The Commentariat -- June 30, 2021

Afternoon Update:

Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense for Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George W. Bush, who presided over America's Cold War strategies in the 1970s and, in the new world of terrorism decades later, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died on Tuesday at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 88.... A full obituary will appear soon."

Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House voted Wednesday to form a select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol with nearly all Republicans opposing the legislation -- a sign of the political challenges that face Democrats as they attempt to probe why thousands of ... Donald Trump's supporters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol complex. The 220 to 190 party-line vote stands in contrast to a vote in May, when 35 House Republicans joined Democrats to back creation of an independent commission to examine the attack. But while many House Republicans were willing to embrace an outside panel of experts evenly weighted between GOP and Democratic appointees, most were wary of a select committee that would be firmly in the control of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's handpicked participants.... Only two of the 211 House Republicans voted in favor of creating the panel -- Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), both of whom were among the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach ... Donald Trump in January.... Pelosi (D-Calif.) designed the select committee to have 13 members, only five of whom would be appointed 'after consultation with the minority leader,' Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)."

New York Times: "In the six months since an angry pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, immense efforts have been made not only to find the rioters and hold them accountable, but also ... to dig into the details of Jan. 6 and slowly piece together what actually happened that day.... And while Republicans in Congress blocked the formation of a blue-ribbon bipartisan committee, House Democrats are poised to appoint a smaller select committee. Even now, however, Republican politicians and their allies in the media are still playing down the most brazen attack on a seat of power in modern American history. Some ... have accused the F.B.I. of planning the attack in what they have described -- wildly -- as a false-flag operation.... The Times's Visual Investigations team spent several months reviewing thousands of videos.... What we have come up with is a 40-minute panoramic take on Jan. 6, the most complete visual depiction of the Capitol riot to date." The article then outlines what it calls "some of the major revelations." ~~~

~~~ Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News: "A member of the alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy who cut a deal with prosecutors will admit he stashed guns at a Virginia hotel as part of preparations for demonstrations at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Mark Grods is set to plead guilty on Wednesday afternoon to two felony counts for conspiracy and obstructing Congress. Grods will confirm the government's long-standing allegation that members of the Oath Keepers who came to Washington, DC, to oppose Congress's certification of the election were prepared for violence and arranged to store firearms outside of the city that could be brought in on short notice."

If You're Still Waiting for That Tax Refund.... Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Internal Revenue Service closed the most recent filing season with more than 35 million in unprocessed tax returns, as the agency's backlog grew markedly amid a crush of challenges related to the pandemic and economic relief efforts, a government watchdog said Wednesday. Erin Collins, the National Taxpayer Advocate, said in her report that about 17 million paper tax returns are still waiting to be processed and approximately 16 million additional returns have been placed on hold because they require further review manually. Another 2.7 million amended tax returns have not been processed. This backlog represents a four-fold increase from 2019 -- the most recent year before coronavirus -- when the IRS closed its filing season with only 7.4 million unprocessed returns, according to the report. These numbers reflect the IRS backlog as of May, and the agency may have made progress reducing it since then."

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The inspector general overseeing the Federal Housing Finance Agency resigned Tuesday, two months after a scathing watchdog report alleged that she abused her authority, retaliated against employees and blocked an investigation into her conduct. In April, an investigation by a special panel -- known as the Integrity Committee -- sent a report to the White House about Laura Wertheimer, the inspector general overseeing FHFA, who was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2014. The report noted years of complaints against Wertheimer and other staff members, and it ultimately concluded that 'misconduct of this nature warrants consideration of substantial disciplinary action, up to and including removal.'"

Adam Reiss, et al., of NBC News: "The Manhattan District Attorney's Office is expected to charge the Trump Organization with tax-related crimes on Thursday, two representatives of the company told NBC News.... It is not clear whether the company's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, will also be charged Thursday." ~~~

~~~ So many thanks to Ken W. for reminding us, in today's Comments, of this gem (albeit Hillary was speaking of Trump's personal federal income tax, but as we would say in the South, "same difference"):

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday stood by advice that people fully vaccinated against the coronavirus do not need to wear masks in most situations, but added that there are instances where local authorities might impose more stringent measures to protect the unvaccinated. The comments came after the World Health Organization recently reiterated longstanding guidance that everyone, vaccinated or not, wear masks and take other precautions, following a global surge in infections of the highly contagious Delta variant." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I did attend events over the weekend where I did not wear a mask and where I was in close contact with people from around the country, so I'm wearing a mask for the next few weeks when I go out in order to protect other people in case I'm a carrier.

Fenit Nirappil of the Washington Post: "Los Angeles County public health authorities are urging unvaccinated and vaccinated people alike to don masks again inside restaurants, stores and other public indoor spaces because of the growing threat posed by the more contagious delta variant of the novel coronavirus. The high-profile move by the county of 10 million marks an abrupt shift in tone after states and localities have dropped most mask mandates and social distancing requirements in recent weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in mid-May rescinded almost all masking recommendations for fully vaccinated people." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

Graham Bowley of the New York Times: "Bill Cosby had his conviction for sexual assault overturned by a Pennsylvania appeals court on Wednesday, a decision that will set free a man whose case had represented the first high-profile sexual assault trial to unfold in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement. Three years into the prison sentence of three to 10 years he has served at a maximum-security facility outside Philadelphia, the 7-member Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Mr. Cosby, 83, had been denied a fair trial in 2018. The ruling upended the legal case against Mr. Cosby brought by prosecutors in Pennsylvania that began with his arrest in 2015 on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home in the Philadelphia suburbs eleven years earlier." The AP's story is here.

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Kate Sullivan of CNN: "President Joe Biden argued in Wisconsin on Tuesday that the bipartisan infrastructure proposal he agreed to last week would benefit working and middle-class families around the country.... Biden said: 'This is a generational investment, a generational investment to modernize our infrastructure, creating millions of good-paying jobs ... and positions America to compete with the rest of the world in the 21st century....' The speech is Biden's first time pitching the bipartisan infrastructure proposal to the American people since nearly derailing the deal in off-the-cuff remarks last week.... The President stressed the safety aspect of his plan, and said the US has one of the highest road fatality rates of anywhere in the industrial world. He paused for a moment and then said, 'I lost a wife and daughter and almost lost two sons.'... Biden laid out the specific ways the plan would benefit those in Wisconsin, including replacing all of Milwaukee's lead water service lines, bringing high-speed internet to the 82,000 children in Wisconsin ... and help address the 1,000 bridges in Wisconsin rated structurally deficient. He touted how the plan would also deploy 35,000 electric buses to school districts and create half a million electric vehicle charging stations around the nation."

Maeve Sheehey of Politico: "President Joe Biden [and Dr. Jill Biden] will visit Surfside, Fla., on Thursday following the collapse of a condo building in the coastal suburb, a departure from the White House's position a day earlier that the president had no immediate plans to visit the site of the disaster.... The president spoke with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the day after the building collapse to offer support for the area. That day, Biden also approved an emergency declaration for Florida."

Kate Bennett of CNN: "It is back en vogue for the first lady to be back in Vogue. After a four year hiatus of first ladies gracing the cover of the fashion magazine, Jill Biden is on the August issue, which goes on sale on July 20.... A first lady in the pages of Vogue, or on the cover, has -- for the last several decades -- become an American publishing tradition; almost every modern first lady has been photographed for the magazine. The exception was Melania Trump, whose tenure in the White House was tied to the controversies of ... Donald Trump. There have been conflicting arguments as to which side -- Trump's or Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour's -- was responsible for keeping Trump, a former model, from being featured. Neither spoke of it publicly, but Wintour was vocal about her thoughts on Donald Trump, using her editorial note in the March 2020 issue of Vogue to endorse Biden for president, pointing to the 45th President's 'dishonesty,' and 'shocking lack of empathy.'" MB: Ironically, Melanie was the only First Lady who ever worked as a model, and no one doubts she would have made for a glamorous Vogue cover. (Also linked yesterday.)

Julia Preston in Politico Magazine: "... the Biden administration, with little public fanfare, is working on plans for an organized review of thousands of cases of people who say they were unjustly deported in recent years, senior officials in charge of immigration said. The officials say that many deportations, especially under Trump, were unduly harsh, with little law enforcement benefit. They are working to devise a system to reconsider cases of immigrants who were removed despite strong ties to the United States. Legal scholars said a process that resulted in returns of significant numbers of deported people would be highly unusual in American immigration law." MB: Yeah but Trump.

Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Rushing to help Afghans who face retribution for working alongside American troops in their home country, the House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to speed up the process that would allow them to immigrate to the United States. With the American military in the final phases of withdrawing from Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of war, more than 18,000 Afghans who have worked for the United States as interpreters, drivers, engineers, security guards and embassy clerks are stuck in a bureaucratic morass after applying for Special Immigrant Visas, available to people who face threats because of work for the U.S. government.... The measure, passed 366 to 46, would waive a requirement for applicants to undergo medical examinations in Afghanistan before qualifying, instead allowing them to do so after entering the United States." MB: It boggles the mind that 46 members of Congress thought it was a really bad idea to help these Afghans who have helped the U.S.

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "The House on Tuesday passed legislation to remove statues of Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol and replace the bust of Roger B. Taney, the U.S. chief justice who wrote the 1857 Supreme Court decision that said people of African descent are not U.S. citizens. The vote was 285 to 120, with 67 Republicans joining Democrats in backing the measure. A similar bill passed the House last year on a 305-to-113 vote but did not advance in the Senate, then controlled by Republicans. Upon reintroducing the bill this year, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) pointed to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, during which some supporters of ... Donald Trump carried Confederate flags.... The legislation would replace the bust of Taney ... with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black member of the Supreme Court.... The legislation faces challenges in the evenly divided Senate where it would have to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.) Politico's story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Perhaps the reason Mitch would not bring the measure to the Senate floor last year was that the Capitol bust of Taney bears a striking resemblance to ... Mitch. Anyway, I see no reason to keep a bunch of cold marble statues of dead Confederates around when there are living, breathing, racist confederate specimens roaming those same halls. ~~~

~~~ Paul Gosar Is Even Worse Than You Thought. Aiden McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is holding a fundraiser with Nick Fuentes, an online commentator who has achieved a following as an open anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, and white supremacist. A flyer posted to a Telegram account linked to Fuentes promoted a July fundraiser with the ardently pro-Trump congressman.... Fuentes is a virulent anti-Semite who has denied the Holocaust, defended racial segregation and called for the killing of 'globalists at CNN'. He also spoke at the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.... 'Not sure why anyone is freaking out,' [Gosar] said [in a tweet]." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Update. Marianna Sotomayor of the Washington Post: "Rep. Paul A. Gosar (R-Ariz.) on Tuesday denied that he plans to attend a fundraiser this week with a group that promotes white nationalist ideas, despite an invitation for the event circulating online that features the congressman and Nick Fuentes, a far-right operative who leads America First. Gosar has previously attended events with Fuentes and appeared to defend the fundraiser in a tweet Monday night...."

Jordain Carney of the Hill: "Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said on Tuesday that he's supportive of going forward with a larger, Democratic-only infrastructure bill but that it shouldn't be linked to a separate bipartisan framework. Manchin, during an interview with MSNBC, said that he had been assuming since 'day one' that Democrats would have to use reconciliation, a budget process that allows them to bypass a 60-vote legislative filibuster, to pass a larger infrastructure bill because Republicans don't want to make changes to the 2017 tax bill."

Kara Scannell, et al., of CNN: "New York prosecutors investigating the Trump Organization are scrutinizing cash bonuses as part of their focus on whether the company failed to pay taxes on benefits provided to some of its employees, people familiar with the matter say. The interest in cash payments, which has not been previously reported, is part of investigators' look at whether executives and the company failed to pay appropriate taxes on benefits, including school tuition, cars and rent-free apartments, the people said. It's not clear who received the bonuses or how much they totaled."

** Because Everything They Did Was Corrupt. Desmond Butler of the Washington Post: "In February 2017, weeks after ... Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, [Sonny] Perdue's company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America. Had anyone noticed, it would have prompted questions ahead of his confirmation, a period when most nominees lie low and avoid potential controversy. The former governor of Georgia did not disclose the deal -- there was no legal requirement to do so. An examination of public records ... has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.... Danny Brown, the former president of [Perdue's former company] AGrowStar, confirmed negotiations began in late 2015. But Brown said ADM wanted $4 million for the plant -- 16 times what Perdue's company ultimately paid for it.... 'This stinks to high heaven,' said Julie O'Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor. 'It deserves a prosecutor's attention.'..." Emphasis added. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Both Perdue & ADM have histories of participating in shady transactions, as Butler reports. And, yes, while he was Ag Secretary, Perdue helped out ADM. A lot. Sometimes at your expense. In picture accompanying the article, Sonny is pictured laughing with some ADM employees at an ag show. I'd like to see the big grin wiped off his face -- and his big ass tightly encased in an orange jumpsuit.

Lori Aratani of the Washington Post: "United Airlines announced a deal Tuesday for its largest airplane order amid a continuing rebound in air travel: 270 new aircraft, including 200 Boeing 737 Max jets and 70 A321neos built by Airbus. The order is a boost for Boeing's 737 Max aircraft and the largest since the Federal Aviation Administration certified they were safe after they were grounded following fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. At the end of March, Southwest Airlines announced it would order 100 Max jets. With its latest order, United expects to add more than 500 new aircraft to its fleet in the coming years, with 40 expected to arrive in 2022; 138 in 2023 and as many as 350 in 2024. While airlines have struggled during the pandemic, passenger counts have risen significantly in recent weeks as coronavirus caseloads fall and Americans spend more time traveling." (Also linked yesterday.)

David Bauder of the AP: "The New York City Commission on Human Rights has fined Fox News $1 million, the largest penalty in its history, for violations of laws protecting against sexua harassment and job retaliation. As part of a settlement agreement announced Tuesday, Fox also agreed to mandate anti-harassment training for its New York-based staff and contributors and to temporarily drop a policy requiring people who allege misconduct to enter into binding arbitration. The penalty stems from an investigation that began in 2017 following several reports of what the commission called 'rampant abuse' at the popular news and opinion outlet."

NSA Refutes Tucker's Self-Aggrandizing Fake Grievance. Mychael Schnell of the Hill: "The National Security Agency (NSA) on Tuesday rejected claims made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the agency was monitoring his electronic communications and seeking to leak them in an effort to take his show off the air, calling the allegations 'not true.' 'Tucker Carlson has never been an intelligence target of the Agency and the NSA has never had any plans to try to take his program off the air,' the NSA wrote in a statement shared on its Twitter page. 'NSA has a foreign intelligence mission. We target foreign powers to generate insights on foreign activities that could harm the United States. With limited exceptions (e.g. an emergency), NSA may not target a US citizen without a court order that explicitly authorizes the targeting,' the agency added. The Fox personality on Monday had alleged that the Biden administration was 'spying' on him in an attempt to 'take this show off the air,' declaring that his show had 'confirmed' the claim. He said the 'war on terror is now being waged against American citizens,' adding that he heard from a 'whistleblower from within the U.S. government' that the NSA was monitoring his show's communications."

Master Class: How to Write a "Dear Leader" Letter. Michelle Cottle of the New York Times: "... Donald Trump recently accused three Wisconsin Republican leaders of 'working hard to cover up election corruption' as he continued pushing lies about the November presidential vote. Mr. Trump delights in turning his fire on members of his party who he feels are being insufficiently servile. Many promptly prostrate themselves; a few shrug it off. Then there is State Senate President Chris Kapenga of Wisconsin, one of the Republicans singled out by Mr. Trump. He responded to the former president with a letter that approaches North Korean-style levels of Dear Leader obsequiousness.... Mr. Kapenga's missive ... provides a valuable master class in the art of Trump sycophancy. The text of the letter below has been annotated for instructional purposes." MB: Kapenga's letter is hilarious ... in a pathetic way. Cottle's notes are helpful. If it all sounds a tad familiar, it may be because you remember the preambles to Trump's Cabinet meetings.

The Pandemic, Ctd.

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

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 on Tuesday night to leave in place the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's ban on evictions, imposed to combat the coronavirus pandemic and prevent homelessness. The ban has just been extended another month, until the end of July, and the Biden administration said it will end then.... At the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined fellow conservative Brett M. Kavanaugh and liberal Justices Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan to keep the stay in place." Politico's story is here. MB: Young Justice I. Like Beer is proving to be much less cruel than Neil Gorsuch., not to mention the lovely Amy, Sam, & Clarence, none of whom gives a damn if you can't pay the rent. ~~~

Aya Elamroussi of CNN: "With the Delta variant accounting for more than a quarter of Covid-19 cases, Dr. Anthony Fauci warns there could soon be 'two Americas' -- one where most people are vaccinated and another where low vaccination rates could lead to spikes in cases." MB: There already are "two Americas," one that is Trumpy and one that has a greater percentage of normal people. It is Trumpy America where the virus will maintain its hold.

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona Backfire. Marc Caputo of Politico: "When Arizona Republicans first pushed for a partisan audit of the 2020 presidential ballots cast in the Phoenix metropolitan area, they argued that they needed to know if any irregularities or fraud caused President Trump to lose this rapidly evolving swing state. But the audit itself could be damaging Republican prospects, according to a new Bendixen & Amandi International poll, which shows roughly half of Arizona voters oppose the recount effort. In addition, a narrow majority favors President Biden in a 2024 rematch against Trump. The news isn't entirely promising for Democrats, however: A majority of voters don't think Biden should run for a second term. (Also linked yesterday.)

Florida. Jon Swaine, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Washington Post examination of video and images from the deadly collapse of a high-rise apartment building outside Miami -- along with interviews with structural engineers, a key witness and an investigator -- deepens questions about whether existing damage to a deck in the pool area contributed to the disaster. A resident told The Post that minutes before Champlain Towers South in Surfside came down, she noticed that a section of the pool deck and a street-level parking area had collapsed into the parking garage below. The husband of another resident has said that his wife, who has not been seen since the disaster, made a similar observation in a telephone call shortly before the collapse. An engineer in 2018 found 'major structural damage' in the pool deck area caused by what he said was a flaw that limited water drainage.... Allyn E. Kilsheimer, a veteran engineer hired by Surfside to investigate the collapse, told The Post that such a failure could have set off a wider catastrophe."

New York. Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "A new tally of votes in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary suggested that the race between Eric Adams, the primary night leader, and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly, plunging the closely watched contest into a period of fresh uncertainty. A week after Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, notched a substantial lead among those who voted in person last Tuesday or during the early voting period, a preliminary counting of ranked-choice preferences released on Tuesday showed him ahead by a much narrower margin in the city's first ranked-choice mayoral election. According to Tuesday’s unofficial tally, Mr. Adams leads Kathryn Garcia by just 15,908 votes, a margin of less than two percentage points, in the final round. Maya Wiley, who came in second place in the initial vote count, was in third place after the elimination rounds were completed." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ ** Update of the story linked above. What a Mess. "The New York City mayor's race plunged into chaos on Tuesday night when the city Board of Elections released a new tally of votes in the Democratic mayoral primary, and then removed the tabulations from its website after citing a 'discrepancy.' The results released earlier in the day had suggested that the race between Eric Adams and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly. But just a few hours after releasing the preliminary results, the elections board issued a cryptic tweet revealing a 'discrepancy' in the report, saying that it was working with its 'technical staff to identify where the discrepancy occurred.' By Tuesday evening, the tabulations had been taken down, replaced by a new advisory that the ranked-choice results would be available 'starting on June 30.' Then, around 10:30 p.m., the board finally released a statement, explaining that it had failed to remove sample ballot images used to test its ranked-choice voting software. When the board ran the program, it counted 'both test and election night results, producing approximately 135,000 additional records,' the statement said. The ranked-choice numbers, it said, would be tabulated again.... The Board of Elections ... has long been plagued by dysfunction and nepotism...." An AP story is here.

New York. Sad. Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York mayor-cum-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, received no votes in a poll of state Republican leaders about the party's next choice for governor of New York state. The poll was not binding but it indicated that Lee Zeldin, a Long Island congressman, is the presumptive Republican nominee to challenge Andrew Cuomo next year. It will likely be seen as an embarrassment to Giuliani, whose bid for governor ... has largely traded off his famous surname more than any meaningful experience of practical politics." MB: But, but Andy often golfed with the former POTUS*.

** South Dakota/Texas. Noem Turns National Guard Troops into Trumpy Mercenaries. Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem (R) will deploy up to 50 National Guard troops to the southern U.S. border, her office said Tuesday, with a highly unusual caveat -- the mission will be funded by a 'private donation' from an out-of-state GOP megadonor billionaire. The Guard members will deploy in response to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's plea to augment border security with law enforcement resources from other states, Noem's office said in a statement. Like Abbott (R), Noem is a close ally of former president Donald Trump, whose focus on illegal immigration spurred his controversial deployment of military personnel to the U.S.-Mexico border and remains a pillar of the Republican Party's political platform.... Privately funding a military mission is an affront to civilian oversight of the armed forces, said military and oversight experts, describing the move -- a Republican governor sending troops to a Republican-led state, paid for by a Republican donor -- as likely unprecedented and unethical." A USA Today story is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I find this shocking. Noem is using military troops under her command for strictly political purposes. As Horton explains, troops under Noem's command "are permitted to act in law enforcement capacities, which is forbidden for Guard members serving on federal mobilization." The Guard troops currently at the border act under federal orders, which means they cannot perform police duties.

Way Beyond

Ethiopia. Declan Walsh of the New York Times: "It had been eight months since the government of Ethiopia mounted an offensive in the country's Tigray region, unleashing civil war, atrocities and famine in Africa's second most populous country, and creating what is now one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. More than 1.7 million people have been displaced, and as many as 900,000 are suffering from famine, according to U.S. officials. But on Monday, Ethiopian troops suddenly withdrew from Mekelle, the capital city of Tigray, as well as other towns in the region, ahead of advancing Tigrayan fighters. The fall of Mekelle signaled a turning point in a war that has plunged Ethiopia into chaos and threatened to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region. It was also a stunning blow to the authority of the country's leader, Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel peace prize in 2019 and a year later gambled his power and reputation on what he said would be a brief, decisive campaign to bring the restive Tigray region under control." A related AP story is here.

News Ledes

The New York Times is live-updating developments in the condo collapse near Miami Beach, Florida. Related stories in today's Commentariat. ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: "The Miami-Dade Fire Department has at least two robots in its arsenal that the Massachusetts-based robotics company Teledyne Flir overnighted to assist with the Surfside, Fla., rescue effort. The gadgets are designed to operate where it is nearly impossible for humans to go. 'They can also go where humans shouldn’t go,' said Tom Frost, Teledyne Flir's vice president of unmanned ground systems. 'In a collapse situation like this, the pile is structurally unsound and constantly vulnerable to shifting. It's much safer to have a robot crawl deeper into a void than to have a person crawling into that void.'... One of its microrobots can be tossed onto unstable rubble and will then roll into crevices humans cannot see or fit into. The company also sent a 50-pound automated machine with an arm to pick up and move around objects."

AP: "A sweltering heat wave that has settled over western Canada for several days is believed to be a contributing factor in dozens of sudden-death calls received by police in the Vancouver area, authorities said Tuesday. Cpl. Mike Kalanj of Burnaby Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the detachment responded to 25 sudden-death calls in a 24-hour period starting Monday. The deaths are still under investigation and many of the deceased were seniors, he said." ~~~

~~~ CNN: "More than 230 deaths have been reported in British Columbia since Friday as a historic heat wave brought record-high temperatures, officials said Tuesday. The province's chief coroner called it an 'unprecedented time.'" ~~~

~~~ Marie: It's hot here in the Northeast, too. A big group of kids was playing in the park across the street from me, so the Fire Department came out & turned its nozzle to a fine spray so the kids can play under the hose.

The Commentariat -- June 29, 2021

Late Morning/Afternoon Update:

New York. Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "A new tally of votes in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary suggested that the race between Eric Adams, the primary night leader, and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly, plunging the closely watched contest into a period of fresh uncertainty. A week after Mr. Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, notched a substantial lead among those who voted in person last Tuesday or during the early voting period, a preliminary counting of ranked-choice preferences released on Tuesday showed him ahead by a much narrower margin in the city's first ranked-choice mayoral election. According to Tuesday's unofficial tally, Mr. Adams leads Kathryn Garcia by just 15,908 votes, a margin of less than two percentage points, in the final round. Maya Wiley, who came in second place in the initial vote count, was in third place after the elimination rounds were completed."

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

Kate Bennett of CNN: "It is back en vogue for the first lady to be back in Vogue. After a four year hiatus of first ladies gracing the cover of the fashion magazine, Jill Biden is on the August issue, which goes on sale on July 20.... A first lady in the pages of Vogue, or on the cover, has -- for the last several decades -- become an American publishing tradition; almost every modern first lady has been photographed for the magazine. The exception was Melania Trump, whose tenure in the White House was tied to the controversies of ... Donald Trump. There have been conflicting arguments as to which side -- Trump's or Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour's -- was responsible for keeping Trump, a former model, from being featured. Neither spoke of it publicly, but Wintour was vocal about her thoughts on Donald Trump, using her editorial note in the March 2020 issue of Vogue to endorse Biden for president, pointing to the 45th President's 'dishonesty,' and 'shocking lack of empathy.'" MB: This ironic in that Melanie was the only First Lady who ever worked as a model, and no one doubts she would have made for a glamorous Vogue cover.

John Wagner of the Washington Post: "The House is poised to vote Tuesday on legislation to remove statues of Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol and replace the bust of Roger B. Taney, the U.S. chief justice who wrote the Supreme Court decision that said people of African descent are not U.S. citizens. A similar bill passed the House last year on a 305-to-113 vote but did not advance in the Senate, then controlled by Republicans. Upon reintroducing the bill this year, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) pointed to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, during which some supporters of ... Donald Trump carried Confederate flags. 'There are still vestiges that remain in this sacred building that glorify people and a movement that embraced that flag and sought to divide and destroy our great country,' Clyburn said. 'This legislation will remove these commemorations from places of honor....' The legislation would replace the bust of Taney ... with one of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black member of the Supreme Court.... The legislation faces challenges in the evenly divided Senate where it would have to overcome the 60-vote filibuster threshold."

Paul Gosar Is Even Worse Than You Thought. Aiden McLaughlin of Mediaite: "Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) is holding a fundraiser with Nick Fuentes, an online commentator who has achieved a following as an open anti-Semite, Holocaust denier, and white supremacist. A flyer posted to a Telegram account linked to Fuentes promoted a July fundraiser with the ardently pro-Trump congressman.... Fuentes is a virulent anti-Semite who has denied the Holocaust, defended racial segregation and called for the killing of 'globalists at CNN'. He also spoke at the infamous Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017.... 'Not sure why anyone is freaking out,' [Gosar] said [in a tweet]."

** Because Everything They Did Was Corrupt. Desmond Butler of the Washington Post: "In February 2017, weeks after ... Donald Trump selected him to be agriculture secretary, [Sonny] Perdue's company bought a small grain plant in South Carolina from one of the biggest agricultural corporations in America. Had anyone noticed, it would have prompted questions ahead of his confirmation, a period when most nominees lie low and avoid potential controversy. The former governor of Georgia did not disclose the deal -- there was no legal requirement to do so. An examination of public records ... has found that the agricultural company, Archer-Daniels-Midland (ADM), sold the land at a small fraction of its estimated value just as it stood to benefit from a friendly secretary of agriculture.... Danny Brown, the former president of [Perdue's former company] AGrowStar, confirmed negotiations began in late 2015. But Brown said ADM wanted $4 million for the plant -- 16 times what Perdue's company ultimately paid for it.... 'This stinks to high heaven,' said Julie O'Sullivan, a Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor. 'It deserves a prosecutor's attention.'..." Emphasis added. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Both Perdue & ADM have histories of participating in shady transactions, as Butler reports. And, yes, while he was Ag Secretary, Perdue helped out ADM. A lot. Sometimes at your expense. In a picture accompanying the article, Sonny is pictured laughing with some ADM employees at an ag show. I'd like to see the big grin wiped off his face -- and his big ass tightly encased in an orange jumpsuit.

Lori Aratani of the Washington Post: "United Airlines announced a deal Tuesday for its largest airplane order amid a continuing rebound in air travel: 270 new aircraft, including 200 Boeing 737 Max jets and 70 A321neos built by Airbus. The order is a boost for Boeing's 737 Max aircraft and the largest since the Federal Aviation Administration certified they were safe after they were grounded following fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. At the end of March, Southwest Airlines announced it would order 100 Max jets. With its latest order, United expects to add more than 500 new aircraft to its fleet in the coming years, with 40 expected to arrive in 2022; 138 in 2023 and as many as 350 in 2024. While airlines have struggled during the pandemic, passenger counts have risen significantly in recent weeks as coronavirus caseloads fall and Americans spend more time traveling."

Arizona Backfire. Marc Caputo of Politico: "When Arizona Republicans first pushed for a partisan audit of the 2020 presidential ballots cast in the Phoenix metropolitan area, they argued that they needed to know if any irregularities or fraud caused President Trump to lose this rapidly evolving swing state. But the audit itself could be damaging Republican prospects, according to a new Bendixen & Amandi International poll, which shows roughly half of Arizona voters oppose the recount effort. In addition, a narrow majority favors President Biden in a 2024 rematch against Trump. The news isn't entirely promising for Democrats, however: A majority of voters don't think Biden should run for a second term.

~~~~~~~~~~

Myah Ward of Politico: "President Joe Biden on Monday pitched the bipartisan infrastructure deal as one 'American people can be proud of,' while cautioning that there was a lot of work ahead to finish the final product. 'This deal is the largest long-term investment in our infrastructure in nearly a century,' Biden wrote in an op-ed on Yahoo News. 'Economists of all stripes agree that it would create good jobs and dramatically strengthen our economy in the long run.'... But the president said Monday that he intended to go further and pass [climate & other] initiatives in the reconciliation bill, while touting that this initial deal was a 'crucial step forward' in clean energy investment."

Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday introduced legislation that would create a select committee to probe the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, with an aide suggesting the speaker may include a Republican among her appointees. The House Rules Committee considered the legislation Monday night. The House will hold a procedural vote on the measure Tuesday, and a vote on the legislation itself is expected Wednesday.... According to the legislation, Pelosi would have the power to appoint eight members to the panel, while five members would be selected 'after consultation with' House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). McCarthy last week declined to say whether he plans to appoint members to the committee -- and notably did not commit to refrain from choosing lawmakers who have made comments minimizing the events of Jan. 6. The chair of the panel would have subpoena power...." An AP story is here.

In yesterday's Comments, contributor Patrick highlighted an interview in Salon by Paul Rosenberg of Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist who has founded "her own super PAC -- Strike PAC -- to do the kind of messaging her research suggests is key to winning elections with today's electorate." Here's one of her ads: ~~~

Robert Barnes & Ann Marimow of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday revived a lawsuit that alleges St. Louis police used excessive force in subduing a man who died while handcuffed and shackled in his cell. In an unsigned opinion, the court threw out a lower-court ruling in favor of the officers, which dismissed the suit filed by the man's parents. Six officers kept Nicholas Gilbert in a prone position for 15 minutes after he had been handcuffed and placed in leg irons.... The Supreme Court said it was unclear whether the lower court carefully considered all relevant circumstances, including that Gilbert was already handcuffed and shackled when officers kept him in a prone position." Alito, Thomas & Gorsuch dissented from the decision.

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a legal battle over the rights of transgender students, handing a victory to Gavin Grimm over the Virginia school board that denied him the right to use the boys' restroom. As is its custom, the court did not say why it was rejecting the appeal of the Gloucester County school district. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have accepted the case. The court's decision not to take up the case does not establish a national precedent. In a 2-to-1 decision last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the school board had practiced sex-based discrimination and violated the 14th Amendment by prohibiting Grimm, a transgender student, from using the bathroom that aligned with his gender identity. His high school offered a single-stall restroom as an alternative."

Cecilia Kang of the New York Times: "In a stunning setback to regulators' efforts to break up Facebook, a federal judge on Monday threw out antitrust lawsuits brought against the company by the Federal Trade Commission and more than 40 states. The judge, James E. Boasberg for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said the case from the states needed to be dismissed because too much time had elapsed since the alleged offenses took place. The states, led by Letitia James, the New York attorney general, accused Facebook in December of buying up nascent competitors like Instagram and WhatsApp -- deals made in 2012 and 2014 -- to cement its monopoly over social networking. In a separate, 53-page opinion, he said the complaint by the Federal Trade Commission, also filed in December, failed to provide enough facts to back its claims that Facebook had a monopoly over personal social networking.... The judge said the F.T.C. could try again within 30 days with more detail, but he suggested that the agency faced steep challenges." Boasberg is an Obama appointee.

Betsy Swan of Politico: "Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance has indicated he does not currently plan to charge the Trump Organization with crimes related to allegations of 'hush money' payments and real estate value manipulations, according to a personal lawyer for Donald Trump. Ronald Fischetti, a New York attorney who represents the former president, said on Monday that in a meeting last week, he asked Vance's team for details on charges they were considering. According to Fischetti, members of Vance's team said they were considering bringing charges against the Trump Organization and its individual employees related to alleged failures to pay taxes on corporate benefits and perks. It has been widely reported that those perks included cars and apartments and appear to only involve a small number of executives.... Fischetti also said that Vance's team told him they will not bring charges against Trump himself when the first indictment comes down." MB: If this is correct, the charges that might come down this week are those designed to flip certain Trump Org executives. ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Hays & Jim Mustian of the AP: "'There is no indictment coming down this week against the former president,' Fischetti said in a telephone interview Monday. 'I can't say he's out of the woods yet completely.'" ~~~

~~~ David Fahrenthold, et al., of the Washington Post: "Attorneys for the Trump Organization met with New York prosecutors on Monday to argue that ... Donald Trump's company should not be criminally charged over its business dealings, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Previously, the prosecutors -- working for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) -- had set Monday as the last day for the Trump Organization's lawyers to make their case.... No charges were announced on Monday."

Marshall Cohen of CNN: "Excerpts from three upcoming books revealed previously unknown efforts by ... Donald Trump to abuse the powers of his office to overturn the 2020 election, deploy the military against racial justice protests and prosecute his political opponents. The excerpts also shed new light on Trump's increasingly unstable mindset in his final year. They portrayed a president who was obsessed with self-serving conspiracy theories and surrounded by aides who knew he was delusional but were too afraid to tell him the truth. Here's a breakdown of the latest bombshells from the three books.... [MB: The only one of the three not previously linked here:] A new book from controversial journalist Michael Wolff includes details of what unfolded inside the White House while the Capitol was overrun.... Trump's senior advisers ... knew Trump was experiencing 'derangement,' but were too scared to tell him that his dreams of overturning the election were hopeless, Wolff reported. The book says Trump's staff begged and pleaded with him to publicly disavow the violence at the Capitol. He waited for hours, and his daughter Ivanka Trump even allegedly said the attack was only 'an optics issue.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Edward Helmore of the Guardian has more on Wolff's book. "On 6 January..., Trump spoke to supporters outside the White House, telling them: 'We're going to walk down [to the Capitol to protest] -- and I'll be there with you.'... 'I didn't mean it literally,' Trump reportedly [later told his chief-of-staff Mark Meadows]. Trump is also reported to have expressed 'puzzlement' about the supporters who broke into the Capitol.... Wolff says Trump was confused by 'who these people were with their low-rent "trailer camp" bearing and their "get-ups", once joking that he should have invested in a chain of tattoo parlors and shaking his head about "the great unwashed".' [According to Wolff, Trump told Meadows,] '...This looks terrible. This is really bad. Who are these people? These aren't our people, these idiots with these outfits. They look like Democrats.']" MB: This looks to me like an attempt to rehabilitate Trump, and it sounds, from this report, as if Meadows was Wolff's source, so it would be he who was trying to do the rehabilitating. But I doubt Trump's "trailer-trash" fans, many of whom will garner felony records & go to jail for their efforts, will be pleased by his supposed opinion of them.

Guardian: "Barack Obama said on Monday that ... Donald Trump violated a 'core tenet' of democracy when he made up a 'bunch of hooey' about last year's election and refused to concede he lost. Speaking at his first virtual fundraiser since the 2020 election, the former Democratic president said former Republican president's claims undermined the legitimacy of US elections and helped lead to other anti-democratic measures such as efforts to suppress the vote.... 'Here's the bottom line. If we don't stop these kinds of efforts now, what we are going to see is more and more contested elections ... We are going to see a further de-legitimizing of our democracy,' he said, as well as 'a breakdown of the basic agreement that has held this magnificent democratic experiment together all these years'."

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Having gone to extraordinary lengths to help Donald Trump corrupt the presidency, William P. Barr is working overtime to launder his post-Trump reputation. But the former attorney general's latest cleanup exercise may end up showing that the stain of his corruption is even darker than we thought -- in a way that soils other Republicans as well.... In early November, Barr had taken the extraordinary step of authorizing U.S. attorneys to open election fraud investigations. The move attracted scalding criticism -- the department had long refrained from such investigations until results are certified, to avoid this very sort of politicization.... [Mitch] McConnell looks even worse.... McConnell asked Barr to use the department for the purpose of managing a GOP political problem and that McConnell spent weeks refusing to acknowledge Trump's loss while knowing this was hurting the country." ~~~

~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "This is a central story of the Trump era, that his putative allies were almost never interested in challenging him and his dishonesty. And on voter fraud, that pattern began before he was even president [in 2016].... Trump's attorney general, William P. Barr, played his part ably.... 'There's so many occasions for fraud there that cannot be policed,' Barr said in an interview with NPR. '... But one of the things I mentioned was the possibility of counterfeiting' of ballots.... The moral of Barr's face-saving interview with Karl isn't that he did his best, it's that he didn't.... The GOP let Trump make false and ridiculous claims about fraud for five years.... Trump repeated the same [fake fraud] claims in a statement bashing Barr that was released Sunday evening." ~~~

~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "Former President Trump on Monday lashed out at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell R-Ky.), incensed by a forthcoming book that reports McConnell urged former Attorney General William Barr to push back on Trump's falsehoods after November's election.... 'Had Mitch McConnell fought for the Presidency like he should have, there would right now be Presidential Vetoes on all of the phased Legislation that he has proven to be incapable of stopping,' Trump said in a Monday statement, reiterating his belief that Republicans lost both Senate runoff races in Georgia in January because of McConnell." MB: Love those childish capitalizations.

The Right Wing Goes All in on Ignorance. Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "Closed-mindedness and ignorance have become core conservative values, and those who reject these values are the enemy, no matter what they may have done to serve the country.... The current obsession with critical race theory is a cynical attempt to change the subject away from the Biden administration's highly popular policy initiatives, while pandering to the white rage that Republicans deny exists. But it's only one of multiple subjects on which willful ignorance has become a litmus test for anyone hoping to succeed in Republican politics.... Right-wingers have gone all in on ignorance, so they were bound to come into conflict with every institution -- including the U.S. military -- that is trying to cultivate knowledge." ~~~

~~~ Let's Scare All the White People. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Republicans' hissy fit over critical race theory is nothing more than an attempt to rally the party's overwhelmingly White base by denying documented history and uncomfortable truth.... It is all about alarming White voters into believing that they are somehow threatened if our educational system makes any meaningful attempt to teach the facts of the nation's long struggle with race. The Republican state legislators falling over themselves to decide how history can and cannot be taught in schools -- and blowhards such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who warn that children are being taught 'every White person is a racist' -- know exactly what they're doing.... The flap over critical race theory is just another scam from a party that believes in nothing except the unprincipled pursuit of power."

Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "Leaked membership data from the neo-Confederate Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) organization has revealed that the organization's members include serving military officers, elected officials, public employees, and a national security expert whose CV boasts of 'Department of Defense Secret Security Clearance'. But alongside these members are others who participated in and committed acts of violence at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and others who hold overlapping membership in violent neo-Confederate groups such as the League of the South (LoS). The group, organized as a federation of state chapters, has recently made news for increasingly aggressive campaigns against the removal of Confederate monuments. This has included legal action against states and cities, the flying of giant Confederate battle flags near public roadways, and Confederate flag flyovers at Nascar races."

U.S. "Conservatives" Are Especially Dangerous. Cameron Easley of the Morning Consult: "The Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol gave the country a striking wake-up call to the alarming rise in undemocratic behavior on the right side of the political aisle, and new global Morning Consult research underscores the prevalence of authoritarian attitudes among U.S. conservatives.... A scale measuring propensity toward right-wing authoritarian tendencies found right-leaning Americans scored higher than their counterparts in Australia, Canada and the United Kingdom. [Twenty-six percent] of the U.S. population qualified as highly right-wing authoritarian, Morning Consult research found, twice the share of the No. 2 countries, Canada and Australia. The beliefs that voter fraud decided the 2020 election, that Capitol rioters were doing more to protect than undermine the government and that masks and vaccines are not pivotal to stopping COVID-19 were similarly prevalent among right-leaning Americans and those that scored high for right-wing authoritarianism." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yesterday I watched a rerun of a Rick Steves travel show about fun sites to visit in the former Yugoslavia, a cobbled-together country held together for 40 years or so by dictator Josip Broz Tito, and which fell apart -- after Tito's death -- in a horrible ethnic war in the 1980s and early 1990s. Even in some of the larger cities, the bullet holes on buildings are still visible. It could happen here. ~~~

     ~~~ Later, I read Tim Egan of the New York Times: "The United States is becoming a mean country.... Tribalism, and the corrosive hatreds that go with it, has always been just below the surface in the risky experiment of our multiethnic democracy. Of late, it has surfaced in many of our daily interactions -- and accounts for much of the meanness of this moment.... In mean America, in January, nearly three in 10 people surveyed expressed support for politically motivated violence, if necessary.... The underlying theme of all this meanness is intolerance.... There's an old saying, attributed to the Sioux: A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass. What may be worse are a people without a heart, unable to see half their countrymen and countrywomen as anything but the enemy."

Mark Mazzetti & Adam Goldman of the New York Times (June 25): "Operatives infiltrated progressive groups across the West to try to manipulate politics and reshape the national electoral map. They targeted moderate Republicans, too -- anyone seen as threats hard-line conservatives.... Using large campaign donations and cover stories, the operatives aimed to gather dirt that could sabotage the reputations of people and organizations considered threats to a hard-right agenda advanced by ... Donald J. Trump. At the center of the scheme was an unusual cast: a former British spy connected to the security contractor Erik Prince, a wealthy heiress to the Gore-Tex fortune and undercover operatives.... Sometimes, their tactics were bumbling and amateurish. But the operation's use of spycraft to manipulate the politics of several states over years greatly exceeds the tactics of more traditional political dirty tricks operations."

Miriam Berger of the Washington Post: "Around the world, in countries with paltry building codes, little enforcement of existing rules and the proliferation of informal housing, tragedies like Thursday's building collapse in Florida -- where scores of people are still missing -- have taken a heavy toll.... The disaster in Surfside shocked many Americans who are unaccustomed to such events. 'These buildings do not fall down like this in First World countries,' Surfside Mayor Charles Burkett said on Thursday after the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South building. 'This is a Third World event, and we need to understand why this happened.'" Berger lists a lot of building collapses in other countries. MB: My first thought, upon hearing of the Surfside collapse was, "We're a third-world country now." Several years back, my husband and I seriously considered buying a penthouse apartment in a Naples, Florida, highrise. Had we bought it, I'd be living there now. Just thinking about that makes me feel anxious.

YouTube Moderators Must Be Super-Stupid. Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "YouTube reinstated the channel Right Wing Watch on Monday, saying it 'mistakenly' suspended the account, which focuses on monitoring conservative groups and figures. 'Right Wing Watch's YouTube channel was mistakenly suspended, but upon further review, has now been reinstated,' a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement. Right Wing Watch tweeted screenshots Monday from YouTube messages notifying the group that its channel had been suspended over community guideline violations and that an appeal to the suspension had been denied.<"

The Pandemic, Ctd.

Apoorva Mandavilli, et al., of the New York Times: "Three scientific studies released on Monday offered fresh evidence that widely used vaccines will continue to protect people against the coronavirus for long periods, possibly for years, and can be adapted to fortify the immune system still further if needed. Most people immunized with the mRNA vaccines may not need boosters, one study found, so long as the virus and its variants do not evolve much beyond their current forms -- which is not guaranteed. Mix-and-match vaccination shows promise, a second study found, and booster shots of one widely used vaccine, if they are required, greatly enhance immunity, according to a third report."

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. When the Circus Comes to Town ... It's Costly. Rosalind Helderman of the Washington Post: "Arizona's Maricopa County announced Monday that it will replace voting equipment that was turned over to a private contractor for a Republican-commissioned review of the 2020 presidential election, concerned that the process compromised the security of the machines. Officials from Maricopa, the state's largest county and home to Phoenix, provided no estimates of the costs involved but have previously said that the machines cost millions to acquire. 'The voters of Maricopa County can rest assured, the County will never use equipment that could pose a risk to free and fair elections,' the county said in a statement. 'As a result, the County will not use the subpoenaed equipment in any future elections.' The announcement probably reflects an added cost to taxpayers for a controversial review that has been embraced by supporters of ... Donald Trump.... In May, all seven of the county's elected officials -- including five Republicans -- joined in a scathing letter to the state Senate denouncing the audit as a sham.... Noting the tactics used by organizers of the review, such as hunting for bamboo in ballot paper, they added, 'Your "audit," which you once said was intended to increase voters' confidence in our electoral processhas devolved into a circus.'"

Wisconsin. David Siders of Politico: "Just as the [Wisconsin] state party gathered this past weekend, Trump issued a statement tearing into the state Assembly speaker, Robin Vos, and two other Republican lawmakers for doing too little to promote his election conspiracies.But ... when Vos and Devin LeMahieu, the state's Senate majority leader, took the stage on Saturday in front of some of the party's most fervent pro-Trump activists, it was as though Trump had said nothing at all.... Convention-goers dismissed an effort to censure [Vos].... There were signs [Trump's] comments were dismissed with a roll of the eyes.... Trump remains wildly popular among Wisconsin Republicans.... ... In his statement issued the night before Vos spoke, Trump, seeking to stoke grassroots outrage, accused Vos, LeMahieu and state Sen. Chris Kapenga of 'working hard to cover up election corruption ... actively trying to prevent a Forensic Audit.'... One delegate deleted Trump's statement from his phone, saying he wished Trump would 'shut up, and I'm a big Trump supporter.'"

News Ledes

The New York Times' live updates of developments in the condo collapse near Miami Beach, Florida, are here. The Washington Post's live updates are here.

Axios: "The extraordinary heat wave that's stifling the Pacific Northwest reached its peak in many areas on Monday. Seattle smashed its all-time high-temperature record, set just the day before, by 4°F.... A highly unusual weather pattern that statistically has less than a 1-in-several-thousand-year chance of occurring is in place over the Pacific Northwest, with arecord -strong high-pressure area aloft -- colloquially known as a 'heat dome' -- sitting over Washington state and British Columbia. This heat dome is yielding temperatures 25-50°F above average across multiple states and British Columbia.... The heat was so severe Monday that pavement buckled across the Seattle and Portland metro areas." ~~~

~~~ New York Times: "Canada broke a national heat record on Sunday when the temperature in a small town in British Columbia reached almost 116 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking an 84-year-old record by nearly 3 degrees, with dangerously hot weather expected to continue for several more days.... David Phillips, a senior climatologist at Environment Canada, a government agency, said the early timing of this [weather event], its intensity and its duration, could all be attributable to rising global temperatures."

The Commentariat -- June 28, 2021

Late Morning Update:

Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a legal battle over the rights of transgender students, handing a victory to Gavin Grimm over the Virginia school board that denied him the right to use the boys' restroom. As is its custom, the court did not say why it was rejecting the appeal of the Gloucester County school district. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. said they would have accepted the case. The court's decision not to take up the case does not establish a national precedent. In a 2-to-1 decision last August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said the school board had practiced sex-based discrimination and the 14th Amendment by prohibiting Grimm, a transgender student, from using the bathroom that aligned with his gender identity. His high school offered a single-stall restroom as an alternative." MB: The contrast between the confederate Supremes' decision & the decision of that New Jersey high school principal (story linked below) is stark. When Neil Truckers-Must-Die Gorsuch is more humane than you are, you've got a problem, Mr. Tull.

In today's Comments, contributor Patrick highlights an interview in Salon by Paul Rosenberg of Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist who has founded "her own super PAC -- Strike PAC -- to do the kind of messaging her research suggests is key to winning elections with today's electorate." Here's one of her ads: ~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~

Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States carried out three airstrikes early Monday morning in Iraq and Syria against weapons storage facilities used by Iranian-backed militias that in recent weeks have conducted armed drone strikes against locations where the American military is, the Pentagon said on Sunday. 'At President Biden's direction, U.S. military forces earlier this evening conducted defensive precision airstrikes against facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups in the Iraq-Syria border region,' the Pentagon spokesman, John F. Kirby, said in a statement. Mr. Kirby said the facilities struck were used by Iranian-backed militias, including Kata'ib Hezbollah and Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada, to carry out drone strikes against places where Americans were located. The strikes were the second time that President Biden has ordered the use of force in the region. The United States carried out airstrikes in eastern Syria in late February against buildings belonging to what the Pentagon said were Iran-backed militias responsible for recent attacks against American and allied personnel in Iraq."” ~~~

     ~~~ CNN's story, by Barbara Starr, is here. And here's the full DOD statement. ~~~

~~~ Jane Arraf & Eric Schmitt of the New York Times: "The United States is grappling with a rapidly evolving threat from Iranian proxies in Iraq after militia forces specialized in operating more sophisticated weaponry, including armed drones, have hit some of the most sensitive American targets in attacks that evaded U.S. defenses. At least three times in the past two months, those militias have used small, explosive-laden drones that divebomb and crash into their targets in late-night attacks on Iraqi bases -- including those used by the C.I.A. and U.S. Special Operations units, according to American officials. Iran -- weakened by years of harsh economic sanctions -- is using its proxy militias in Iraq to step up pressure on the United States and other world powers to negotiate an easing of those sanctions as part of a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal."

Burgess Everett of Politico: "President Joe Biden's domestic agenda appears back on track in Congress, with Republicans praising his newly clarified approach to their bipartisan infrastructure plan and a key Democrat endorsing work on a separate, larger spending package. Two GOP negotiators [Mitt Romney & Rob Portman] on the bipartisan infrastructure deal said Sunday that they were mollified by Biden's Saturday statement vowing to support the bipartisan framework on its own merits, rather than withholding his signature until he also received a larger, partisan proposal. Many Republicans interpreted his remarks in the aftermath of their deal on Thursday as an implicit veto threat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Michael Crowley of the New York Times: "Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met Sunday with Israel's foreign minister, Yair Lapid, as the Biden administration takes the measure of Israel's new government after the departure of the country's divisive prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The two men discussed Israel's policies toward the Palestinians and the international talks seeking to return Iran and the United States to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, about which Mr. Lapid said Israel had 'serious reservations.' But Mr. Lapid took a warm tone overall in brief remarks at the start of his meeting with Mr. Blinken, their first since Israel's new government took power on June 13, saying he hoped to repair damage incurred under Mr. Netanyahu to Israel's standing among Washington Democrats."

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration mounted an aggressive push reshaping national housing policy in a span of 48 hours this past week, replacing a key regulator and pushing a flurry of other changes to try to address growing concerns within and outside the White House about a housing crisis for millions of renters and vulnerable Americans.... Housing has emerged as one of the most unequal and consequential parts of the economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic. Low interest rates, cheap mortgages and bidding wars are fueling a housing boom for wealthier Americans and making homeownership out of reach for many first-time buyers. Meanwhile, housing is a expense and worry for millions of renters and unemployed workers, and advocates fear a wave of homelessness once the CDC's final moratorium [on evictions] lifts July 31."

Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) in a USA Today op-ed: "The filibuster threatens the freedoms of every American, no matter the color of your skin, your gender, ZIP code, political party, or how much money you have (or don't have) in the bank. The filibuster doesn't just mean a minority of senators can block critical legislation on everything from voting rights to the minimum wage. The filibuster undermines the basic principle that makes our democracy work: government of the people, by the people, for the people. ... When we allow a political faction to block critical legislation, it takes away that voice from the voters. No matter your political party, you should know that when you win a free and fair election, your representatives can govern." Demings is running for Senate." MB: A simple, straightforward explanation of the perversity of the filibuster.

But Tlaib! Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Dominick Mastrangelo of the Hill: ""Fox News Sunday" host >Chris Wallace sparred with Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) over Banks's vote against an emergency relief bill that would have allocated funds to police and first responders. 'Can't you make the argument that it's you and the Republicans who defunded the police?' Wallace asked Banks, who is the chairman of the conservative Republican Study Committee." MB: Banks' "defense" is to name-check Democratic women -- Tlaib, Omar, Pelosi -- because that's all Republicans know how to do. You would think that Republicans would have figured out that it's a bad idea to go on Chris Wallace's show armed only with lame talking points, senseless arguments, & knocks at Democrats.

Shayna Jacobs, et al., of the Washington Post: "Prosecutors in New York have given ... Donald Trump's attorneys a deadline of Monday afternoon to make any final arguments as to why the Trump Organization should not face criminal charges over its financial dealings, according to two people familiar with the matter. That deadline is a strong signal that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D) and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) -- now working together, after each has spent more than two years investigating Trump's business -- are considering criminal charges against the company as an entity.... Last Thursday, lawyers working for Trump personally and for the Trump Organization met virtually with prosecutors to make the case that charges were not warranted. Meetings like these are common in financial investigations...."

Marie: Even though I'm no fan of Jonathan Karl's, and even though I don't have a subscription to the Atlantic, where this interview is published, I'm using one of my few Atlantic freebies and linking it here. It's worth a read: ~~~

If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bullshit. -- Bill Barr, to Jon Karl ~~~

You know, you only have five weeks, Mr. President, after an election to make legal challenges. This would have taken a crackerjack team with a really coherent and disciplined strategy. Instead, you have a clown show. No self-respecting lawyer is going anywhere near it. It's just a joke. That's why you are where you are. -- Bill Barr, to Donald Trump, Dec. 1, 2020

~~~ Jonathan Karl, in the Atlantic: "... few betrayals have enraged [Donald Trump] more than what his attorney general did to him. To Trump, the unkindest cut of all was when William Barr stepped forward and declared [on the record, to Michael Balsamo of the AP,] that there had been no widespread fraud in the 2020 election, just as the president was trying to overturn Joe Biden's victory by claiming that the election had been stolen. In a series of interviews with me this spring, Barr spoke ... about the events surrounding his break with Trump." Barr & Mitch McConnell both confirmed to Karl that Barr had made the public statement at McConnell's request. McConnell had been telling Barr that if he -- McConnell -- made the statement, Trump would likely sabotage the two Georgia Senate runoffs. Karl relates Trump's meeting with Barr right after the Balsamo story hit the fan. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Sullivan republishes some of Karl's story in Hullabaloo. John Amato of Crooks & Liars has a bit more of it. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Tom Boggioni of the Raw Story publishes some reactions to Barr's rehabilitation interview. Cheryl Rofer of Balloon Juice has more of the same. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Rick Hasen: "As is typical in pieces where people from Barr world are sources (in this case Barr himself), this paints Barr in the best possible light. The piece does not even mention how Barr put forward outrageous and ludicrous statements about voter fraud before the election, suggesting that foreign governments would be mailing in thousands of absentee ballots. Barr continues on his rehabilitation tour.... [Meanwhile,] Mitch McConnell utterly failed in squelching the Trump voter fraud claims because he was trying to preserve his Senate majority.... As Quinta Jurecic put it: '... this reads like ... the senate majority leader asking the attorney general for political help in an upcoming election. Not great!' But it's even worse than that. McConnell knew Trump's claims were bogus and endangering the country. And he refused to speak up because he put politics before country." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

~~~ Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Donald Trump's 'big lie' that he lost the 2020 US election because of voter fraud is 'a bit like WWF', Mitt Romney said on Sunday, referring to the gaudy and artificial world of professional wrestling, an arena in which Trump starred before entering politics. 'It's entertaining,' said the Utah senator.... 'But it's not real.' Appearing on CNN's State of the Union, Romney was asked about former attorney general William Barr's assertion to the Atlantic on Sunday that Trump's claims were always 'bullshit'.... Romney suggested most Americans have always known Trump is lying about electoral fraud, which he was told about by conspiracy theorists -- 'the MyPillow guy [Mike Lindell and] Rudy Giuliani' -- rather than any official source." Romney went on to say that autocrats around the world are using Trump's lies about the election to undermine democratic principles. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Of course Romney is wrong. As Pengelly points out, most Republican voters still believe Trump won. But worse, the January 6 insurrection probably would not have happened had Republicans all accepted Biden's win in November and isolated Trump as nearly the only Republican official in the U.S. who didn't have the guts & grace to congratulate Joe Biden.

Flynn Monetized the Crazy. Candace Rondeaux of the Intercept: "Most media outlets treated [Michael] Flynn's videotaped oath last summer, in which he uttered a well-known QAnon slogan, as a sort of coming-out story about a onetime Trump insider who had gone off the rails.... An Intercept investigation has found that Flynn's ties to the QAnon phenomenon stretch back much further than the July 4 weekend last year ... to the days immediately following Trump's 2016 election victory.... Flynn ... would go on to become a central hero in QAnon's conspiratorial narrative. But his move to trademark the term 'digital soldiers' -- ensuring that only he and others who obtain his express permission can profit from the sale of 'Digital Soldiers'-branded merchandise -- hints at his attempt to capitalize on a marketing and communication strategy that resonates with the Q community.... His push to leverage QAnon's viral popularity with the far-right coincided with his efforts to reverse his guilty plea for lying to the FBI in special counsel Robert Mueller's probe.... Previously unreported events following Flynn's November 2016 'digital soldiers' speech raise questions about his role in the origins of the QAnon movement." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: This is a detailed -- and apparently deeply-researched -- report that delves into the interconnections among Flynn & a number of other loons -- and the enterprises they spawned. In view of the fact that Flynn made the first steps down the Q road a year before the first "Q drop" makes one wonder if Michael Flynn is Q. As the Former Guy would say ... Sad.

Guess I'll Have to Duct-tape Over the Logos on My Toyota. Lachlan Markay of Axios: "Nearly three-dozen corporate PACs have donated at least $5,000 to Republicans who objected to certifying the 2020 election, yet Toyota leads by a substantial margin.... Following Jan. 6, huge segments of corporate America rethought their political-giving programs. The new numbers suggest some large companies have decided to maintain support -- even for members of Congress deeply enmeshed in the pro-Trump conspiracy theories that fueled the Capitol attack."

Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Stacy Cowley & Ella Koeze of the New York Times: "Though Congress approved billions in aid for small companies to help them keep paying their employees during the pandemic..., it wasn't reaching the tiniest and neediest businesses. Then two small companies came out of nowhere and, through an astute mix of technology and advertising -- and the dogged pursuit of an opportunity that big banks missed -- found a way to help those businesses. They also helped themselves. For their work, the companies stand to collect more than $3 billion in fees, according to a New York Times analysis -- far more than any of the 5,200 participating lenders. One of the companies, Blueacorn, didn't exist before the pandemic. The other, Womply, founded a decade ago, sold marketing software. But this year, they became the breakout stars of the Paycheck Protection Program, the government's $800 billion relief effort for small businesses. Between them, the two companies processed a third of all P.P.P. loans made this year, the Times analysis found. Blueacorn and Womply aren't banks, so they couldn't actually lend any money. Rather, they acted as middlemen...."

Jason Horowitz of the New York Times: "A leader in the Roman Catholic Church's effort to reach out to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics revealed on Sunday that Pope Francis had sent him a deeply encouraging note, capping an especially disorienting week on the Vatican's attitude toward gay rights. On Tuesday, the Vatican confirmed that it had tried to influence the affairs of the Italian state by expressing grave concerns about legislation currently in Parliament that increases protections for L.G.B.T.Q. people. And days later, the Vatican's second in command insisted the church had nothing against gay rights, but was protecting itself from leaving the church's core beliefs open to criminal charges of discrimination. Nearly eight years after Pope Francis famously responded, 'Who am I to judge?' on the issue of gay Catholics, it has become increasingly difficult to discern where he stands on the issue. A growing dissonance has developed between his inclusive language and the church's actions." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Bishops Backfire. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post: "The decision of right-wing Catholic bishops to begin drafting a statement that many of them said was aimed at President Biden and his reception of communion was not just a rebuke to him and to other Catholic Democrats. It was also an attack on Pope Francis, who had made clear that he did not want them to go down this divisive road. And it reinforced the suspicions of the church among progressive-leaning young people already alienated from Christian institutions that champion extreme forms of conservative politics.... That this is even an issue shows how the viruses of the political right have infected the U.S. church leadership."

Adam Clymer of the New York Times: "Mike Gravel, a two-term Democratic senator from Alaska who played a central role in 1970s legislation to build the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline but who was perhaps better known as an unabashed attention-getter, in one case reading the Pentagon Papers aloud at a hearing at a time when newspapers were barred from publishing them and later mounting long-shot presidential runs, died on Saturday at his home in Seaside, Calif. He was 91." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Monday are here.

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

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. James Glanz, et al., of the New York Times: "The investigation into what may be the deadliest accidental building collapse in American history has just begun, but experts who have examined video footage of the disaster outside Miami are focusing on a spot in the lowest part of the condominium complex -- possibly in or below the underground parking garage -- where an initial failure could have set off a structural avalanche. Called 'progressive collapse,' the gradual spread of failures could have occurred for a variety of reasons, including design flaws or the less robust construction allowed under the building codes of four decades ago, when the complex was built. But that progression could not have occurred without some critical first failure, and close inspections of a grainy surveillance video that emerged in the initial hours after the disaster have given the first hints of where that might have been."

New Jersey. The School District Should Fire This High School Principal. Right Away. Alyssa Lukpat of the New York Times: "Less than a minute into Bryce Dershem's valedictorian speech on June 17, the microphone cut out. He had just told the audience at his New Jersey high school's graduation ceremony that he came out as queer in his freshman year. When he made that revelation, the principal, Robert M. Tull, went to the back of the stage and appeared to unplug some cords, a video from the ceremony shows.... Mr. Tull walked onstage and took the microphone from its stand.... He also took Mr. Dershem's prepared remarks.... Mr. Tull pointed to another copy of the speech on the podium that did not have any references to sexuality or mental health.... A replacement microphone was brought to Mr. Dershem.... Then his classmates at Eastern Regional High School in Voorhees Township, N.J., cheered for him to continue his speech.... Mr. Dershem knew every word of his own version of the speech, because he had been working on his remarks for a month.... The principal and Mr. Dershem had been debating the contents of the speech for weeks, Mr. Dershem said." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The short video that accompanies the article shows Tull silencing Dershem. Tull is Black. He knows first-hand what discrimination feels like. But he thought it was fine to discriminate against a vulnerable kid, a kid who had excelled in his studies. According to the NYT story, "Robert Cloutier, the superintendent of the Eastern Camden County Regional School District, told The Philadelphia Inquirer that the district had not asked any students to remove mentions of 'their personal identity' from their speeches." Tull has no excuse for his behavior. An apology? Sensitivity training? Not enough. Tull needs a job where he has no contact with other human beings.

News Lede

The New York Times is liveblogging developments today in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse.