on abortion rights squarely at odds with Supreme Court precedents. The justices agreed to hear the case in May, just months after Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who has said she personally opposes abortion, joined the court." CNN's report is here.

Oliver Darcy of CNN: "A reporter at The Washington Post filed a lawsuit Thursday against the newspaper, its former top editor, and other senior leaders, alleging she was subject to unlawful discrimination after publicly saying that she had been the victim of sexual assault. The reporter, Felicia Sonmez, had previously said that she had been prohibited from covering stories about sexual misconduct because she had been outspoken about being a sexual assault survivor herself. As a national politics reporter, the ban had kept her from writing stories about how the #MeToo movement had upended politics, such as the allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process. The ban was eventually lifted earlier this year, the lawsuit said, after Sonmez criticized the newspaper both privately and in public over the policy. It was instituted during the tenure of former Executive Editor Marty Baron, who retired from the paper in February." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Assuming Sonmez's allegations are true, the Post's position is nonsensical. It's likely every one of the paper's Black reporters has been subjected to racial discrimination. Has the paper refused to allow Black staff to write about racism? Men in positions of power, who wouldn't dream of, say, preventing Jewish men from writing about anti-Semitic behavior, have put women in a special place because our delicate (hysterical) sensibilities don't allow us to think rationally about matters that affect us personally.

So Let Us Now Revisit the "Investigation" of Bart O'Kavanaugh. Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "Nearly three years after Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the F.B.I. has disclosed more details about its efforts to review the justice's background, leading a group of Senate Democrats to question the thoroughness of the vetting and conclude that it was shaped largely by the Trump White House. In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most 'relevant' of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh's past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear. The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads.... Ms. Tyson's letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray.... Ms. Tyson's letter, Mr. Whitehouse said [in an interview], suggested that the F.B.I. ran a 'fake tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.' Mr. Whitehouse and six of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the F.B.I.'s letter on Wednesday with demands for additional details...." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) An NBC News story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe if Feliciz Sonmez had been on the beat, the public would have got some better answers timely. ~~~

We apologize for the extended delay in responding. -- Jill Tyson, FBI Assistant Director, letter to Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse & Christopher Coons

Extended delay -- ya think? An extended delay in responding to a senatorial inquiry is two months, not almost two years. -- Ruth Marcus ~~~

     ~~~ Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "The more significant part [of Tyson's letter] comes at the end of the letter: 'The Security Division section handling the [background investigation] and supplemental background investigation provided all relevant tips to the Office of White House Counsel.'... What did then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn do with the 'relevant tips?'... not a damn thing.... The vaunted tip line was, in fact, a funnel to nowhere.... The FBI's investigation into sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh wasn't designed ... to satisfy enough disquieted senators -- Republicans Jeff Flake of Arizona, Susan Collins of Maine -- to get Kavanaugh across the finish line." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Marcus doesn't say so, but McGahn was the guy charged with shepherding Kavanaugh through the confirmation process. It's as if the only party who was privy to evidence in a murder case was the defendant's lawyer.

Jamelle Bouie of the New York Times: "On Tuesday, the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States sat for its third public meeting. Formed in April by executive order, the 36-member commission exists to hear arguments for and against Supreme Court reform and to analyze and appraise the merits of specific proposals.... Its members come from the upper echelon of the legal elite -- exactly the people most comfortable with the institutional status quo on the Supreme Court.... It may not offer needed reforms, but in its three meetings so far it has already served as a valuable platform for scholars with a cleareyed view of the court.... In his written testimony, for example, Nikolas Bowie, an assistant professor of law at Harvard, takes aim at the idea of the Supreme Court as a defender of the rights of vulnerable minorities. That, he says, is a comforting myth.... 'As a matter of historical practice,; Bowie writes, 'the Court has wielded an antidemocratic influence on American law, one that has undermined federal attempts to eliminate hierarchies of race, wealth, and status.'"

The Big Grifter Keeps on Grifting. Josh Dawsey & Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's political PAC raised about $75 million in the first half of this year as he trumpeted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen from him, but the group has not devoted funds to help finance the ongoing ballot review in Arizona or to push for similar endeavors in other states, according to people familiar with the finances. Instead, the Save America leadership PAC -- which has few limits on how it can spend its money -- has paid for some of the former president's travel, legal costs and staff, along with other expenses, according to the people.... The PAC has held onto much of its cash. Even as he assiduously tracks attempts by his allies to cast doubt on the integrity of last year's election, Trump has been uninterested in personally bankrolling the efforts, relying on other entities and supporters to fund the endeavors, they said." Emphasis added.

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "Americans deserve to know if [Trump pal Tom] Barrack essentially sold his investors influence over the foreign policy of the United States. The market for Trump scandal may be glutted, but when it comes to the role of foreign money in the last administration, there's no shortage of mysteries.... If the allegations in the Barrack indictment are true, it means that while an adviser to the Emirates was offering the Trump campaign election help.... Throughout his presidency, Trump could scarcely have been a more accommodating ally to the Emirates and to Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was a protégé of Prince Mohammed bin Zayed[, the Emirates' de facto ruler]."

Steph Bazzle of the Hill Reporter: "In an audio clip from a new book [by Carol Leonnig & Phil Rucker], Donald Trump seemed to skate right up to the edge of admitting that January's insurrection attempt, carried out by his fans who hoped to overturn the election in his favor, after he called on them to march to the Capitol Building and fight for him, was actually an attack on American democracy, before he veered away to point a blaming finger at Capitol Police.... In the interview, Leonnig asks [Trump] what he wanted, what his goal was, when he stood on a stage and told his supporters to fight for him. Trump responds, saying, 'Not to go in, although they were ushered in by police.' After a few moments of attacking Capitol Police for their role in the attack, Trump turns back to the question: 'Personally what I wanted is what they wanted.' Bear in mind that what the attackers wanted, in their own words, included the deaths of both Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi, as well as overturning the outcome of the election." Includes audio (in the embedded Recount tweet).

Did You Have Trouble with Internet Access Thursday? It Wasn't You. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Another massive Internet outage along the East Coast struck significant online platforms Thursday, causing many high-traffic websites like Amazon, Airbnb, FedEx and Delta Air Lines to go dark. According to the tracking website Downdetector, sites such as UPS, USAA, Home Depot, HBO Max and Costco were among those affected by the outage. Other sites like British Airways, Go Daddy, Fidelity, Vanguard and AT&T were among those loading slowly. The cause of the outage, the latest in a series of major global Internet outages this summer, is not immediately clear." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

** Tara Parker-Pope of the New York Times: "While being fully vaccinated protects against serious illness and hospitalization from Covid-19, no vaccine offers 100 percent protection. As long as large numbers of people remain unvaccinated and continue to spread coronavirus, vaccinated people will be exposed to the Delta variant, and a small percentage of them will develop so-called breakthrough infections. Here are answers to common questions about how you can protect yourself and lower your risk for a breakthrough infection."

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Chinese officials said on Thursday that they were shocked and offended by a World Health Organization proposal to further investigate whether the coronavirus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, exposing a widening rift over the inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. Senior Chinese health and science officials pushed back vigorously against the idea of opening the Wuhan Institute of Virology to renewed investigation after the W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, laid out plans to examine laboratories in the central city of Wuhan, where the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in late 2019." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

MEANWHILE, in GOP AntiVaxLand, Sean Hannity who Wednesday said, "It absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated. I believe in science, I believe in the science of vaccination," backtracked Thursday & said, "I'm not urging people to get the COVID-19 vaccine, because I'm not a doctor." AND among our fine elected representatives, Dr. Ronnie Jackson (R-Texas) (the former White House physician) tried to shame his Democratic colleagues and the media by complaining to reporters that they never asked Democrats for saying whether or not they've been vaccinated against Covid-19. But several media outlets did ask every Democratic House member, and the answer was always "yes."

Beyond the Beltway

Alabamy Is Still Alabamy. CBS/AP: "Tarrant City Council member Tommy Bryant, [who is white, was] captured on video using a racial slur toward Black people during a council meeting said he won't apologize, and might run for mayor. Others are calling for his resignation.... During a public session, Bryant used the slur to refer to a Black female council member, Veronica Freeman. Before the outburst, neighbors asked Bryant about controversial social media posts allegedly made by his wife about race, CBS affiliate WIAT-TV reports. After being questioned, Bryant stood up and can be heard saying: 'The n-word. The n-word. Let's get to the n-word. Hey. Do we have a house n***** in here? Do we? Hey. Would she please stand up?' Bryant said. Some in the audience gasped at his use of the slur, which was broadcast on Facebook Live, and Freeman left crying, but Bryant was unapologetic." Bryant claimed he was just repeating what Mayor Wayman Newman, who is Black, said in a private meeting. Newman denied Bryant's claim. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

California. Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times: "A Southern California couple are facing manslaughter charges in connection with a deadly wildfire last September that prosecutors say was sparked by a smoke bomb during a gender reveal. The El Dorado Fire, which began at a park in Yucaipa, Calif., killed a firefighter and injured two other firefighters while burning more than 22,000 acres across San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. A grand jury indicted the couple, Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez, on one count each of involuntary manslaughter, San Bernardino County's district attorney, Jason Anderson, said at a news conference on Tuesday. They also face three felony counts of recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, four felony counts of recklessly causing a fire to inhabited structures and 22 misdemeanor counts. About half of wildfires in the Western United States are caused by people -- from downed power lines, discarded cigarettes, untended campfires -- while the other half are started by lightning." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Georgia. Isaac Stanley-Becker of the Washington Post: "Comcast was one of several companies that raised alarm about the voting restrictions [in Georgia Republicans' sweeping voter suppression law] but then contributed more than $20,000 collectively between April and June of this year to Georgia politicians who voted for or publicly defended the legislation, according to an examination by Advance Democracy, a nonprofit research group headed by Daniel J. Jones, a former FBI analyst who led the Senate investigation into the CIA's use of torture after the 9/11 terrorist attacks."

Missouri. Jason Rosenbaum & Rachel Lippmann of NPR: "Thursday, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that an additional 275,000 low-income individuals in the state are again eligible for publicly-funded health care. Missouri voters successfully pushed through a state constitutional amendment on the ballot last August to adopt Medicaid expansion, but the Republican-dominated legislature refused to implement it, prompting Gov. Mike Parson, also a Republican, to pull the plug on plans to bolster the health care program."

Pennsylvania. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania's acting secretary of state has decertified a county's voting system for future elections after it was subjected to a review by a private company in an effort promoted by a group of state senators supporting ... Donald Trump's baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Acting secretary of state Veronica W. Degraffenreid said in a statement Wednesday that Wake TSI's examination of the Fulton County ballots earlier this year violated the state's election code.... According to a statement from Degraffenreid's office, Fulton County officials allowed Wake TSI, of West Chester, Pa., 'to access certain key components of its certified system, including the county's election database, results files, and Windows systems logs. The county officials also allowed the company to use a system imaging tool to take complete hard drive images of these computers and other digital equipment.' The statement called Wake TSI 'a company with no knowledge or expertise in election technology.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Here's hoping the local elections officials who allowed those wingnuts to paw over the voting equipment get "decertified," too.

Way Beyond

Dubai. Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: When "Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum, the 32-year-old daughter of Dubai's fearsome ruler ... -- Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the United Arab Emirates' prime minister, vice president and minister of defense -- [failed to escape her father's realm despite making elaborate plans to do so, people wondered how] ... the princess [had] been found. An investigation by The Washington Post and an international consortium of news organizations may offer critical new insight: Latifa's number and those of her friends appear on a list that includes phones targeted for surveillance with Pegasus, the hacking tool from the Israeli spyware giant NSO Group, amid the sprint to track her down.... In the year after Latifa's chase, operatives appear to have entered numbers onto the list for another Dubai princess." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Japan. The New York Times is liveblogging the Olympics. Here are the entries for Thursday: "Just a day before the opening ceremony of the delayed Tokyo Olympics, organizers of the Games dismissed Kentaro Kobayashi, the creative director of the ceremony, after video footage emerged of him making fun of the Holocaust in a comedic act in the 1990s. At a press briefing on Thursday, Japan's Olympics minister, Seiko Hashimoto, sounding beleaguered after a run of scandals that have plagued the Games and the creative staff of the opening ceremony in particular, said she had learned about the routine on Wednesday. In the skit, Kobayashi joked about 'massacring Jews' while miming the act of cutting up human figures made of paper. The organizing committee, she said, decided to dismiss him 'immediately.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

News Ledes

New York Times: "Kathy Andrade, a longtime garment union activist in New York City and a native of El Salvador who pushed the labor movement to embrace immigrants rather than view them as threatening the livelihoods of American-born workers, died on July 2 in Manhattan. She was 88."

Washington Post: "Another heat wave is set to park over the Lower 48 next week, bringing anomalous summertime heat to parts of the central and eastern United States that may have missed out on previous events. Early estimates indicate that most of the contiguous United States will see highs running 10 to 15 degrees above average. When combined with climbing humidity, it'll feel like it's well into the triple digits for millions. The pattern could also spark severe thunderstorms, perhaps packing strong winds, that could roll through the northern Great Lakes and New England during late July and August."

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Wednesday
Jul212021

The Commentariat -- July 22, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Did You Have Trouble with Internet Access Today? It Wasn't You. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Another massive Internet outage along the East Coast struck significant online platforms Thursday, causing many high-traffic websites like Amazon Airbnb, FedEx and Delta Air Lines to go dark. According to the tracking website Downdetector, sites such as UPS, USAA, Home Depot, HBO Max and Costco were among those affected by the outage. Other sites like British Airways, Go Daddy, Fidelity, Vanguard and AT&T were among those loading slowly. The cause of the outage, the latest in a series of major global Internet outages this summer, is not immediately clear."

Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: President "Biden's answer [in yesterday's town hall about why the Senate should preserve the filibuster] was weak and unrealistic.... The arguments in favor of eliminating the filibuster are almost absurdly overwhelming, but they haven't managed to change many minds in the Senate.... You get change not by convincing politicians to do the right thing for its own sake, but by altering the political landscape in such a way that the path you want them to take winds up being the only logical choice for them.... The reality is that the only way Democrats will get filibuster reform -- and thereby get action on the rest of their agenda -- is to elect enough Democrats to the Senate so that they don't need Manchin and Sinema's votes on the question.... That's what would produce change. And Biden? He'd go right along with it, no matter what he says now." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Unfortunately, what Waldman suggests -- democracy from the bottom up -- is nearly as pie-in-the-sky as Biden's filibuster dreams. There's a circular problem here: if the Senate doesn't pass voting rights legislation, then many Democratic-leaning Americans will be deprived of the right to vote, and, obviously, if Democrats can't vote, Republicans will win elections & will continue to put tighter & tighter squeezes on Democratic voters. AND Republicans will choose the judges & justices who are inclined to go along with the plan. When you insist on minority rule, even when you're in the majority, there's an awfully good chance you'll get minority rule. Nice work, Joe!

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration will announce new sanctions Thursday against a number of Cuban officials deemed directly involved in human rights abuses during a government crackdown on widespread protests earlier this month, a senior administration official said. Imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, the sanctions will initially affect what officials said were a small number of individuals from Cuba's Interior Ministry and military forces. The measures come as President Biden faces increasing pressure from Congress, activist groups and Cuban Americans to take decisive action in support of the protesters."

Richard Pildes, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that the two-year Congressional term is a major reason Congress doesn't get anything done. MB: Frankly, I find his thesis about as useful as "We must keep the filibuster so everything will be great." In both arguments, there is no acknowledgment of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy & their ilk.

Oliver Darcy of CNN: "A reporter at The Washington Post filed a lawsuit Thursday against the newspaper, its former top editor, and other senior leaders, alleging she was subject to unlawful discrimination after publicly saying that she had been the victim of sexual assault. The reporter, Felicia Sonmez, had previously said that she had been prohibited from covering stories about sexual misconduct because she had been outspoken about being a sexual assault survivor herself. As a national politics reporter, the ban had kept her from writing stories about how the #MeToo movement had upended politics, such as the allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process. The ban was eventually lifted earlier this year, the lawsuit said, after Sonmez criticized the newspaper both privately and in public over the policy. It was instituted during the tenure of former Executive Editor Marty Baron, who retired from the paper in February." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Assuming Sonmez's allegations are true, the Post's position is nonsensical. It's likely every one of the paper's Black reporters has been subjected to racial discrimination. Has the paper refused to allow Black staff to write about racism? Men in positions of power, who wouldn't dream of, say, preventing Jewish men from writing about anti-Semitic behavior, have put women in a special place because our delicate (hysterical) sensibilities don't allow us to think rationally about matters that affect us personally.

So Let Us Now Revisit the "Investigation" of Bart O'Kavanaugh. Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "Nearly three years after Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the F.B.I. has disclosed more details about its efforts to review the justice's background, leading a group of Senate Democrats to question the thoroughness of the vetting and conclude that it was shaped largely by the Trump White House. In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most 'relevant' of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh's past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear. The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads.... Ms. Tyson's letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray.... Ms. Tyson's letter, Mr. Whitehouse said [in an interview], suggested that the F.B.I. ran a 'fake tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.' Mr. Whitehouse and six of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the F.B.I.'s letter on Wednesday with demands for additional details...." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Maybe if Feliciz Sonmez had been on the beat, the public would have got some better answers timely.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Chinese officials said on Thursday that they were shocked and offended by a World Health Organization proposal to further investigate whether the coronavirus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, exposing a widening rift over the inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. Senior Chinese health and science officials pushed back vigorously against the idea of opening the Wuhan Institute of Virology to renewed investigation after the W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, laid out plans to examine laboratories in the central city of Wuhan, where the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in late 2019."

Alabamy Is Still Alabamy. CBS/AP: "Tarrant City Council member Tommy Bryant, [who is white, was] captured on video using a racial slur toward Black people during a council meeting said he won't apologize, and might run for mayor. Others are calling for his resignation.... During a public session, Bryant used the slur to refer to a Black female council member, Veronica Freeman. Before the outburst, neighbors asked Bryant about controversial social media posts allegedly made by his wife about race, CBS affiliate WIAT-TV reports. After being questioned, Bryant stood up and can be heard saying: 'The n-word. The n-word. Let's get to the n-word. Hey. Do we have a house n***** in here? Do we? Hey. Would she please stand up?' Bryant said. Some in the audience gasped at his use of the slur, which was broadcast on Facebook Live, and Freeman left crying, but Bryant was unapologetic." Bryant claimed he was just repeating what Mayor Wayman Newman, who is Black, said in a private meeting. Newman denied Bryant's claim.

California. Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times: "A Southern California couple are facing manslaughter charges in connection with a deadly wildfire last September that prosecutors say was sparked by a smoke bomb during a gender reveal. The El Dorado Fire, which began at a park in Yucaipa, Calif., killed a firefighter and injured two other firefighters while burning more than 22,000 acres across San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. A grand jury indicted the couple, Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez, on one count each of involuntary manslaughter, San Bernardino County's district attorney, Jason Anderson, said at a news conference on Tuesday. They also face three felony counts of recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, four felony counts of recklessly causing a fire to inhabited structures and 22 misdemeanor counts. About half of wildfires in the Western United States are caused by people -- from downed power lines, discarded cigarettes, untended campfires -- while the other half are started by lightning."

Pennsylvania. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania's acting secretary of state has decertified a county's voting system for future elections after it was subjected to a review by a private company in an effort promoted by a group of state senators supporting ... Donald Trump's baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Acting secretary of state Veronica W. Degraffenreid said in a statement Wednesday that Wake TSI's examination of the Fulton County ballots earlier this year violated the state's election code.... According to a statement from Degraffenreid's office, Fulton County officials allowed Wake TSI, of West Chester, Pa., 'to access certain key components of its certified system, including the county's election database, results files, and Windows systems logs. The county officials also allowed the company to use a system imaging tool to take complete hard drive images of these computers and other digital equipment.' The statement called Wake TSI 'a company with no knowledge or expertise in election technology.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Here's hoping the local elections officials who allowed those wingnuts to paw over the voting equipment get "decertified," too.

The New York Times is liveblogging the Olympics. Here are the entries for Thursday: "Just a day before the opening ceremony of the delayed Tokyo Olympics, organizers of the Games dismissed Kentaro Kobayashi, the creative director of the ceremony, after video footage emerged of him making fun of the Holocaust in a comedic act in the 1990s. At a press briefing on Thursday, Japan's Olympics minister, Seiko Hashimoto, sounding beleaguered after a run of scandals that have plagued the Games and the creative staff of the opening ceremony in particular, said she had learned about the routine on Wednesday. In the skit, Kobayashi joked about 'massacring Jews' while miming the act of cutting up human figures made of paper. The organizing committee, she said, decided to dismiss him 'immediately.'"

Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: When "Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum, the 32-year-old daughter of Dubai's fearsome ruler ... -- Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the United Arab Emirates' prime minister, vice president and minister of defense — [failed to escape her father's realm despite making elaborate plans to do so, people wondered how] ... the princess [had] been found. An investigation by The Washington Post and an international consortium of news organizations may offer critical new insight: Latifa's number and those of her friends appear on a list that includes phones targeted for surveillance with Pegasus, the hacking tool from the Israeli spyware giant NSO Group, amid the sprint to track her down.... In the year after Latifa's chase, operatives appear to have entered numbers onto the list for another Dubai princess."

~~~~~~~~~~

Marianna Sotomayor & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) picks to serve on the Jan. 6 select committee, saying the outspoken Republicans may jeopardize 'the integrity of the investigation.' McCarthy announced Monday that he would recommend Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks (R-Ind.), noting that the two Republicans and three others represent an array of viewpoints and opinions. Both Jordan and Banks voted against certifying the election of President Biden.... Pelosi, who as speaker has final say on who can serve on a committee that is set to hold its first hearing Tuesday, said that she was 'prepared to appoint Representatives Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong and Troy E. Nehls.'... In response, McCarthy issued his own statement Wednesday afternoon in which he slammed Pelosi for 'an egregious abuse of power' he believes 'will irreparably damage this institution.&" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Here's Speaker Pelosi's statement. ~~~

     ~~~ SO THEN. Scott Wong & Mike Lillis of the Hill: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has decided not to participate in the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol, yanking all of his GOP picks in protest of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) decision to reject two top Republicans." (Also linked yesterday.)~~~

     ~~~ Luke Broadwater & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Representative Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday pulled five Republicans from a select committee investigating the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol after Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the unusual step of barring two of ... Donald J. Trump's closest allies in Congress from the panel, citing concerns that they would disrupt its work. A visibly agitated Mr. McCarthy called a rushed news conference to condemn Ms. Pelosi's decision and accused her of excessive partisanship. He pledged to carry out a Republican-only investigation into the events of Jan. 6 -- and focus on whether Ms. Pelosi could have done more to protect the Capitol from violent supporters of Mr. Trump." ~~~

~~~ Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) explains to Kevin why Speaker Pelosi had to dump Jordan & Banks: ~~~

~~~ Marie: I was going to mention that Chris Cillizza is among the most useless, superficial pundits on the teevee, but I'll let Yastreblyansky, writing on Steve M.'s No More Mister Nice Blog, do it for me. Also see Tom Hilton's post, same site, same topic.

All They Do Is Obstruct. Tony Romm, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans on Wednesday threatened to vote against an increase to the debt ceiling unless Congress first agrees to new spending cuts or other measures, raising the potential for a major political showdown that could carry vast implications for both the global economy as well as President Biden's agenda. The new ultimatum marked a reversal for Republicans, who agreed to address the debt ceiling -- the statutory amount the government can borrow to pay its bills -- multiple times to advance policies under ... Donald Trump that helped add $7 trillion to the federal debt during his term."

That Went Well: Republicans Filibuster "Bipartisan" Infrastructure Bill. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Republicans blocked the Senate on Wednesday from taking up an emerging bipartisan infrastructure plan, raising doubts about the fate of a major piece of President Biden's agenda even as negotiators continued to seek a compromise. The failed vote underscored the intense mistrust between the two parties, which has complicated the effort to complete a deal. Both Republicans and Democrats in the group seeking a deal say they are still making progress toward agreement on a package with nearly $600 billion in new funds for roads, bridges, rail, transit and other infrastructure, which could be the first major infusion of federal public works spending since the 2009 stimulus law." The report goes on to describe some of the inter-party bickering. ~~~

~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Economist Mark Zandi [of Moody's] is set to release a new report arguing that the country needs passage of the full package of Democratic proposals, to ensure that the recovery reaches its full potential.... Zandi's report concludes that concerns about inflation are 'likely misplaced' and 'overdone.'... The report concludes that both infrastructure and jobs bills being debated in Congress are essential.... [Zandi makes] a striking endorsement of a major argument for the package: that we have spent decades underinvesting in public programs of all kinds. Expenditures on both 'hard' and 'human' infrastructure will rectify this.... This Zandi report probably won't move most Senate Republicans, since many will see these benefits as arguments against supporting the package. And their warnings of inflation are not good-faith macroeconomic arguments; they're intended to trigger vague fears of Big Government and suggest liberal governance is running the country off the rails." (Also linked yesterday.)

Biden Gets Everything Ass-backwards Here. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "President Biden on Wednesday night defended the filibuster, a procedural tactic that stands to hold up much of his agenda in the Senate, even as he reiterated that he viewed it as a relic of Jim Crow. 'There's no reason to protect it other than you're going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done,' he said at a CNN Town Hall in Cincinnati.... Mr. Biden said there was too much at stake to risk that level of 'chaos' that a fight over the filibuster would ignite, including voting rights legislation he still wants to see passed. He also said waging a war against the filibuster would play into the hands of Republicans seeking to hold up his agenda. 'Wouldn't my friends on the other side love to have a debate about the filibuster instead of passing the Recovery Act?' he said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Sorry, Joe, nothing is getting done because of the filibuster. If you've presented you best argument here, then you've demonstrated there is no argument for preserving the filibuster.

Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "President Biden will nominate Comcast executive David Cohen to serve as ambassador to Canada and Victoria Kennedy, the widow of former senator Edward M. 'Ted' Kennedy (D-Mass.), to serve as ambassador to Austria, the White House announced Wednesday. Biden will also nominate Jamie Harpootlian, the wife of Dick Harpootlian, a longtime Biden donor and friend, to serve as ambassador to Slovenia.... The president has continued the tradition of rewarding longtime friends and donors with foreign postings, even as the White House has vowed to nominate a more diverse group of people and have a higher percentage of career Foreign Service officers serve as ambassadors than in previous administrations."

Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a long-awaited directive Wednesday seeking to limit political influence on law enforcement matters by strictly limiting contacts between Justice Department personnel and the White House. The memo follows through on campaign pledges by then-candidate Joe Biden to reestablish the department's independence after a series of episodes where ... Donald Trump publicly and privately complained about prosecutors' decisions, urging them to lay off his friends and target his political enemies. Garland did not mention those instances in his five-page memo, but did speak of the importance of preserving the Justice Department's public reputation."

Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: Tom "Barrack allegedly used his close relationship with Trump to push UAE-sought actions on both the campaign and during the first two years of the administration. The Fortune op-ed was the product of direct input from Emirati officials, the indictment alleges.... What is clear from the indictment is that Barrack and the other indictees claim credit for virtually every interchange between Trump and the UAE, whose government quickly became a Trump favorite.... Most prominent among the policy impacts of Barrack's alleged lobbying are events preceding and following the decision of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to break relations with Qatar ... in 2017." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: DeYoung describes Barrack's alleged crime as "failing to register as a foreign agent." However, Rachel Maddow said Wednesday night that the characterization is a mistake, that Barrack instead was charged under a more serious law against acting as a foreign agent, the same law that got Maria Butina jailed, then deported. As Maddow said, Evan Perez, et al., makes the same mistake in the linked story that follows. The DOJ's public statement seems to back up Maddow. If so, the WashPo & CNN should correct their reporting. ~~~

~~~ Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn investigating Tom Barrack, a prominent ally to ... Donald Trump, for allegedly violating foreign lobbying laws had enough evidence to bring charges last year, but held off doing so until the arrival of the new presidential administration, according to people briefed on the matter. Prosecutors wanted to move forward on the case and believed they could obtain an indictment, one source familiar with the matter said. The source said the investigation was mostly done well before the time period when prosecutors are discouraged from advancing politically sensitive matters ahead of an election. But two sources tell CNN the US attorney in Brooklyn at the time, Richard Donoghue, expressed misgivings about the case. It's unclear if he delayed the case outright or if prosecutors chose not to move forward at the time knowing the US attorney would not support it." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The upside of the delay, whatever its cause, is that Trump did not pardon Barrack on his last full day in office, as he did Elliott Broidy, who also had dodgy ties to the UAE among his other shady foreign entanglements. ~~~

~~~ According to Chris Hayes of MSNBC, the FBI opened its investigation of Barrack a week or ten days after the Intercept published this report by Alex Emmons & Matthew Cole. Journalism matters.

Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "After nearly two years of wrangling, the country's three major drug distributors and a pharmaceutical giant have reached a $26 billion deal with states that would release some of the biggest companies in the industry from all legal liability in the opioid epidemic, a decades-long public health crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The agreement, announced Wednesday afternoon by a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, lays the framework for billions of dollars to begin flowing into communities across the country for addiction treatment, prevention services and other steep expenses from the epidemic.... The four companies that would be bound by the settlement -- Johnson & Johnson and the drug distributors Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson -- are widely seen as having some of the deepest pockets among the corporate opioid defendants...."

He Who Casts the First Stone.... Marie: Yesterday, we linked to a story about this guy's resigning his swell job. Now, there's this headline: "Catholic Monsignor Who Wanted to Deny Biden Communion Resigns After Cellphone Links Him to Gay Dating App" ~~~

~~~ There's another lesson in this story: ~~~

~~~ Smartphones Are Outsmarting Us. Joseph Cox of Vice: "After years of warning from researchers, journalists, and even governments, someone used highly sensitive location data from a smartphone app to track and publicly harass a specific person. In this case, Catholic Substack publication The Pillar said it used location data ultimately tied to Grindr to trace the movements of a priest, and then outed him publicly as potentially gay without his consent. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the outing led to his resignation. The news starkly demonstrates not only the inherent power of location data, but how the chance to wield that power has trickled down from corporations and intelligence agencies to essentially any sort of disgruntled, unscrupulous, or dangerous individual. A growing market of data brokers that collect and sell data from countless apps has made it so that anyone with a bit of cash and effort can figure out which phone in a so-called anonymized dataset belongs to a target, and abuse that information."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

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

Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "The coronavirus pandemic was largely responsible for shaving a year and a half from the life expectancy of Americans in 2020, the steepest drop in the United States since World War II, according to federal statistics released on Wednesday. An American child born today, if they hypothetically lived their entire life under the conditions of 2020, would be expected to live 77.3 years, down from 78.8 in 2019. It's the lowest life expectancy since 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, the agency that released the figures and a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The difficult year also deepened racial and ethnic disparities in life expectancy, with Black and Hispanic Americans losing nearly two more years than white Americans. Life expectancy for Hispanic Americans dropped to 78.8 from 81.8, while the numbers for Black Americans dropped to 71.8 from 74.7. Non-Hispanic white Americans saw their life expectancy drop to 77.6 from 78.8." The AP's report is here. MB: And Donald Trump is responsible for some significant part of our lowered life expectancy.(Also linked yesterday.)

Here's a nice headline from NBC News: &"As GOP supporters die of Covid, the party remains split in its vaccination message."

Missouri, etc. Jeremy Kohler of ProPublica: "Around Independence Day, [Missouri] State Rep. Bill Kidd, from the Kansas City suburbs, revealed that he has been infected by the coronavirus. 'And no, we didn't get the vaccine,' he wrote in a post that has since been deleted. 'We're Republicans 😆' State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Taney County, home to the tourist destination of Branson, commented on the post by falsely claiming that the virus had been developed by ... Anthony Fauci and ... Bill Gates. They 'knew what was coming,' Seitz wrote. 'The jury is still out on the "vaccine" (who knows what's in that),' he wrote. As the number of coronavirus infections rises around the country, lawmakers like Kidd and Seitz have adopted responses that trouble many health officials." Kohler cites many examples that should solidify your suspicion that our "representatives" are idiots.

Michigan. Marisa Iati of the Washington Post: "Officials at a Catholic school in Michigan are [arguing in court that]... forcing students to wear masks ... is a violation of religious freedom.... Attorneys for Resurrection School in Lansing and two parents will tell the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that Catholic doctrine holds that every person is made in God's image. 'Unfortunately, a mask shields our humanity,' the school argued in its lawsuit. 'And because God created us in His image, we are masking that image.'... In December, Judge Paul Maloney [MB: could be Roman Catholic!] of the Western District of Michigan denied the school's motion for a preliminary injunction that would have banned enforcement of the state's mask ordinance for kindergarten through fifth-grade students at religious schools... because he found the rule was neutrally applied and did not target religious schools.'" Thanks to PD Pepe for the lead. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'm confused. First, I checked and it appears the school is a standard diocesan Roman Catholic school & not run by some lesser-known sect. In all of my experience, I have never been aware of even one such school run as a nudist camp. Yet the school's officials would certainly claim that our entire bodies -- not just our faces -- are made in God's image. So it's pretty clear -- according to the logic of this lawsuit -- that we should go naked whenever possible (maybe not on a cold day in Michigan). Also, I wonder how the theologians at this school deal with One Corinthians (as opposed to Two Corinthians) 11, where Paul advised the Jesus followers of Corinth that it's disgraceful for women to pray with their heads uncovered. OR, as RAS more simply asks, "Aren't pants also covering up God's creation?"

Beyond the Beltway

Alaska. Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "The Guardian has identified an Alaska assistant attorney general as a supporter of the Mormon-derived extremist group the Deseret nationalists who has posted a series of racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages on social media.... Online, [Matthias] Cicotte, under the moniker J Reuben Clark and the Twitter handle @JReubenCIark, has expressed extreme positions on race, criminal justice and religion.... After the department was presented with the information last week, Alaska's deputy attorney general, Cori Mills, wrote in a statement shared with the Guardian: 'The department of law takes the allegations raised here seriously, and we uphold the dignity and respect of all individuals and ask that all of our employees do the same.'"

California. Ivan Penn of the New York Times: "Pacific Gas & Electric, aiming to show its determination to overcome a history of safety problems, announced Wednesday that it planned to put 10,000 miles of its power lines underground to prevent the kind of wildfires that led the utility to bankruptcy court. The project, which would involve about 10 percent of the lines currently above ground, could cost tens of billions of dollars to carry out. The announcement prompted questions from longtime critics of the utility about how much of the cost would be borne by ratepayers rather than shareholders. The company, California's largest electricity provider, said the work would aim first at areas most vulnerable to wildfires and expand throughout its service territory, which includes 5.5 million electric customers in Northern and Central California."

Missouri. Summer Ballentine of the AP: "A Missouri legislative committee on Monday held a hearing on how educators teach K-12 students about race and racism without hearing from any Black Missourians.... Aside from an official from Missouri';s education department, the only people who testified Monday were critics of critical race theory.... Heather Fleming, a former Missouri teacher who now offers diversity and inclusion training, said she wanted to testify Monday but was not allowed."

Ohio. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: "An Ohio man who was part of an online community of 'incels,' or misogynists who blame women for denying them what they believe is their right to sexual intercourse, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with plotting to shoot students in sororities, federal prosecutors said. The man, Tres Genco, 21, of Hillsboro, Ohio, was charged with one count of attempting to commit a hate crime, which, because it involved an attempt to kill, is punishable by up to life in prison, and one count of illegally possessing a machine gun, which is punishable by up to 10 years, according to the Justice Department." The Raw Story's report is here.

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