;)
August 2, 2022
Afternoon Update:
I like presidents who kill terrorists, not play golf with them. -- Forrest M., today's Comments thread
Ellen Francis of the Washington Post: "The world is just 'one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation. 'That was the dire warning from U.N. Secretary General António Guterres at a global meeting Monday on nuclear weapons. Officials underscored the geopolitical risks from Russia's war in Ukraine and simmering tensions in Asia and the Middle East -- as they review a 52-year-old landmark treaty that sought to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons." MB: A cheery outlook. But I suppose I should point out that this has long been the case.
Huizhong Wu & Eileen Ng of the AP: "U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Taiwan late Tuesday, becoming the highest-ranking American official in 25 years to visit the self-ruled island claimed by China, which quickly announced that it would conduct military maneuvers in retaliation for her presence. Taiwan's foreign minister and other Taiwanese and American officials greeted Pelosi on the tarmac at Taipei's international airport. Her visit has ratcheted up tension between China and the United States because China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and it views visits by foreign government officials as recognition of the island's sovereignty. The speaker, who arrived aboard a U.S. Air Force jet, has sought for decades to focus attention on Chinese democracy movements. She traveled to Tiananmen Square in 1991, two years after China crushed a wave of democracy protests." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments here. ~~~
~~~ Nancy Pelosi, in a Washington Post op-ed, explains why she is visiting Taiwan: "By traveling to Taiwan, we honor our commitment to democracy: reaffirming that the freedoms of Taiwan -- and all democracies -- must be respected." If you have a WashPo subscription, read the whole essay.
Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
Whaling voyage by one Ishmael.
BLOODY BATTLE IN AFGHANISTAN.Ishmael, imagining the "grand programme of Providence," Moby Dick, pub. 1851 ~~~
~~~ A 20-Year War About Nothing. David Sanger of the New York Times: "The killing of Ayman al-Zawahri in Afghanistan -- where planning for the Sept. 11 strikes began more than two decades ago, where the West once seemed poised to remake a fractured nation, and where the terrorist leader could feel comfortable again after the Taliban takeover last summer -- speaks volumes about what America accomplished in a 20-year experiment. It also says a lot about where it failed. On one level, it was a reminder of how little has changed.... On another level, it was a reminder of how surveillance, drones and remote killing have changed the nature of the hunt for the terrorist group's leadership.... If the original objective of going into Afghanistan was running these kinds of operations -- finding the masterminds of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the generation of terrorists who followed -- then maybe it was possible to pursue the mission without trying to remake the country."
** Perry Stein & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department has filed its first lawsuit in the wake of a historic Supreme Court decision allowing states to outlaw abortion, arguing that a near-total ban on the procedure slated to take effect soon in Idaho would violate a federal requirement to provide medical care when the woman's life or health is at stake.Attorney General Merrick Garland said the lawsuit filed Tuesday is aimed at stopping Idaho's 'trigger' ban, which is set to take effect Aug. 25. The Idaho law allows doctors to be criminally prosecuted for providing abortions, Garland said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. He argued it could conflict with federal law that says patients seeking emergency medical treatment at a hospital accepting Medicare funds are entitled to any life-saving treatment." At 2:30 pm ET, this is a developing story. CNN's report is here. MB: Looks as if Garland can walk & chew gum at the same time.
Sinema Behaving Badly. Again. Burgess Everett of Politico: "Senate Democrats will probably start a climactic series of votes on their party-line energy, tax and health care bill this week with very little public indication of where Sen. Kyrsten Sinema stands. They're willing to risk it. While all of Washington waits on the Arizona Democrat, her previous treatment of high-profile issues shows she's unlikely to make any statement about how she sees the deal written by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer -- at least until it's on the floor. If the past is prologue, she'll also be a wild card on amendments that Republicans may offer in a bid to alter the bill on the Senate floor during votes later this week.... 'I'm going to approach it from the positive side and just say I anticipate Sen. Sinema will be on board,' said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.)." MB: Prima donnas like Sinema & Manchin may love the public attention, but it's mostly negative attention. It's maddening, and it pleases no one.
The Secret Service Cover-up, Ctd. Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "Top officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general's office interfered with efforts to recover erased Secret Service texts from the time of the US Capitol attack and attempted to cover up their actions, two House committees said in a letter on Monday. Taken together, the new revelations appear to show that the chief watchdog for the Secret Service and the DHS took deliberate steps to stop the retrieval of texts it knew were missing, and then sought to hide the fact that it had decided not to pursue that evidence." A February 2022 memo from Thomas Kait, a deputy inspector general, morphed from "[criticizing] the DHS for refusing to cooperate with its investigation" to "instead [praising] the agency for its response to the internal review. The memo went from being a stinging rebuke that said 'most DHS components have not provided the requested information' to saying 'we received a timely and consolidated response from each component', the House committees said."
The New York Times is liveblogging developments in Tuesday's primary races.
Peter Baker of the New York Times: "President Biden named a veteran emergency response official on Tuesday to manage the U.S. government's handling of the monkeypox outbreak as some of the nation's largest states declare states of emergency. The official, Robert Fenton, a regional administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and twice its acting head, will serve as the White House monkeypox coordinator. Alongside him, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, director of the Division of H.I.V. Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will serve as his deputy. An early-morning statement issued by the White House said that the two men would be charged with overseeing the effort 'to combat the current monkeypox outbreak, including equitably increasing the availability of tests, vaccinations and treatments.'"
Wisconsin. Patrick Marley of the Washington Post: In "an extraordinary public statement..., former state Supreme Court justice [Michael Gableman --] hired by Republican lawmakers to probe the 2020 election [-- said in March 2022 that] Wisconsin should take a 'hard look' at canceling Joe Biden's victory and revoking the state's 10 electoral college votes.... But a newly unearthed memo shows that ... Gableman soon afterward offered a far different analysis in private. 'While decertification of the 2020 presidential election is theoretically possible, it is unprecedented and raises numerous substantial constitutional issues that would be difficult to resolve. Thus, the legal obstacles to its accomplishment render such an outcome a practical impossibility,' Gableman wrote to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. The contrasting public and private messages offer a glimpse into the dueling pressures facing Republicans in Wisconsin as they struggle to balance Trump's baseless demands for reversing the election with the legal and political realities on the ground."
~~~~~~~~~~
Kristen Welker, et al., of NBC News: “President Joe Biden announced Monday night that a U.S. counterterrorism operation over the weekend in Afghanistan killed top Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of the plotters behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.... Biden described al-Zawahiri as a 'mastermind' of the 9/11 attacks and said the terrorist leader also played a key role in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.... Two people briefed on the matter told NBC News it was a CIA drone strike that killed al-Zawahiri. Al-Zawahiri was killed at 6:18 a.m. local time at a safe house in downtown Kabul, according to an administration official. He was standing on a balcony during the time of the attack. No civilians or family members of al-Zawahiri were killed in the attack, the official said.” (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's lead story on the assassination of al-Zawahiri is here. The AP report is here. ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is live-updating developments. The Guardian's live briefings are here; they include a photo, released by the White House, of President Biden being briefed on the operation. ~~~
~~~ Zeke Miller & Aamer Madhani of the AP: "The seeds of the audacious counterterrorism operation had been planted over many months. U.S. officials had built a scale model of the safe house where al-Zawahri had been located, and brought it into the White House Situation Room to show President Joe Biden. They knew al-Zawahri was partial to sitting on the home's balcony. They had painstakingly constructed 'a pattern of life,' as one official put it. They were confident he was on the balcony when the missiles flew, officials said. Years of efforts by U.S. intelligence operatives under four presidents to track al-Zawahri and his associates paid dividends earlier this year, Biden said, when they located Osama bin Laden's longtime No. 2 -- a co-planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. -- and ultimate successor at the house in Kabul."
Yasmeen Abutaleb, et al., of the Washington Post: "The White House warned Monday that a potential visit to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) could prompt China to take significant inflammatory actions in response, and urged Beijing not to take advantage of the trip or see it as a pretext for provocation." ~~~
~~~ David Sanger & Vivian Wang of the New York Times: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi began a fraught tour of Asia on Sunday that administration officials say they now expect will include a stop in Taiwan, despite China's increasingly sharp warnings in recent days that a visit to the self-governing island would provoke a response, perhaps a military one. Ms. Pelosi arrived in Singapore on Monday, after a weekend stopover in Hawaii to consult with American commanders responsible for the Indo-Pacific. She said in a statement that she was planning to travel on with a congressional delegation for high-level meetings in Malaysia, South Korea and Japan, and did not mention Taiwan. But it would not be unusual to omit Taiwan from an announcement given security concerns, and President Biden's aides said she was expected to proceed with the plan for the highest-level visit by an American official to the island in 25 years. Ms. Pelosi could still change her mind about traveling to Taiwan, administration officials said, but added that seemed unlikely." A related CNN story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "As soon as [Democratic] party leaders announced [the new Schumer/Manchin climate change] bill last week, Republicans began attacking it in familiar terms. They called it a giant tax increase and a foolish expansion of government spending, which they alleged would hurt an economy reeling from rapid inflation. But outside estimates suggest the bill would not cement a giant tax increase or result in profligate federal spending. An analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a congressional nonpartisan scorekeeper for tax legislation, suggests that the bill would raise about $70 billion over 10 years. But the increase would be front-loaded: By 2027, the bill would actually amount to a net tax cut each year.... That analysis, along with a broader estimate of the bill's provisions from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, suggests that the legislation, if passed, would only modestly add to federal spending over the next 10 years. By the end of the decade, the bill would be reducing federal spending, compared with what is scheduled to happen if it does not become law." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Republicans have three responses to any legislation proposed by Democrats: (1)It's a diabolical scheme to raise taxes & spend you money irresponsibly, or (2) they're taking away your freedoms, or (3) both. Here, and with the PACT burn-pit bill, they've chosen Option (1) off their short menu.
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Two influential House Democrats called on Monday for two officials at the Department of Homeland Security's independent watchdog to testify to Congress about the agency's handling of missing Secret Service text messages from the day of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, accusing their office of engaging in a cover-up. In a letter sent Monday to Joseph V. Cuffari, the agency's inspector general, the heads of two congressional committees said they had developed 'grave new concerns over your lack of transparency and independence, which appear to be jeopardizing the integrity of a crucial investigation run by your office.' The letter from Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York and the chairwoman of the Oversight Committee, and Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, renewed a demand the pair made last week that Mr. Cuffari step aside from the investigation. It also called for two of his office's top employees to testify this month."
Zach Montague of the New York Times: "A federal judge on Monday sentenced Guy Wesley Reffitt, the first defendant to go on trial in the Justice Department's sprawling criminal inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack, to more than seven years in prison, the longest sentence to date in a case stemming from the Capitol riot. After a six-hour hearing, Judge Dabney L. Friedrich handed down a sentence at the low end of the guideline range. She noted that was still significantly longer than any given so far to any of the more than 800 people arrested in connection with the riot, many of whom have struck plea bargains." The NBC News story is here.
Jordain Carney & Anthony Adragna of Politico: "Senate Republicans are reversing course on a veterans health care bill, signaling they'll now help it quickly move to President Joe Biden's desk after weathering several days of intense criticism for delaying the legislation last week.... [Majority Leader Chuck] Schumer is expected to force another vote on the veterans bill this week, vowing Monday that he would bring it up 'in the coming days.... We're going to give Senate Republicans another chance to do the right thing,' he said. The New York Democrat will likely give Republicans an off-ramp by granting [Sen. Pat] Toomey [R-Pa.] a vote on his proposed amendment, which the Pennsylvania Republican and many of his colleagues say he's been requesting for months.... The amendment explanation has done little to curb Democratic charges that the GOP turned a non-controversial plan to help veterans exposed to Agent Orange and toxic burn pits into a political football."
"Election Integrity" = "Muscling Voters." Heidi Przybyla, now of Politico: "The Republican National Committee has been relying on a stable of the party's most prolific spreaders of false stolen-election theories to pilot a sweeping 'election integrity' operation to recruit and coach thousands of poll workers in eight battleground states, according to new recordings of organizing summits held this spring in Florida and Pennsylvania obtained by Politico. On the tapes, RNC National Election Integrity Director Josh Findlay repeatedly characterizes the committee's role as supporting in-state coalitions -- delivering staff, organization and 'muscle' in key states to the person they identify as the quarterback of the effort to create a permanent workforce: Conservative elections attorney Cleta Mitchell, who was a central figure in ... Donald Trump's legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election."
Kathellen Kingsbury of the New York Times: Columnist Nicholas Kristof is returning to the New York Times. (Also linked yesterday.)
Lena Sun & Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post on how to know, after you've had Covid-19, when you are no longer contageous. The article is free to nonsubscribers.
Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "Gov. Gavin Newsom of California declared a state of emergency on Monday to address a monkeypox outbreak, making the state the third in four days to elevate its public health response to the rapidly spreading disease. The declaration followed similar actions by New York on Friday and Illinois on Monday, and by the city of San Francisco on Thursday. Mayor Eric Adams of New York also declared a local emergency on Monday.'
Joseph Goldstein of the New York Times: "Less than a decade ago, the United States had some 20 million doses of a new smallpox vaccine -- also effective against monkeypox -- sitting in freezers in a national stockpile. Such vast quantities of the vaccine, known today as Jynneos, could have slowed the spread of monkeypox after it first emerged in the United States in mid-May. Instead, the supply, known as the Strategic National Stockpile, had only some 2,400 usable doses left at that point, enough to fully vaccinate just 1,200 people. The rest of the doses had expired.... At several points federal officials chose not to quickly replenish doses as they expired, instead pouring money into developing a freeze-dried version of the vaccine that would have substantially increased its three-year shelf life. As the wait for a freeze-dried vaccine to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration dragged on over the last decade, the United States purchased vast quantities of raw vaccine product, which has yet to be filled into vials. The raw, unfinished vaccine remains stored in large plastic bags outside Copenhagen, at the headquarters of the small Danish biotech company Bavarian Nordic, which developed Jynneos and remains its sole producer."
Beyond the Beltway
State Primary Elections. Hannah Knowles & Colby Itkowitz of the Washington Post: "A final stretch of primaries for state and federal offices kicks off Tuesday, setting the stage for a six-week battle inside a divided Republican Party pitting candidates loyal to ... Donald Trump and his false election claims against rivals looking to move past those fights in this fall's midterm elections.... Trying to overcome those economic head winds and low approval ratings for President Biden, Democrats argue the GOP's candidates -- and their campaigns against the democratic process itself -- will prove too extreme for general-election voters.... Tuesday's contests in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state could elevate more Republicans who, like Trump, have baselessly undermined faith in elections and pitch themselves as populist fighters against not just Democrats but the GOP establishment."
Arizona. Zach Montellaro of Politico: "Mark Finchem -- a poster child for election deniers following the 2020 election -- is inching closer to becoming the chief election official in one of the most tightly divided battleground states in the country. Finchem, an Arizona state lawmaker, is running with ... Donald Trump's endorsement in Tuesday's Republican primary for secretary of state there. He has support from a coalition of other like-minded candidates running to be election administrators in their own states, which has gained traction in several other close 2020 swing states. And Finchem has a significant edge in a rare public poll of the secretary of state race published Friday." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The GOP primary candidates topping the polls for governor & secretary of state in Arizona ar rabid election deniers with plans to upend Arizona's election system. Never mind that there was no substantial fraud in the 2020 election. ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Cooper of the AP: "Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich said Monday his investigators found just one dead voter after thoroughly reviewing findings from a partisan review of the 2020 election that alleged 282 ballots were cast in the name of someone who had died.... A spokesman for Brnovich ... said the dead person's ballot was not counted.... The finding by the Republican attorney general, who is running for U.S. Senate in Tuesday's primary, further discredits the review conducted last year. The review was led by an inexperienced firm, Cyber Ninjas, and conducted largely by supporters of Donald Trump who falsely believe the election was stolen from him." Trump has endorsed Brnovich's opponent Blake Masters, who is, according to Mother Jones, "a complete nightmare for democracy."
Missouri. Donald Trump had promised to endorse a candidate in Missouri's GOP primary for U.S. Senate. As a prime example of how unserious Trump is about governance, here's what he did: ~~~
~~~ Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: Donald Trump "injected more chaos into an already tumultuous [Republican primary] race [for U.S. Senate], simply endorsing 'ERIC' -- a first name shared by two rival candidates -- former governor Eric Greitens and state Attorney General Eric Schmitt -- as he suggested he was leaving it to voters to choose between them.... 'I trust the Great People of Missouri, on this one, to make up their own minds, much as they did when they gave me landslide victories in the 2016 and 2020 Elections, and I am therefore proud to announce that ERIC has my Complete and Total Endorsement!' The unusual statement came hours after Trump wrote on Truth Social: 'I will be endorsing in the Great State of Missouri Republican race (Nomination) for Senate sometime today!'" Both Erics thanked Trump for the endorsement. The Raw Story's report is here. MB: One of the Erics would be a horrible senator, and the other would be worse.
Florida. Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post: "... seven Florida clergy members -- two Christians, three Jews, one Unitarian Universalist and a Buddhist -- ... argue in separate lawsuits filed Monday that their ability to live and practice their religious faith is being violated by the state's new, post-Roe abortion law. The law, which is one of the strictest in the country, making no exceptions for rape or incest, was signed in April by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), in a Pentecostal church alongside antiabortion lawmakers such as the House speaker, who called life 'a gift from God.' The lawsuits are at the vanguard of a novel legal strategy arguing that new post-Roe abortion restrictions violate Americans' religious freedom, including that of clerics who advise pregnant people. The cases are part of an effort among a broad swath of religious Americans who support abortion access to rewrite the dominant modern cultural narrative that says the only 'religious' view on abortion is to oppose it." MB: I wonder what stupid, irresponsible & irreverent thing Sam Alito will have to say about that.
Florida. Selene San Felice of Axios: "Last week, Florida education commissioner Manny Diaz told school districts to ignore federal guidelines aimed at protecting students and teachers from discrimination because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Diaz said the Biden administration's anti-discrimination language is not binding law and that following the guidelines could violate state law.... Educators will have to navigate conflicting guidance going into this school year. Teachers and schools could face lawsuits for violating the Parental Rights in Education law — dubbed 'Don't Say Gay.'" MB: Bottom line: confuse educators; hurt students.
Michigan. Dave Boucher of the Detroit Free Press: "A court order that sought to bar enforcement of a dormant law criminalizing most abortions in Michigan does not apply to county prosecutors, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Monday. The massively consequential ruling means the 1931 law banning all abortions except those done to protect the life of a pregnant person essentially takes effect immediately, said David Kallman, an attorney for Great Lakes Justc Center, a conservative organization representing several Michigan prosecutors who challenged the injunction. The decision could have a sweeping and drastic impact in the state, where Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel and many other pro-abortion rights advocates have fought to maintain legal access to abortion following the U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade in June." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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 Washington Post's live briefings for Tuesday are here: "Monday's grain shipment was 'the first positive signal that there is a chance to stop the spread of the food crisis in the world,' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address. That cargo vessel, carrying more than 26,000 metric tons of corn, is en route to Lebanon under a deal brokered by the United Nations. Zelensky warned that Russia could still try to disrupt exports.... Brittney Griner has appeared again in a Moscow court for the first time since news broke of the Biden administration's proposal for a prisoner exchange with Russia to bring the WNBA player and another American prisoner, ex-Marine Paul Whelan, home.... The White House has announced an additional $550 million in security assistance for Ukraine."
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Reader Comments (19)
It may be a slow news week, as Marie said last week, but one bit of
news made me cringe.
Seeing Ivana's grave marker. She was born on my birthday, Feb 20,
and died on my sister's birthday, Jul 14.
Also had other coincidences last week that gave me the chills (in this
90 degree heat).
Forest: don't worry none––-you are as far away from a connection with anything Trump as you are with weird spaceships invading your backyard unless Betsy is behind the wheel looking for flowers in your garden to steal.
And speaking of flying things–––a drone done gots the bad guy–-one al-Zawahiri and from what has been aired is this operation was brilliantly planned as to get this sucker but avoid killing anyone else like family members or bystanders.
And then we have our very own "bad guy" who is such a dolt he doesn't know who he is endorsing. There are "Thing one" and "Thing Two" running in the show-me state for U.S. Senate, Eric Greitens and Eric Schmitt but Trump comes out with an endorsement of ERIC–--so both guys are saying Fatty has endorsed them. My bet is on Greitens who has been accused of sexual assault–-just the kind of guy Trump has his eye out for.
Stephanie Ruhle explains why it's time to end the carried interest loophole. If you, like I was, ignorant of what exactly that means, and its importance, read on.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/stephanie-ruhle-carried-interest-loophole_n_62e8b7d9e4b0d0ea9b7a32ec
@Forrest Morris: Luckily, neither you nor your sister died on the date Ivana did.
I learned something yesterday about Ivanka -- something I didn't know but partially suspected. Ivanka is a diminutive of Ivana -- that's the part I suspected -- and Ivanka's real given name is the same as her mother's: "Ivana Marie" -- that part I didn't know. So Ivanka is a "Junior," too. Maybe she'll do better by her mother than leave her remains in a barely-marked hole near the first hole.
On the other hand, maybe Donald has written instructions to have all of his wives buried near the corresponding course hole: Wife No. 2 at the second hole, Wife No. 3 at the third hole. And so forth. That would be touching. I'm not sure exactly where the gilded Arc de Trump is supposed to sit on the Bedminster course, but it makes sense that Trump wouldn't want all his wives too close lest they take away from visitors' adulation of the Trumpster hisself.
Whatever. As Patrick pointed out yesterday, better Bedminster than Arlington.
When I called Donald with my condolences, he told me that Ivana's
grave marker is only temporary. After all, there's a gold casket under
it (supposedly).
He plans to have a GIANT fundraising rally to raise millions, about
$20 million, to do a huge memorial or something. He's gonna spend
about $1 million on it so that will give him a $19 million profit courtesy of the rubes.
That's only a start. How many wives are left? And kids?
Forrest,
A gold casket? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Fatty rented a fancy casket for the funeral, then had her dug up so he could dump her into a cardboard box and return the rented one. Why waste hard scrounged dollars on a dead broad? Trump is nothing if not careful with his money. Careful about spending it on anyone but himself, never mind a corpse. That makes him smart, as he often sez.
"... At several points federal officials chose not to quickly replenish doses as they expired, instead pouring money into developing a freeze-dried version of the vaccine that would have substantially increased its three-year shelf life. ... " (from the story about National Stockpile, smallpox, monkeypox, above)
I don't envy the folks who have to manage the national stockpile, which contains all sorts of things needed to deal with mega-emergencies like nuclear blasts, bioweapon and chemweapon attacks, manmade and natural disasters of every stripe and color. But the example above is a pretty clear case of the principle that "The best is the enemy of the good." When you have a life-or-death problem (like smallpox pandemic), you cannot sacrifice the thing that works "good" for the thing that works "best" unless you pay the price of developing and managing both at the same time, until the "best" is proved to work.
But when it is the USG managing it, incurring those double costs allows the party of personal responsibility (R) to flay the managers alive at appropriations and oversight hearings, and then justify reducing the required funds even more.
So taking the risk of wishful thinking looks attractive in the short run. And when the managers lose the bet (like in this case), they can only hope that there are enough people to share the blame and that the public's memory is short and perception is weak. And these days, since R's have, for 40 years, been pushing the incompetence of government as a natural law, the public just sees it's expectations fulfilled, i.e. another eff-up.
It doesn't have to be this way, but our political system makes it hazardous for "good" senior managers to choose anything but the lowest cost solution to problems, to defend the existence of their programs.
Alitocare
Remember the keening hue and cry from confederate battlements when it became clear that Obamacare was going to be passed, thus providing healthcare for dirty savages and non-whites who refused to vote for the Nazis? Fear mongering screams of death panels convened to decide whether granny would be allowed to live or die were gleefully passed from one Fox host to the next. All lies, of course, but when did that ever stop the traitors?
Except now we have Alitocare, a vicious oxymoron if there ever was one. Under Alitocare we already have death panels. They decide, not a patient or her physician, when a woman in danger of dying could receive an abortion that might save her life.
In Texas recently, a woman in exactly this position, was denied the appropriate and necessary medical procedure (an abortion) because the hospital’s Alitocare death panel feared reprisal from Gov. Abbott and his bug-eyed abortion monitors. They feared that the doctors involved could all lose their licenses and the hospital charged with crimes against the state if they treated this woman a second before she was going into her death throes. This is the direct result of Alitocare. Actual death panels.
Any word from the fear mongers now?
But this feature (not a bug) of Alitocare is spreading to every corner of anti-abortion states. This, along with “laws” allowing for women who try to escape the clutches of Alitocare by going to a state that practices actual 21st century medicine to be hunted down, “laws” similar to 19th century antebellum escaped slave acts.
The viciousness of Alitocare is spreading. Supreme Court Death Panels are now a reality.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/07/abortion-ban-hospital-ethics-committee-mother-life-death.html
You guys are full of great info today...I had always wondered too why Ivanka was only one letter away from her mother's name-- thanks for that.
Yesterday the news was full of dire warnings about the monkeypox and the fact that we are, as usual, unprepared. I guess that is "Sleepy Joe's" fault too. I am glad another terrorist bites the dust (details indicating he spent a lot of time on his balcony are crazy!) but seriously, another one will pop up. I am weary with being inundated with current "local" news about the morons who will be arranging our elections from now on-- maybe we may as well think about international terror, since our homegrown terror and terrorists don't seem to be going away either.
Daughter and I and dog had a not-too-hot walk along our little river (the Conestoga-- tributary of the Susquehanna--) and it is a sunny day, and now it's time for oatmeal with peaches-- turning off the horrible daily news, and thanks for the updates, everyone...
And behind the scenes, we have the same old American story: Borrow til you're broke and further enrich the rich in the process.
Have no doubt that as as the article says some of this new borrowing is due to inflation, but I'd guess it's also due to our (premature) post-Covid economic breakout...and old habits like our I deserve it and I want it now always die hard.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/08/02/credit-card-debt-inflation/?
Ken,
My wife and I don’t have credit cards. We pay cash for everything. The only thing we don’t pay outright is the mortgage. If we can’t afford it, we don’t buy it. This has been problematic at times, but we don’t have a lot to start out with and we’d hate to be handing extra money out to credit card companies for the privilege of buying other stuff we probably don’t need.
But not being a credit card slave has its drawbacks. We’ve talked about getting one just for emergency purposes, but haven’t done it yet.
Last week, I went to the bank for an unrelated matter. A bank official came out and asked if I had a credit card. I said no. She looked aghast. “Well, let’s check your credit rating” and before I knew it, she pulled up my information. She shook her head and said “Ooh, it doesn’t look good. You don’t have much credit history.” I told her we pay up front for everything. How does that translate into a credit risk? She looked at me like I was stupid and told me I really need a credit card to have good credit. She launched into the great things I could do with one of the bank’s credit cards. I thanked her and walked out. They come after you hard if you’re not pulling one of their oars.
@KW: I'm also haunted by this cartoon I saw years ago of this poor woman standing in a bare bones apartment imploring: "We must have more lottery tickets, for they are our only hope."
I see so many for whom that is the truth,
@Akhilleus: Okay, maybe you and I are the same person. The rented gilded casket is exactly what I thought immediately when I read Forrest's second comment. The only reason I know I'm not you (okay, maybe not the only reason) is that I'm more generous to Trump than you are: I thought chipboard casket, not cardboard box.
On a more serious matter -- AlitoCare -- that comes from the idea that people -- well, okay, other people -- should suffer. Jesus on the cross and all. And the other people who should suffer the most are women. It's baked into our culture: "Little Women" suffering while Daddy is away at war and showing gratitude for getting an orange for Christmas. Mothers suffering through pregnancy -- so why not through unwanted pregnancy, too? -- and childbirth. And rearing children alone. Alito thinks women should suffer. Maybe it's an Adam & Eve & the serpent thing. Whatever. He doesn't see himself as a person in a responsible position to help make life better for all Americans. Rather, he see himself as a lofty person of ideals who puts other people in their rightful lowly places. That Dobbs decision, for all it's clunkiness, was the Jonathan Edwards sermon -- "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" -- of our day.
@Bobby Lee: The reason that cartoon haunts you is that there is so much truth to it. As you suggest, for so many people, an unlikely miracle is their only salvation. Or at least that's what they think.
I think one of the problems is that we don't do a very good job of teaching people "life skills," even though I understand that is a subject that is taught in some high schools now.
But one of the most important "life skills" -- and one we can all hope we'll never need -- is how to cope with disaster -- whether it's personal health issues or financial destitution or both or whatever.
Last week or so I heard a half minute of an NPR story about a woman who was being evicted because she couldn't pay the rent (or mortgage). My first thought was to feel sorry for the woman because apparently she got in that situation through no direct fault of her own. But my second thought -- and it came pretty fast -- was "What would I do in that situation?" And really, within seconds, I worked out a plan of action. Not a great plan, not one that relied on the miracle of lottery tickets or a non-existent rich uncle, but a plan that was probably workable and that I could engineer and carry out. So somewhere along the way, I picked up that ability to weather a disaster. I'm not boasting; I just know I can work out plans to improve upon bad situations. I've never been in such a bad situation I thought I would be out on the street, but I have worked myself out of some pretty low places. My solutions have not been fairy-tale optimal,
A few days after I heard that story, a young woman asked me what she should do about an entirely different kind of dead-end situation she was in. Since I haven't lived a life of sheer perfection, I kinda hate to give people life advice, but after she gave me the particulars, I gave her a hard-nosed look at what her logical choices were, and none of them was great. I think I kind of shocked her as I suspect she was hoping for sympathy and a happy ending. I have no idea what she'll do, but I could see options that never occurred to her and were way better than her "solutions."
Maybe it's because Americans are supposed to be optimistic that we don't try to teach young people how to get through the low points. But I do think we should at least try. Shaming people who have lost their homes (or whatever) or telling them God doesn't saddle you with more than you can handle are not solutions.
I like presidents who kill terrorists, not play golf with them.
The Treason Parallax
Recently I had occasion to watch (or rather, rewatch) Alan Pakula’s 1974 masterpiece of paranoia, “The Parallax View”. If you haven’t seen it in a while, or ever, it grounds its paranoia in political assassinations, drawing heavily on the murders of JFK and his brother Bobby. You may recall stories, still alive and well, of all the people, many of whom were witnesses or in way connected to the Dallas shooting, who ended up dead in a short period after November of 1963.
“The Parallax View” takes this odd set of circumstances much further, into the realm of assassins for hire, through a company known as the Parallax Corporation. And here’s where things go beyond the realm of conspiracy thrillers into present day right-wing violence and unhinged hatred, plenty of which was on display during Trump’s putsch.
Reading that Guy Reffitt was sentenced to seven years for his role in Trump’s treason party, I recalled a podcast episode I listened to some time ago called “Will be Wild” (highly recommended). The authors included an in-depth profile of this violent maniac who at times threatened to murder both his son (who turned him in to the FBI) and his wife, and who became enamored of local extremist paramilitary groups and the idea of going to Washington to help Trump kill his enemies.
How do people become this out of control?
In “The Parallax View”, Pakula offers some answers. The simplest is that a certain group recruits individuals who are already on the line between insanity and a warped view of reality. Warren Beatty plays an investigative journalist looking into the mysterious deaths that followed in the wake of an RFK like assassination (Pakula even positions the victim, a senator running for president, in the same pose as Bobby Kennedy on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel). He comes across a creepy questionnaire designed to identify violent and disturbed types who could be turned into killing machines for the corporation. The questions were in a yes or no format asking things like “The sight of blood does not bother me.”, “I know who is responsible for all my problems”, and “I feel so angry all the time.”
(This questionnaire business also reminded me that Trump hired a loyalist with zero government experience, John McEntee, to hire and fire personnel based solely on their answers to a set of survey questions designed to weed out intelligent, competent applicants and replace them with those who would do what they were told, no questions asked. McEntee had been fired by former Chief of Staff, John Kelly for security problems. Trump hired him back and put him, a 25 year old kid, in charge of hiring, giving him the power to overrule cabinet officers.)
Beatty takes the test (getting help from a psychotic) and is invited to the next level.
He is seated in a dark room and shown a series of images separated by words like Father, Mother, Love, Me, Country. The images at first are sweet and bucolic but quickly progress to images of violence, lynchings, guns, Nazis, blacks, disturbed people, bullets, and comic book representations of power. The gist is “You are powerful, but you have been victimized by people out to get you just because you love your country. Join us. Destroy these people!”
My immediate reaction was “Jesus Christ! This is Fox. And Newsmax, and Alex Jones, and Trump.
The unhinged and the violent are being groomed and recruited by these people for their own ends: political violence and power. They want people like Reffitt, people who know who is responsible for all their problems and who don’t mind the sight of blood.
The testing continues. 24/7. On a Fox station near you.
You’re not paranoid if it’s true.
@Forest Morris: The first pitcher's on me!
@Bobby Lee: Make that a pitcher of Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon
Blanc and I'm in. But Texas is a long drive from W. Michigan.
Forrest!
Dude! Are you one of those anti-red wine guys? What, no merlot? No Pinot noir? No Shiraz? Geeez. What do you guys pair with pasta and marinara sauce? Spread the red and white check table cloth and break out the house Chianti, for goodness sakes! But forget the Michael Corleone bullets to the head of the local corrupt right wing police chief. Messy.
@Ak: Red wine usually gives me a headache, so suffer ye pasta
eaters and I who have a problem with reds. Must be genetic. I'm
Scottish and all that stuff, so should stick to Scotch.