;)
December 11, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post shares some ideas for reforming the Supreme Court. The reforms have popular support.
Okay, here a Fox "News" headline: "Kevin McCarthy pledges subpoenas for 51 intel agents in wake of Hunter Biden 'Twitter Files' revelations."
Brittany Shammas, et al., of the Washington Post: "A Libyan man accused of making a bomb that killed hundreds of people aboard an American passenger plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, almost 34 years ago is in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. A spokesman for the Justice Department said Abu Agila Masud is expected to make his first court appearance in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.... The former Libyan intelligence operative is accused of making the explosive device that destroyed a Pan Am jet on Dec. 21, 1988, killing all 259 people on board the Boeing 747 and 11 others on the ground. The Justice Department charged Masud in 2020 with helping make the bomb. In announcing the charges on the 32nd anniversary of the attack, then-Attorney General William P. Barr said that the operation was ordered by the leadership of Libyan intelligence and that Moammar Gaddafi, Libya's leader from 1969 to 2011, had personally thanked Masud for his work. It was unclear how authorities took Masud into custody." The AP's report is here.
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Hunter Biden Dick Pix Edition, Etc.
Dan Friedman of Mother Jones searches the provenance of the Hunter Biden dick pix, and you will be shocked, shocked to find out that Steve Bannon & his friend the Chinese mogul Guo Wengui are behind the distribution of the photos & videos, which they paired with invented allegations that Hunter engaged in child sex abuse & that both Hunter & Joe Biden had paid blackmail. (There's a Rudy Giuliani cameo, too.) Friedman tells us a little more about Guo, who publicly criticizes Chinese communism, but has been accused of being an agent of the Chinese government. In his meeting with Guo backers on October 31, 2020, "Bannon acknowledged passing the material to Guo's backers and then praised their lies, which he laughingly described as 'editorial creativity over the pictures.'" ~~~
~~~ Recently, Elon Musk provided Matt Taibbi with internal communications between Twitter & outsiders, including the Biden 2020 presidential campaign. When Taibbi revealed that -- at the Biden campaign's request -- Twitter had taken down pictures & a video that a follower of Guo had posted, Musk himself was shocked, shocked: "If this isn't a violation of the Constitution's First Amendment, what is?'" he asked. As Friedman notes, there's no First Amendment violation here, something Musk later claimed he knew all along. Then, there's this: "Even now, under Musk, Twitter says that 'sharing explicit sexual images or videos of someone online without their consent is a severe violation' of its rules. Twitter also continues to bar 'coordinated harmful activity,' which it defines as 'individuals associated with a group, movement, or campaign ... engaged in some form of coordination' that will 'cause harm to others.'... The effort by Guo and his backers to propagate explicit images and lies to hurt the Bidens was very much the kind of disinformation campaign that social media companies have good reason, even a responsibility, to combat."
Scott Lemieux in LG&$ republishes a portion of a New York article by Eric Levitz on Elon Musk's vaunted "Twitter Files": "The Twitter Files provide limited evidence that the social-media platform's former management sometimes enforced its terms of service in inconsistent and politically biased ways. The project offers overwhelming evidence that Twitter's current management is using the platform to promote tendentious, partisan narratives and conservative misinformation. In that sense, [Matt] Taibbi and [right-wing journalist Bari] Weiss have performed revelatory journalism." And as Lemieux writes, "What the TWITTER FILES do not contain is any reason for anybody to care about the dumbest pseudo-scandal ever"; i.e., the Hunter Biden laptop hoohah. ~~~
~~~ Marie: There's a tragedy here: Musk & Taibbi are never going to figure out that at best, they are naifs, and more realistically, they are ignorant hacks. This is a personal tragedy for Musk & Taibbi, but people who used Twitter are collateral damage. Musk doesn't get this, either. One of the worst traits of the biggest jerks is that they'll never know they're the biggest jerks.
Matt Viser & Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "An array of groups is preparing to defend [Hunter Biden] against an expected GOP onslaught, but they lack a unifying strategy.... For the White House, the overriding message is that Hunter Biden is clearly a private citizen and an inappropriate target for Congress to investigate, and that Republicans are more concerned with pursuing conspiracies than solving the country's problems."
Apparently there's a "Twitter Files, Part II," and Bari Weiss wrote it. Blake Montgomery of the Gizmodo reviews Weiss's report, which claims Twitter picked on right-wing users more than left-wing users. According to Montgomery, Weiss provides evidence of some wingers Twitter moderated but fails to show any evidence that Twitter was more rigorous with the right than with the left. IOW, just stupid stuff. ~~~
~~~ Shirin Ghaffary of Vox is equally unimpressed with Weiss's analysis, noting that her accusations lack context: "We don't have a full explanation, for example, of why Twitter limited the reach of these accounts -- i.e., whether they were violating the platform's rules on hate speech, health misinformation, or violent content. Without this information, we don't know whether these rules were applied fairly or not." A former Twitter employee noted that Weiss complained about one account Twitter had limited, but the employee noted that "The account has been blamed for harassment of children's hospitals, including bomb threats."
Abigail Hauslohner of the Washington Post: "Four American veterans of the Afghanistan War drove 7,600 miles across the U.S. "in five weeks with the hope that, if they could rally the support of local veterans groups and other constituents, [Republican] senators still uncommitted might also embrace their sense of urgency [to resettle Afghan refugees brought here after the war].... Their journey was fueled by notions of military honor, loyalty and obligation. Out on the road, though, they found no guarantees that such convictions still resonate in a postwar America. Often, they encountered -- both from the public and lawmakers' staff -- an uncomfortable reality in which the moral code that united so many amid the withdrawal had given way to an indifference toward those at risk of abandonment all over again."
Atten-Shun! Mike Baker, et al., of the New York Times: "J.R.O.T.C. programs, taught by military veterans at some 3,500 high schools across the country, are supposed to be elective, and the Pentagon has said that requiring students to take them goes against its guidelines. But The New York Times found that thousands of public school students were being funneled into the classes without ever having chosen them, either as an explicit requirement or by being automatically enrolled.... Dozens of schools have made the program mandatory or steered more than 75 percent of students in a single grade into the classes.... A vast majority of the schools with those high enrollment numbers were attended by a large proportion of nonwhite students and those from low-income households, The Times found.... Parents in some cities say their children are being forced to put on military uniforms, obey a chain of command and recite patriotic declarations in classes they never wanted to take." ~~~
~~~Mike Baker & Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "A majority of public school textbooks receive extensive professional and government vetting, undergoing revision, rejection and public debate. But the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps, in courses taught at thousands of high schools around the country, uses textbooks that have bypassed those standard public reviews.... A New York Times review of thousands of pages of the program's textbooks found that some of the books also included outdated gender messages, a conservative shading of political issues and accounts of historical events that falsify or downplay the failings of the U.S. government."
Christina Jewitt of the New York Times: "Juul Labs has agreed to pay $1.7 billion to settle more than 5,000 lawsuits by school districts, local governments and individuals who claimed that its e-cigarettes were more addictive than advertised, according to people with knowledge of the deal. The amount for the deal, which involves a consolidation of cases centered in Northern California, is more than three times the sum reported for other Juul settlements in other state and local cases thus far."
Beyond the Beltway
California. Shawn Hubler & Soumya Karlamangla of the New York Times: "Come Monday evening, Kevin de León will be the lone Los Angeles politician still in his job among the four leaders who discussed local politics in racist terms on a recording that has roiled the nation's second most populous city since October, when it surfaced online.... When he unexpectedly attempted to return to the council dais after an absence of weeks, demonstrators shouted and screamed, three colleagues walked out in protest, and the council recessed until Mr. de León left the chambers.... On Friday evening, as a food and toy giveaway wrapped up in his district, Mr. de León, wearing a Santa hat, got into a skirmish with a well-known local activist who has called for months for the councilman's resignation.... The upheaval underscored the ongoing challenges as Karen Bass prepares to be sworn in on Sunday as the first female mayor of Los Angeles and five new City Council members get ready to begin work next week. They will confront a city exhausted by mounting homelessness, crime, costs of living and ethnic divisions."
Way Beyond
Germany. If There Is One! Erika Solomon & Katrin Bennhold of the New York Times on Prince Heinrich XIII of Reuss, the right-wing terrorist whom his co-conspirators planned to make head of a new German Reich after they toppled the current government (which they think is fake) & assassinated the chancellor. ~~~
~~~ Philip Olterman of the Guardian has more on the extremist plot.
Ukraine, et al. Patrick picks the Quote of the Week:
You can't trust anyone. You can only trust me. -- Vladimir (Epimenides) Putin
~~~ The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live briefings for Sunday are here: "Ukrainian and Moscow-backed officials both reported deadly strikes in the occupied city of Melitopol on Saturday evening, saying that a recreational center was struck and that there were deaths and injuries.... Russian forces have used a significantly higher number of Iranian-made drones to attack critical infrastructure targets in southern Ukraine in recent days than in previous weeks, the Institute for the Study of War think tank said. The Ukrainian air force on Saturday reported that Russia had conducted 15 attacks with Shahed-136 and 131 drones in the southern Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa regions. Ukrainian forces shot down 10 of the drones, according to [President] Zelensky.... Germany on Saturday said it has provided $21 million worth of generators to Ukraine, some of which will go to Odessa to help keep power on as Russian-backed troops target Ukraine's electricity infrastructure.... ~~~
"The brother of Paul Whelan, the Marine turned corporate security executive who is serving a 16-year sentence in a Russian prison over espionage charges, hit back at ... Donald Trump for suggesting that the deal made to free Griner was 'stupid' and 'unpatriotic.' David Whelan told Fox News that Trump's remarks were 'disappointing' for a former president. 'I think that what President Biden did was to take care of an American who was in peril and bring home the American that he could bring home,' he said."
News Lede
New York Times: "When George Johnson, an Englishman known as Johnny, died on Wednesday night in a care home in the Bristol area of southwest England, he was remembered as the last surviving airman of the Dambuster raid [on Germany's industrial heartland]. He was 101."
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Reader Comments (4)
Hard for an earnest, humorless Sunday sermon to compete with dick pix, I know, but...
"After all these years, I still remember him. A year or so older, already visibly muscled, he would stalk across the elementary playground toward us, striking terror in our hearts. Alone or accompanied by one or two friends, he would call us names, threaten us, and now and again deliver a shove or a punch. It seemed the highlight of his day.
The image of that boy has often returned to me as I read about the trials of Alex Jones and his aptly named “Infowars,” and of Steward Rhodes, the founder of The Oath Keepers. They are bullies, too.
Hiding behind the cloak of his Constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech, Jones’ “Infowars” specialized in Far-Right conspiracy theories and personal harassment. Recently his false claim that the Sandy Hook child murders were a hoax and his harassment of the murdered children’s families resulted in hundreds of millions in court-awarded judgements against Jones. Unwilling to face the music of his own making, both Jones and his “Infowars” have declared bankruptcy (Reuters.com).
Stewart Rhodes chose the Second as well as the First Amendment to hide behind. Claiming they don’t have to obey any laws they don’t agree with, his armed Oath Keepers have been a frequent presence at anti-government demonstrations, culminating in their participation in the January 6th insurrection where they stockpiled weapons ready for use (politico.com).
It seems name-calling, threats, and violence have escaped the playground. They have become standard practice on the Right (nytimes.com). Instead of reasoned debate, Republicans call names (communist, socialist, pedophile) and promote violence in their political ads (newjerseymonitor.com). And they don’t stop at words: They plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, they invade the Capitol and, masked and armed, they intimidate voters (abcnews.com).
I foolishly thought I’d left those dreaded playground days behind me."
A special thanks to this Congress and Administration.
An e-mail from the Teamsters Central States Pension Fund advises me
that under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Teamsters
have been guaranteed 35 billion dollars to avoid insolvency in 2025.
That means that any of us who were Teamsters will receive pensions
for at least 3 more years.
No word about reinstating Medicare Part D though.
From Friedman, "Taibbi argued the Biden campaign’s direct line of access to Twitter honchos mattered more than the specifics of the material they got removed. “Do you really think just any person can pick up the phone, dial a Twitter exec…and instantly get their dick picks taken off Twitter?” he told Mother Jones"
TFG summoned the CEO of Twitter to the White House to whine about his number of followers. That is access. And politicians in or running for Congress have never been "just any person", the rich and famous are not "just any person". Those people have access or know someone else who can get it for them. The pathetic Twitter Files already show the Right-wing administration that had the actual backing of the government had access to the honchos at Twitter. But a bad premise is just another obstacle to overcome to prove how great one truly is.
Interesting that pusillanimous treason lover, soon to be (maybe) Speaker, (My Kevin) McCarthy is threatening Democrats with dozens of subpoenas for the upcoming Hunter Biden Dick Pix Bread and Circus Kickapoo Joy Juice jag off jactitation. When Trump testicle cozy My Kevin was himself subpoenaed, he responded with a resounding “fuck off”.
R’s always believe that the laws they laugh at and ignore must be followed by others when they demand it be so.