December 27, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Jon Levine of the New York Post, via marketwatch: "Senior House Republicans were so keenly aware of alleged inaccuracies and embellishments in U.S. Rep.-elect George Santos's professional biography, that the topic became a 'running joke,' multiple insiders close to House GOP leadership reportedly told the New York Post.... 'As far as questions about George in general, that was always something that was brought up whenever we talked about this race,' said one senior GOP leadership aide. 'It was a running joke at a certain point. This is the second time he's run and these issues we assumed would be worked out by the voters.'... A second insider close to GOP leadership called the allegations against Santos 'mostly stuff we already knew,' adding that 'there were questions. Things weren't adding up.' By the time we knew that there were questions and issues he was basically the nominee. So what can you do? He was the only Republican candidate.'"

Toluse Olorunnipa of the Washington Post: "President Biden and his team have begun responding faster and more sharply to provocative comments and actions by ... Donald Trump and his allies, potentially preparing the ground for Biden's expected reelection announcement early next year. The rapid responses, coming in the weeks since Democrats outperformed expectations in the November midterms, come as some Democratic strategists see a political advantage in pointedly -- and frequently -- drawing a contrast with Trump, the Republican Party, and the Republican lawmakers poised to take over the House of Representatives."

Look for a Job as a Dowel Inspector, Buddy. Lisa Rein of the Washington Post: "Every year, thousands of [Social Security disability] claimants ... find themselves blocked in the arduous process of applying for disability benefits, thanks to labor market data that was last updated 45 years ago.... The vast majority of the 12,700 [job titles] were last updated in 1977.... The government, using strict vocational rules, assesses someone's capacity to work and if jobs exist 'in significant numbers' that they could still do. But in reality, most of these occupations were offshored, outsourced, and shifted to skilled work decades ago. Many have disappeared altogether.... After spending at least $250 million since 2012 to build a directory of 21st century jobs, an internal fact sheet shows, Social Security is not using it, leaving antiquated vocational rules in place...."

Santos Lies About Lying. Jacob Kornbluh of the Forward: "Congressman-elect George Santos, a Republican from New York who reportedly lied about his Jewish heritage and has admitted he fabricated key details of his resume, said in an interview Monday evening that he never claimed to be Jewish. 'I said I was "Jew-ish,"' Santos told The New York Post. However, in a position paper shared with Jewish and pro-Israel leaders during the campaign and obtained by the Forward, Santos called himself 'a proud American Jew.'" Firewalled.

Michigan. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "A man convicted in a plot to abduct Michigan's Democratic governor from her vacation home was sentenced on Tuesday to 16 years in federal prison, the longest so far for any of the defendants convicted in federal court in one of the country's most closely watched domestic terrorism cases. At two trials earlier this year, prosecutors repeatedly showed recordings and online posts in which the defendant, Adam Fox, called Gov. Gretchen Whitmer a 'tyrant,' railed against her Covid-19 restrictions and mused about a second American revolution. Prosecutors described him as a threat to the governor's safety and to democracy itself." CNN's report is here.

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Michael Gold & Grace Ashford of the New York Times: "Ending a weeklong silence, Representative-elect George Santos admitted on Monday to a sizable list of falsehoods about his professional background, educational history and property ownership. But he said he was determined to take the oath of office on Jan. 3 and join the House majority. Mr. Santos, a New York Republican who was elected in November to represent parts of northern Long Island and northeast Queens, confirmed some of the key findings of a New York Times investigation into his background, but sought to minimize the misrepresentations. 'My sins here are embellishing my résumé,' Mr. Santos told The New York Post in one of several interviews he gave on Monday." CNN's report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Yeah, George, I might have embellished my résumé" by making some of my crappy jobs (jobs I actually held) seem a little more important than they were, but I never claimed to have a Ph.D. in astrophysics & to have donated my Nobel Prize winnings to widows & orphans, which is akin to what you did. Fucking phony.

2024 Presidential Race. Kyle Melnick of the Washington Post: "A spokesman for former vice president Mike Pence's campaign denied reports on Monday that the Republican had filed to run for president in 2024, responding to an apparent hoax after screenshots of a Federal Election Commission posting began to circulate. 'Former Vice President Mike Pence did not file to run for President today,' Devin O'Malley wrote on Twitter." MB: It's kind of perfect that even the GOP presidential race itself is a hoax.

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. Adam Klasfeld of Law & Crime: "Arizona's Governor-elect Katie Hobbs (D) asked a judge on Monday for more than half a million dollars in sanctions against her defeated rival Kari Lake (R) and her lawyers for filing a 'frivolous' lawsuit aiming to overturn the results of the Grand Canyon State's 2022 gubernatorial midterms. 'Courts are established by Arizona's Constitution and statutes to resolve actual disputes between parties,' Maricopa County Deputy Attorney Thomas P. Liddy wrote in a 15-page memo. 'They do not exist so that candidates for political office can attempt to make political statements and fundraise. And they should not be used to harass political opponents and sow completely unfounded doubts about the integrity of elections. All of those things happened in this matter.'" Hobbs joined the county's suit.

Florida. Joseph Choi of the Hill: "Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis's (R) petition for a grand jury investigation into COVID-19 vaccines, in which he decries the ongoing vaccine campaign as 'propaganda' by the Biden administration, is drawing fierce criticism from health experts.... In his petition, DeSantis expressed suspicion over the COVID-19 vaccines' ability to prevent transmission of the virus, as well as public statements made on the subject by officials like President Biden and outgoing chief White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci.... Brian Castrucci, of the de Beaumont Foundation, said DeSantis 'appears to be focused on creating fear around vaccines that have been shown to be safe and effective,' rather than protecting the lives of Floridians." The Florida Supreme Court approved DeSantis's petition last Thursday.

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Tuesday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~

     ~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "Ukraine is hoping to have a United Nations-backed peace summit by the end of February, roughly a year into the Russian invasion, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said. Meanwhile, Moscow's top diplomat threatened an escalation by the Russian army if Ukraine does not concede to its demands to surrender land -- and demilitarize what remains of its territory. The comments by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov came the same day Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone had reached deep within Russian territory and as Moscow's beleaguered military has lost significant ground to Ukrainian forces in recent months.... Lavrov demanded Ukraine end its 'senseless resistance' and accused Kyiv's Western backers of protracting the conflict.... A Russian attack on the city of Kherson on Christmas Eve left at least 11 dead and 64 injured, according to the region's governor."

Marie: Early last month, the New York Times Magazine published a long piece by Jim Rutenberg, in which Rutenberg weaves together the threads of the Trump "Russiagate" story. Being Trumped-out, I didn't read or link the story, but I should have because it explains a great deal about Trump's deal with the devil -- Putin -- and the abuse of Ukraine by both men. Rutenberg draws in all the actors & many bit players, outlining their roles in this complicated spy story, a story that has culminated in Putin's war on Ukraine. John le Carré has not written a more twisted tale or one with more unsavory characters.

News Ledes

New York Times: "Thousands of travelers were stranded at U.S. airports on Monday as a wave of canceled flights -- many of them operated by Southwest Airlines -- spoiled holiday plans.... The cancellations and delays one day after Christmas left people sleeping on airport floors, standing in hourslong customer service lines and waiting on tarmacs for hours on end. The problems are likely to continue into Tuesday and later this week. As of Monday night, about 2,600 U.S. flights scheduled for Tuesday were already canceled, including 60 percent of all Southwest flights.... On Monday, more than 3,800 flights in the United States -- including international flights into or out of the country -- had been canceled as of Monday night and more than 7,400 others had been delayed, according to FlightAware.... On Monday night, the U.S. Department of Transportation said that it would look into the Southwest issue, and that it was 'concerned by Southwest's unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays.'"

AP: "Buffalo residents hovered around space heaters, hunted for cars buried in snow drifts and looked for more victims Monday, after 28 people died in one of the worst weather-related disasters ever to hit western New York. The rest of the United States also was reeling from the ferocious winter storm, with at least another two dozen deaths reported in other parts of the country. Up to 9 more inches of snow (23 centimeters) could fall in some areas of western New York through Tuesday, the National Weather Service said."

December 26, 2022

The Grinch Looks a Lot Like Greg Abbott. Noah Gray of CNN: "Several busloads of migrants were dropped off in front of Vice President Kamala Harris' residence in Washington, DC, on Christmas Eve in 18 degree weather late Saturday. An initial two busloads were taken to local shelters, according to an administration official. More buses arrived outside the vice president's residence later Saturday evening. A CNN team saw migrants being dropped off, with some migrants wearing only T-shirts in the freezing weather. They were given blankets and put on another bus that went to a local church.... The arrivals included asylum seekers from Ecuador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Peru and Colombia, according to [Amy] Fischer [of the Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid Network], who told CNN the buses were supposed to go to New York but were diverted to DC due to the weather.... It's not clear who is responsible for sending the migrants to the Naval Observatory, where the vice president's residence is located, though CNN reported earlier this year that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had sent buses of migrants north, including to a location outside Harris' home. CNN has reached out to Abbott's office for comment on the latest arrivals. The White House, however, put the blame on the Texas governor, calling it a 'cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt.'"

Eric Yoder of the Washington Post: "Federal employees will receive raises ranging from about 4.4 percent to 5.2 percent on Jan. 1, with a 4.86 percent boost to those working in the Washington-Baltimore area under an order President Biden signed late Friday. The order applies to the large majority of the nearly 2.2 million executive branch employees, with amounts varying by local area. The overall average of 4.6 percent is the largest increase since 2002.... The raise is separate from the cost-of-living adjustment to be paid in January to federal retirees. Those increases are linked to an inflation measure that will boost annuities of most federal retirees by either 8.7 percent or 7.7 percent, depending on which retirement system applied to them."

Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Two days after pro-Donald Trump rioters attacked the Capitol, then-national security adviser Robert O'Brien got a call from Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell and an aide who asked him to look into something he'd been hearing: retired military personnel sympathetic to Donald Trump might be preparing to prevent Joe Biden's inauguration. '[H]e was concerned that there were reports that there were retired military personnel who were sympathetic to the president and might be organizing,' O'Brien said in the interview. McConnell's own national security aide, Robert Karem, was on the call as well and raised similar concerns about Navy SEALs, O'Brien said. O'Brien described this call in testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee during a newly revealed Aug. 23 interview"

Quentin Young of the Colorado Newsline (Dec. 23): "Jenna Ellis, the Colorado attorney who represented ... Donald Trump as he tried to overturn the 2020 election, is under investigation by the Colorado Office of Attorney Regulation Counsel. Ellis has been the target of formal complaints regarding what critics characterized as her professional misconduct connected to Trump's effort to reverse the results of a free and fair election. In May a complaint from the States United Democracy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit, asked Colorado Attorney Regulation Counsel Jessica Yates to investigate Ellis for multiple alleged violations of professional rules and impose possible 'substantial professional discipline.'"

Beyond the Beltway

Arizona. A Lump of Coal for Kari. Gregory Clary, et al., of CNN: "An Arizona judge on Saturday rejected Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake's lawsuit attempting to overturn her defeat, concluding that there wasn't clear or convincing evidence of misconduct, and affirming the victory of Democratic Gov.-elect Katie Hobbs. Lake, who lost to Hobbs by about 17,000 votes in November, sued in an effort to overturn the election. Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Peter Thompson allowed a two-day trial on some of Lake's claims, which concluded late Thursday afternoon." The Washington Post's story is here. MB: So now Ms. Kari will have to call Arizona's secretary of state & tell her, "I just want to find 17,000 votes because we won the state." Oh, wait. Hobbs is the secretary of state.

New York. A True Christmas Story. Christine Chung of the New York Times: A couple in the Buffalo area -- Alexander & Andrea Campagna -- opened their home to ten stranded South Korean tourists. For days.

Washington State. Emily Shapiro of ABC News: "Three power substation facilities were vandalized in Pierce County, Washington, on Christmas morning, knocking out power to more than 14,000 customers, authorities said. Two of the break-ins were at Tacoma Public Utilities substations and the third was at a Puget Sound Energy station, according to the sheriff's office in Pierce County, which encompasses Tacoma.No suspects are in custody, according to the sheriff's office."

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Monday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Monday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.

Jane Clinton of the Guardian: "The archbishop of Canterbury [Justin Welby] and Pope Francis have used their Christmas addresses to call for an end to the war in Ukraine."

Laura Snaples of the Guardian: "TPussy Riot have released a new song protesting against the war in Ukraine, Russian censorship and the west 'sponsoring' the regime through buying oil and gas from Russia. They have also called for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, to be tried at an international tribunal."

The Kherson Resistance. Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times: "Kherson's occupation government, run by Russian military commanders and Ukrainian collaborators, wasted little time pulling down Ukrainian flags, taking over Ukrainian schools, trucking in crates of Russian rubles, even importing Russian families. Perhaps nowhere else in Ukraine did Russia's leader, Vladimir V. Putin, devote so much money and violence, the carrot and the stick, to bend a city to his imperial will. But it did not work. Guided by contacts in the Ukrainian security services, an assembly of ordinary citizens formed themselves into a grass-roots resistance movement. In dozens of interviews, residents and Ukrainian officials described how retirees like Mr. Yermolenko -- along with students, mechanics, grandmothers, and even a wealthy couple who were fixing up their yacht and got trapped in the city for the better part of a year -- became spirited partisans for the Kherson underground.... They took clandestine videos of Russian troops and sent them to Ukrainian forces along with map coordinates. They used code names and passwords to circulate guns and explosives right under the Russians' noses. Some even formed small attack teams that picked off Russian soldiers at night, making the fear and paranoia that settled over the city two-sided."

Francesca Abel of the Washington Post: "As Russia has launched relentless strikes on Ukraine's critical infrastructure, leaving millions without electricity, water and heat, towns across Russia have been beset by their own, utility-related disasters. A huge gas pipeline explosion outside St. Petersburg last month, major fires in two separate Moscow shopping malls allegedly caused by dodgy welding, and faulty power grids that have left tens of thousands without heat and electricity are just some of the incidents reported since Russia's efforts to obliterate Ukraine's infrastructure that began in October.... While disasters now raise suspicions of sabotage linked to the war in Ukraine, poorly maintained infrastructure is a long-standing and persistent problem in Russia -- the result of old Soviet-era systems in need of repair and costly maintenance, decades of endemic corruption, and the government's prioritization of defense and security budgets, as well as the development of major cities over regional towns."

News Ledes

Guardian: "Freezing conditions from a deadly winter storm in the United States will continue into the week as people in western New York deal with massive snow drifts that snarled emergency vehicles, and travelers across the country see cancelled flights and dangerous roads. The storm has killed at least 34 people and is expected to claim more lives after trapping some residents inside houses and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses. The extreme weather stretched from the Great Lakes on the Canadian border to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the US population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians."

New York Times: "Even in a region known for fierce winter weather, the blizzard left Buffalo[, New York,] especially paralyzed, with rescue workers themselves stranded in ambulances and other emergency vehicles across the city. The death toll across Erie and Niagara Counties rose to 17 on Sunday, and officials said that tally was likely to rise.... On Sunday evening, Gov. Kathy Hochul described the blizzard as an 'epic, once-in-a-lifetime storm,' and county officials cautioned that more snow and wind was expected on Monday and Tuesday."

December 25, 2022

I turned on the local station that plays popular Christmas music. Frankly, I had forgot how bad it was: the lyrics, the music, the sentiment, the performances. Awful. I have very kindly eliminated almost all of them. So, Peace, everybody!

Not the worst Christmas music ever, but bad in a humorous way:

If you remember Elvis, this will tug at your heartstrings, and not just because SNL (or Radio Shack) is saying goodbye to Cecily Strong:

     ~~~ In retrospect, this is kind of amazing.

This is another of those campy so-bad-it's-good numbers:

On the other hand, there are some who know how to turn a seasonal pop song into a classic:

If you're in the mood for heavenly, we'll leave the big stars behind:

Aled Jones & Malakai Bahot also capture the essence of "O Holy Night. BTW, here's Aled in 1985 when he was the treble." ~~~

~~~ Okay, I guess it's only fair to let these guys have a go at it:

I should have run this when TFG was pretending to be president*:

This got me to wondering what it was like to tell the Christmas story to young Donald (text borrow from Matthew 1.18-2.11):

... before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. So this Mary got knocked up? That Holy Spirit sounds like my kind of guy.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. What? What? Joseph married this girl that somebody else knocked up? And then Joseph didn't even have sex with her? Total loser!

And going into the house, [the wise men] saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. Oh, I get it now: a surprise ending, like when all you losers thought Hillary would be president & I beat her by millions of votes if you don't count all the dead people & other fake voters who supposed voted for Hillary. But this lame story didn't fool me; I never said the Holy Spirit was cool. Because Joseph has this good dream, too, and he sees these guys coming with all these gifts for the kid. He was a ... a visionary. Like me. So then Joseph grabs those goodies from the kid & buys up some real estate. Cheap apartments for Arabs probably. Ha! Jews are great negotiators. Like me. No wonder everybody likes Christmas. And I'm still president*.

Stay tuned for when somebody tries to explain Easter to Donald.