;)
December 17, 2022
Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "President Biden on Friday delivered a series of emotional remarks that were centered on new benefits available to veterans who have been exposed to toxic chemicals, but also focused on his own personal experiences and channeled moral outrage that the country hasn't always lived up to its 'sacred obligation' of caring for its troops. The remarks were given at a National Guard facility named after his late son, whose death Biden has come to believe was a result of his military service near toxic burn pits in Kosovo and Iraq. The visit to the Major Joseph R. 'Beau' Biden III National Guard/Reserve Center in New Castle, Del., is part of more than 90 events that the Department of Veterans Affairs has been holding around the country to encourage veterans to utilize new benefits available to them as a result of a law Biden signed in August."
Mark Landler of the New York Times: "President Biden plans to appoint Joe Kennedy III, a former Democratic congressman from Massachusetts and a scion of the nation's most famous Irish American political family, as his special envoy to Northern Ireland, two people with knowledge of the White House's plans said on Friday. The White House's announcement, which could come as early as Monday, would fill a post that has been vacant since the departure of Mick Mulvaney, a former acting chief of staff to ... Donald J. Trump, in 2021. The White House is calculating that Mr. Kennedy, 42, a grandson of Robert F. Kennedy who was once viewed as the family's next political star, will bring a marquee name to the job of drumming up business for Northern Ireland, which has long struggled to shake off the legacy of sectarian violence known as the Troubles. But Mr. Kennedy will not have the broad mandate of some of his predecessors, one person said, limiting his focus to economic development and investment promotion rather than thornier political or trade issues." CNN's report is here.
Maria Sachetti & Arelis Hernández of the Washington Post: "A federal appeals court on Friday cleared the way for the Biden administration to end a covid-related policy that allows officials to expel migrants from U.S. borders, rejecting a push by Republican officials to keep enforcing the removals. The decision means the policy known as Title 42 started by the Trump administration, will end Dec. 21, unless the Supreme Court intervenes. The GOP officials had signaled in court records that they would appeal to the Supreme Court. The court ruling represents a victory for immigration advocates in their quest to fully reopen the borders to asylum seekers who have been expelled without a chance to plead their cases, and for the Biden administration, which agrees that the hard-line policy should end. But the Department of Homeland Security is straining to manage an influx of migrants that could balloon in the coming weeks and overwhelm the Border Patrol, as well as cities and towns that are hosting the newcomers."
David Nakamura of the Washington Post: "Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday instructed federal prosecutors to end sentencing disparities in cases involving the distribution of crack and powder cocaine after decades of law enforcement policy disproportionately treating crack offenders more punitively. Garland's move effectively seeks to eliminate the significant difference in the amount of powder cocaine relative to crack cocaine that is required to be in a suspect's possession to trigger mandatory minimum federal sentences if convicted. Critics of the longtime policy have said it is a relic of the Washington's misguided war-on-drugs era that targeted Black and Brown communities, resulted in overpopulated prisons and strained federal and local resources at the expense of more effective strategies." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
William Broad of the New York Times: "The Secretary of Energy on Friday nullified a 1954 decision to revoke the security clearance of J. Robert Oppenheimer, a top government scientist who led the making of the atomic bomb in World War II but fell under suspicion of being a Soviet spy at the height of the McCarthy era. In a statement, the Energy Secretary, Jennifer M. Granholm, said the decision of her predecessor agency, the Atomic Energy Commission, to bar Oppenheimer's clearance was the result of a 'flawed process' that violated its own regulations. As time has passed, she added, 'more evidence has come to light of the bias and unfairness of the process that Dr. Oppenheimer was subjected to while the evidence of his loyalty and love of country have only been further affirmed.'" The Hill's story is here.
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "A new office at the Pentagon is scrutinizing hundreds of reports of unidentified objects in air, sea, space and beyond, senior U.S. defense officials said Friday, and while it has discovered no signs of alien life, the search is set to expand. The issue has taken on increasing seriousness as a bipartisan group of lawmakers presses the Defense Department to investigate instances of unidentified phenomena and disclose publicly what they learn. Established in July, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office is evaluating recent reports and soon could evaluate accounts that date back decades, officials said." ~~~
~~~ Marie: They're looking in the wrong places. They should check out those lawmakers who empowered them. I'm not sure members of Congress are all of this Earth. ~~~
We're Christmas season. A talk of the majority right now who wants to put a small continuing resolution to bump all the members up two days before Christmas, to try to vote on a package they cannot read, written by two individuals who will not be here, on spending for the entire government.... And to walk through to pass the largest bill that we passed throughout the year in the last days before Christmas, where they won't even tell you what the baseline is now, the two people who will not be here are held accountable to their constituents, that they're going to determine this? -- Kevin McCarthy, saying some words on the House floor ~~~
~~~ Dana Milbank of the Washington Post is worried about Kevin McCarthy: "A group of House Republican moderates (yes, a few specimens still survive in the wild) met with Kevin McCarthy this week to help him right his listing bid for the speakership. In a show of support, they passed out pro-McCarthy lapel buttons: stars on a field of blue with a red band in the middle that proclaimed, simply, 'O.K.' The letters were meant to signify 'Only Kevin,' CNN's Melanie Zanona reported, as a rejoinder to the Never-McCarthy hard-liners on the right. But the message had an unfortunate double meaning that highlighted the doubts about the always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride candidate for speaker. McCarthy is just that: Okay. As in: not great. Not even above average. Just okay.... McCarthy has a knack for garbled messages.... Deep in his brain there seems to be a syntax scrambler...." Read on.
Kyle Cheney & Nicholas Wu of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee is preparing to vote on urging the Justice Department to pursue at least three criminal charges against ... Donald Trump, including insurrection. The report that the select panel is expected to consider on Monday afternoon, described to Politico by two people familiar with its contents, reflects some recommendations from a subcommittee that evaluated potential criminal referrals. Among the charges that subcommittee proposes for Trump: 18 U.S.C. 2383, insurrection; 18 U.S.C. 1512(c), obstruction of an official proceeding; and 18 U.S.C. 371, conspiracy to defraud the United States government. It's unclear whether the select committee's final report will recommend additional charges for Trump beyond the three described to Politico, or whether it will urge other criminal charges for other players in Trump's bid to subvert his 2020 loss. The document, according to the people familiar, includes an extensive justification for the recommended charges." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) The New York Times story is here.
Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "A House committee is expected to vote on Tuesday on whether to make public six years of ... Donald J. Trump's tax records, in what would be a significant act of transparency in the waning days of Democratic control of the House. The Ways and Means Committee gave notice on Friday that it would meet behind closed doors at 3 p.m. on Tuesday for what is expected to be a vote on whether to release some data from Mr. Trump's tax returns from 2015 to 2020, including the possibility of sharing the filings. The panel obtained the information from the Treasury Department last month. Such a vote, which Republicans are likely to oppose, would be the culmination of a nearly four-year battle stemming from Mr. Trump's decision to break with modern precedent and refuse to disclose his personal financial information as a presidential candidate and then as a sitting president. For now, lawmakers remain constrained by law about what they can say about the matter.... By law, the committee generally must keep that information confidential, but if the panel votes to report the information to the full House, it would become lawful to make it public, too." ~~~
~~~ Brian Faler of Politico: "House Democrats will likely unmask new details about ... Donald Trump's long-hidden taxes following a key meeting now set for next week.... [The Ways & Means Committee could vote to] release Trump's entire returns or perhaps something more limited, such as a summary."
Anjali Singhgi, et al., of the New York Times have created (a somewhat cumbersome-to-navigate, IMO) graphic demonstration of how close random guests came to classified documents Donald Trump & his aides had stored at Mar-a-Lardo. They stashed many docs in a not-very-secure closet. "Photos from some of these events show the arched doors [leading from a public outdoor patio surrounding the pool to the storage area] being partially or fully open, suggesting that guests may have had access to the storage area.... Federal agents seized documents, including ones labeled as 'Top Secret,' from a small room within the storage area, a space where cleaning supplies, beach chairs and umbrellas were also kept." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The article also shows photos of many, many guests at fundraisers & such milling near the storage area. There are also photos of guests, some of them foreigners & some as sleazy as Kyle Rittenhouse & Lauren Boebert, standing around Trump's office where he stashed other classified documents. "The staircase leading to the office has no obvious permanent barriers. The Times found photos that show people roaming freely nearby." The office is right off a ballroom, which hosts various events packed with guests. "It is unclear what additional security separates ballroom guests from Mr. Trump's office." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Filthy Lucre. Cam Thompson of Coin Desk: "... Donald Trump's non-fungible token (NFT) digital trading card collection sold out early Friday, the day after its initial release. According to data from OpenSea, at time of writing [12/16 @11:22 am ET], the collection's trading volume is 900 ETH, or about $1.08 million. Its floor price is about 0.19 ETH, or about $230 -- more than double the original price of $99. Some tokens are selling for much higher prices. The one-of-ones, the rarest of the NFTs, which comprise 2.4% of the 45,000 unit collection (roughly 1,000), are selling for as much as 6 ETH at the time of writing. One of these rare trading cards, of the 45th president standing in front of the Statue of Liberty holding a torch, is currently listed at 20 ETH, or about $24,000." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Josh Taylor of the Guardian: "Despite being widely mocked online..., Donald Trump's collection of digital trading cards have sold out in less than a day, netting US$4.5m in sales."
Jacob Kornbluh of the Forward: "... Donald Trump didn't mention his dinner with two prominent antisemites figures last month in an address to a Jewish group Friday morning, his first public speech since the controversy ensued. But speaking at a weekend conference by Torah U'Mesorah, an Orthodox educational group from New York, at his National Doral club in Miami, Trump claimed to be 'the best ally' the Jewish people 'have ever had.'... Trump spent most of his 30-minute speech -- posted on YouTube -- citing a recent article by Rabbi Doy Fischer, detailing 'the things I have done for my Jewish friends and the Jewish people, and for Israel.' He earned the biggest round of applause when he mentioned his commutation of the jail sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, a kosher meat executive who was found guilty in 2009 of 86 counts of bank fraud and sentenced to 27 years in prison in December 2017. Rubashkin, whom Trump referred to as 'the rabbi from Iowa' even though he was not a rabbi, had become a cause célèbre in some parts of the Orthodox community."(Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: "A federal judge revealed Friday that earlier this year she granted Justice Department investigators access to emails between three Trump-connected attorneys and Rep. Scott Perry as part of the federal investigation into election subversion efforts by the former president and others. At the request of DOJ, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell unsealed a June opinion in which she determined that 37 emails sent among Trump-era Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, his aide Ken Klukowski and conservative attorney John Eastman and Perry (R-Pa.) -- another top Donald Trump ally who chairs the House Freedom Caucus -- were not protected by attorney-client privilege.... Howell also unsealed a second opinion, issued in September, in which she determined that 331 documents from Clark -- whom Trump nearly installed as acting attorney general as part of his bid to seize a second term -- were similarly not protected by attorney-client privilege." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Among the documents were 331 drafts of [Jeffrey] Clark's autobiography outline, which he had saved in his Google account, according to a court filing.... Earlier this year, Clark declined to answer questions to several investigative teams, citing his Fifth Amendment rights, and had marked on his autobiography drafts that they were attorney work-product, implying he wanted them to remain confidential.... Six chapters were about the 2020 election, Howell's opinion added." MB: According to the Politico story linked above, "The outline included a description of a pivotal Jan. 3, 2021, meeting between Trump and senior DOJ officials where almost the entire top echelon of the department threatened to resign if the then-president put Clark in charge." MB: He wrote an autobiography subject to attorney-client privilege? Bizarre. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
"Patriotic" Insurrectionist. Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A Tennessee man already facing charges of assaulting a police officer during the storming of the Capitol last year was charged on Friday with plotting to assassinate several of the federal agents who had investigated him and to attack the F.B.I.'s field office in Knoxville, Tenn. The plot by the man, Edward Kelley, 33, of Maryville, Tenn., was foiled this week by a witness who cooperated with the authorities and recorded him and a co-conspirator, Austin Carter, 26, of Knoxville, according to court papers filed in the case. Mr. Kelley and Mr. Carter were charged with conspiracy, retaliating against a federal official, interstate communication of a threat and solicitation to commit a crime of violence. Both men were denied bail at a hearing on Friday in Federal District Court in Knoxville, the Justice Department said." Read on.
Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "A self-described 'poster boy' for the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot who led a mob pursuit of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman was sentenced Friday to five years in prison after a judge said he led events that could have caused mass bloodshed. Douglas Jensen, 43, of Des Moines became one of the most recognized riot participants in widely shared video showing him wearing a black QAnon 'Eagle' T-shirt and leading a crowd following Goodman up two flights of stairs inside the Capitol while searching for the evacuated Senate chamber.... U.S. District Judge Timothy J. Kelly ... noted that Jensen traveled to Washington with others carrying military-style rifles, was one of the first 10 people who breached the Capitol and 'waved on' and encouraged others to join him." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Michael Brice-Saddler of the Washington Post: "The U.S. Senate late Thursday confirmed seven judges to D.C.'s local courts, a move that partly addresses a spate of judicial vacancies that District officials, in recent appeals directly to Congress and the White House, said was causing significant slowdowns in the city's justice system.... Because D.C. is not a state, Congress can decide what authorities D.C. can have, and in the case of its judicial system, it has almost none. The city must rely on the president to nominate judges to its local court system and the Senate to confirm them. But the Senate has routinely allowed the nominations to languish, at times using the judges as political bargaining chips...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Tania Ganguli of the New York Times: Brittney "Griner, an American basketball star, on Friday left the military base in San Antonio where she spent the eight days since her release from imprisonment in Russia. She said on Instagram that she planned to spend the holidays at home [in Phoenix, Arizona,] with her family and that she would play basketball for her Mercury when the W.N.B.A. season begins in May.
The Lord Taketh Away & the Lord Giveth Back. Yan Zhuang of the New York Times: "Elon Musk said Twitter was reinstating the accounts of several journalists whose accounts were suspended after he had accused them of violating the social media platform's rules on personal privacy. Mr. Musk reinstated most of the accounts, which had been deactivated on Thursday, after a majority of respondents in his informal Twitter survey voted that the suspensions should be lifted immediately.... By the early hours of Saturday, most of the accounts had been reinstated. But the @ElonJet account was still suspended, as was the account of Keith Olbermann, a former MSNBC and ESPN host, and that of Linette Lopez, a Business Insider columnist whose work covering Mr. Musk&'s businesses in recent years had included documenting alleged manufacturing issues at Tesla." The Guardian's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Elon Picks Up His Audio Toy & Goes Home. Matt Novak of Gizmodo: "Twitter Spaces, the audio feature that allows people to participate in group chats using the social media platform, has been disabled and it's not clear whether it will ever return. The move comes after Elon Musk joined a group chat hosted by BuzzFeed reporter Katie Notopoulos on Thursday night, where the Twitter CEO spoke incoherently about his new rules around what the billionaire called 'doxxing.'... Musk ... left [the conversation] because he was flustered by getting asked real questions, rather than the more typical Twitter Space conversation where far-right Twitter users tell him how great he is.... Musk has recently claimed that someone was stalking his 2-year-old son, even posting a video of someone he claimed had stopped his car, and has tried to suggest this was a direct result of the ElonJets account[, which used publicly-available information to track the locations of private jets]. But open-source intelligence researchers have located where the video was taken, noting it was nowhere near an airport and roughly a day later than any flight by Musk's private jet." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I checked my translations dictionary and found out "elon" is Afrikaans for "thin-skinned." (More obviously, "musk" is Afrikaans for "bloated stinkbomb."
"Noam Scheiber of the New York Times: "The union organizing Starbucks workers declared a strike at dozens of stores on Friday, the latest escalation in its campaign to secure a labor contract. The strike is intended to last for three days at many of the stores, according to Workers United, the union representing the workers. It follows a one-day strike at roughly 100 stores last month. Workers involved in the strike say they are protesting the company's slow pace of bargaining and its recent closing of unionized stores, including one near Broadway and Denny Way in Seattle. They also complain about understaffing and cuts to their hours." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Pandemic, Etc., Ctd.
Benjamin Mueller of the New York Times: "Updated booster shots have bolstered Americans' defenses against serious Covid, reducing the risk of hospitalization by roughly 50 percent compared with certain groups inoculated with the original vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in a pair of studies published on Friday. The research represents the agency's first look at how the reformulated boosters, tailored to protect against recent Omicron variants, are performing in the prevention of severe consequences of infection with the virus, including emergency department visits and hospitalizations."
Akilah Johnson of the Washington Post: "As the coronavirus pandemic approaches its third full winter, two studies reveal an uncomfortable truth: The toxicity of partisan politics is fueling an overall increase in mortality rates for working-age Americans. In one study, researchers concluded that people living in more-conservative parts of the United States disproportionately bore the burden of illness and death linked to covid-19. The other, which looked at health outcomes more broadly, found that the more conservative a state's policies, the shorter the lives of working-age people. The reasons are many, but, increasingly, it is state -- and not just federal -- policies that have begun to shape the economic, family, environmental and behavioral circumstances that affect people's well-being. Some states have expanded their social safety nets, raising minimum wages and offering earned income tax credits while using excise taxes to discourage behaviors -- such as smoking -- that have deleterious health consequences. Other states have moved in the opposite direction." See Akhilleus's comment below.
Amy Walker of the New York Times: "R.S.V., or respiratory syncytial virus, has made so many young children ill this fall that weekly pediatric hospitalizations for R.S.V. are the highest recorded. Influenza, which normally peaks in February, has driven up hospitalization rates to the highest level for this time of year in more than a decade, surpassing hospitalizations from Covid-19. And while Covid illness is lower than it was the last two Decembers, it, too, is climbing. Public health officials have been warning for weeks that a 'tripledemic' of Covid-19, flu and R.S.V. would strain an already weary health care system. Hospitalizations from the three viruses have been rising together. Nationally, R.S.V. appears to have peaked, and flu is peaking in a few parts of the country, but infections from the two viruses are expected to plateau at high levels."
Beyond the Beltway
Georgia. All the Best People. Wayne Ford of the Athens Banner-Herald: “A longtime businessman in Barrow County who was elected unopposed in November to the state House Representative in District 116 was arrested Thursday after authorities said he burglarized a residence at a Winder retirement complex where he works. Daniel E. Rampey, 67, of Statham was arrested at Magnolia Estates of Winder Assisted Living Center, where his political website shows he has managed its operation for the past 38 years. Rampey, a Republican, was scheduled to take office on Jan. 9, 2023. In the Republican Primary, he defeated Marcus Ray by receiving nearly 83% of the vote.... 'We had a couple of instances of him on video taking the items and today we had one as well. We actually filmed him going into the residence and taking the items,' Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said. The stolen drugs involved prescription narcotics, Smith said."
Illinois. Mitch Smith & Julie Bosman of the New York Times: "Prosecutors in suburban Chicago charged the father of a man accused of killing seven people at a Fourth of July parade in Highland Park, Ill., with felonies on Friday, claiming that he acted recklessly when he signed onto his son's application for a gun ownership permit. The seven counts of reckless conduct filed against the father, Robert Crimo Jr., mark at least the second time in recent years that a parent of an accused mass killer has faced charges for their actions leading up to the attack, and it could signal increased willingness by prosecutors to seek punishment for family members who may have ignored warning signs or provided access to weapons." A CBS News/AP story is here.
North Carolina. Eugene Scott, et al., of the Washington Post: "The North Carolina Supreme Court on Friday struck down a state voter identification law, ruling that Republican lawmakers acted unconstitutionally to minimize Democratic voters' power with a law that intentionally discriminated against Black voters.... Senate Bill 824 required every voter to present one of a few specific forms of photo identification, a measure the justices ruled was passed in part to discriminate against Black voters.... The state Supreme Court also upheld a lower court's earlier ruling that congressional districts drawn by state legislators "fell short of constitutional standards." The decision also overturned a lower court's decision to approve state Senate districts that also were drawn by state lawmakers."
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al.
The Washington Post's live briefings of developments Saturday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here: "Water supplies returned to residents of Ukraine's capital on Saturday and the metro system resumed, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, and the city began to recover from a barrage of Russian missile strikes Friday, pummeling critical infrastructure. A third of people in Kyiv remain without energy and emergency power shutdowns were scheduled, he added. Damaged cities -- including Kharkiv, Sumy, Poltava and Dnipro -- reported power outages after the strikes.... A protective shield is being installed over spent nuclear waste at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a Russian-installed official, Vladimir Rogov, said Saturday on Telegram. The 'protective dome' will stop the hazardous waste from being targeted by drones or missile strikes, he said.... CIA assesses that Russia is unlikely to enter 'a real negotiation' to end the war, said director William J. Burns.... The CIA sees the tempo of fighting in Ukraine slowing amid the onset of winter, Burns told PBS.
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Saturday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
Michael Schwirtz, et al., of the New York Times on why Putin is losing the war against Ukraine: "Putin associates said he spiraled into self-aggrandizement and anti-Western zeal, leading him to make the fateful decision to invade Ukraine in near total isolation, without consulting experts who saw the war as pure folly.... The Russian military, despite Western assumptions about its prowess, was severely compromised, gutted by years of theft.... Once the invasion began, Russia squandered its dominance over Ukraine through a parade of blunders.... Stretched thin by its grand ambitions, Russia seized more territory than it could defend, leaving thousands of square miles in the hands of skeleton crews of underfed, undertrained and poorly equipped fighters.... Mr. Putin divided his war into fiefs, leaving no one powerful enough to challenge him.... [The military were inflexible & lacked agility to respond timely to changing situations.... The Wagner group] became one of Mr. Putin's shadow armies in Ukraine, often acting as a rival to the Russian military." A very long piece with many specifics.
Peru. Mitra Taj of the New York Times: "The death toll in protests that have convulsed Peru rose above 20 on Friday, with tensions centered in the highland city of Ayacucho, where eight people were killed in clashes between anti-government demonstrators and military officers. The demonstrations and ensuing violence have hampered efforts by the new president, Dina Boluarte, to establish control over the country, with two ministers in her government resigning on Friday and protesters in the streets chanting 'Dina! Murderer!' Despite authorizing the military to help restore order this week, Ms. Boluarte has struggled to contain the violent protests sparked by the abrupt downfall of her democratically elected predecessor, Pedro Castillo, who tried to illegally seize control of Congress and the courts last week. The protests have shuttered regional airports, choked off roads across large swaths of the country, and resulted in curfews being imposed on several provinces."
U.K. Adam Taylor of the Washington Post: "A prominent British royal aide who resigned from her role at Buckingham Palace after asking a Black British charity director where she was 'really from' has met with the activist to apologize and pledged to learn from the incident, according to a joint announcement released on Friday. Lady Susan Hussey, 83, who was a long-standing lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth II and godmother to royal heir Prince William, met with Ngozi Fulani, a British activist and chief executive of domestic abuse charity Sistah Space, on Friday at Buckingham Palace, where she apologized. Hussey 'pledged to deepen her awareness of the sensitivities involved and is grateful for the opportunity to learn more about the issues in this area,' according to the statement, which noted that Fulani had 'unfairly received the most appalling torrent of abuse on social media and elsewhere.' Fulani accepted the apology and said 'that no malice was intended.'" MB: Fulani is one gracious woman.
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Reader Comments (16)
A WaPo story linked above includes the following horribly misleading sentence:
“The toxicity of partisan politics is fueling an overall increase in mortality rates.”
No! No, no, no, no, no!🤬
This is more both sides bullshit. I don’t care if the rest of the story focuses the blame correctly on the ONLY toxic side. Someone scanning this thing who hits upon this sentence is likely to think “Right! They all suck.”
No! No, no, no, no!
There’s only one party whose lies, obfuscations, deflections, disinformation, and willful ignorance has caused hundreds of thousands to die unnecessarily. And are STILL DOING IT!
Fuck’s sake! Get it right.
More early morning kvetching…
I heard a commentator the other day make this distinction, talking about the Supreme Court abortion abortion: pro life or pro abortion.
Again: No, no, no, no, no!
This could be recast as anti abortion and anti life. Being for abortion means being for choice, which means being able to choose between a potentially good life and a potentially very difficult one leading to a very hard time for mother, child, and any other children in the family.
Republicans are masters at inventing terms that craft a particular situation to suit their positions. Let’s not help them. I understand that distinctions are necessary, but how about pro choice and anti choice, at least now and then?
Just a personal quibble.
Here’s a good one…
So it seems a lot of pearls are being clutched over the Fatty NFT “cards”. Most whining is along the lines of “As the presumptive presidential candidate for the GQP in 2024, Trump should be concerning himself with issues, not NFT hawking”
Hang on…
Hahahahaha! Hey, Rip van Winkle! Wakey, wakey! Since when has Trump cared about any issue but himself and his money (or rather someone else’s money soon to be his)?
Issues? He can’t even spell it. But if you pay him enough, he’ll give it a shot. Or more than likely, he’ll cheat. AND take your money.
@Akhilleus: Re: "the toxicity of partisan politics." Right you are. Besides that, the article itself indicates that "the toxicity of partisan politics" has nothing at all to do with why people who live in "conservative" states have higher mortality rates. It wouldn't matter a whit if Republicans & Democrats never spoke to one another or Republican voters thought Democratic politicians were a bunch of pizza-loving pedophiles (oh, they already think that?). The problem is that "conservative" states have policies that are bad for your health. At least, that's what the research cited in the article shows.
So the fact is that to the extent Democrats on the federal level can enact & carry through on the many laws that save or extend lives, the people who picture Joe & Hillary in the basement diddling with a seven-year-old will have more years to watch Fox "News."
Since the OK hand sign has been appropriated as a symbol of the white nationalists it seems fitting for McCarthy to use OK to try to become one of it's official leaders. It may even gain a few extra votes from the so-called extremists.
Never sure how empty these post hoc symbolic acts are, but since I spent years telling my students that everything people do and say means something, have to say I'm pleased to see the blotch on Oppenheimer's legacy symbolically removed.
It was a jumpy time he lived and worked in, and as goofy as our present world is, I don't think we can imagine a time when half the country saw communists under every bed (and in every classroom and branch of government) while the other half of the government made its living by rooting them out (or making them up).
The Q craze is mild in comparison.
In Oppenheimer's case, the fact that General Groves, the tough-minded head of the Manhattan Project, did not believe Oppenheimer was a Soviet spy should have counted for more...but fear of communism was all consuming, and Opie had in fact either been or had hung around with those bad guys and gals (as had many of his contemporaries), so....
And in other good news, the Taney bust will soon be gone, too.
Conclusion: Both the Oppenheimer and Taney acts of rectification and atonement come too little and too late, but tho tardy and too small, they are sincere offerings placed at the feet of the gods of our tortured history.
Would that we could do as much with a gesture or two for the real wrong turns we've taken.
Vietnam and Iraq come to mind.
Ak: your quibbles are like those "good troubles"––-we need clarity here, not this mushy both sides crap.
Here's something to digest from Kara Swisher, a journalist, who has been covering Musk for more than two decades, When asked if any of Elon's crazy antics were about free speech, she said this:
"No, it's about the whims of the richest man in the world and what he feels like doing on any given day. And I think it's not much more complicated than that...
He's bought it. He bought it for too much money. And he will do — you know, he bought it, and he will break it if he wants to. And that seems to be what he's doing...
— This is not someone who thinks deeply about big issues like free speech and things like that. It's a lot of parroted nonsense that he then uses as excuses to do what he's doing. He's just mad at some — just a jet guy who published public information. He then took it out on journalists who wrote about that controversy...
And that's where we are. It's really not that complex. It's someone who has a — who lacks impulse control."
And someone else who lacks impulse control was seen early this morning taking a piss out on the south lawn of his Merry Loggy estate dressed in his Darth Vader PJ's singing a happy tune, the one about money, money, money cuz he done sell so many of his nifty cards the day before. One has to give him credit–––he knows suckers better than most. .
Ken: On the ocassion of Oppenheimer's meeting with Truman whose gross misunderstanding and ignorance of the implications of atomic weapons had prompted Oppie to say something:
"Mr. President, I feel like I have blood on my hands."
Truman was furious and said he never wanted to talk "to that man again!"
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/12/17/colorado-river-crisis-conference/?
Sometimes things work out just fine.
Seems there will soon be more sand for southwest states to stick their heads into.
PD,
I suppose we can take some comfort in the realization that Fatty scammed his own base, running dog lackeys who now have a little less wherewithal for donating to the truly bad stuff that the Fat Traitor and his totalitarian horde have wrought.
As for Mr. Free Speech for Nazis and Me, but Not for Thee…
It must be a burden to feel like you’re the smartest, richest, bestest person in this or any other possible world and to realize that there are those who just won’t acknowledge that ineluctable factoid.
The problem is that the often childish whims of people like this reverberate through the social and political plasma, often to the detriment of millions.
“Richest” has never been synonymous with “consistent”, except insofar as the subject at hand is consistently solipsistic.
Back in the day, the richest of the rich sometimes did decent things with the piles of money they scraped off the backs of their workers. For instance, at least someone like Andrew Carnegie built public libraries all across the country.
Today, supporters of Richie Riches like Trump and Musk want those libraries closed.
Eight billion people on this small planet and we're stuck with the
likes of Musk and Trump. There's just no justice.
There's a movie out about the 1930s era attempted takeover of
Ukraine by Stalin.
Title is 'Bitter Harvest'. Our library had it, but also available on
Netflix.
In the thirties, Russia demanded the collectivization of all farms in
Ukraine. The Ukrainians opposed it.
About 7 million of them were wiped out and their grain taken. Many
more starved to death.
Seems like history repeats itself.
Unfortunately I didn't get a lot of world history in school. The history
teacher had to leave (pregnancy was verboten) and the teaching was
taken over by the coach, and I didn't do sports at all.
From CNN, Dec 17, 2022: TSA reports record number of firearms
intercepted at airport security in carry on, the most of any previous
year, 6,301 so far in 2022, and 88% of them were loaded.
Do these people think they're going to be attacked by a flight attendant or something?
Glad my flying days are over.
A sure sign of desperation and mania is the upping of off the chain, bombastic and hyperbolic yapping. Someone doesn’t just have a different opinion, they’re a danger to the country and need to be imprisoned. An idea isn’t just questionable, in your view, it’s the road to hell.
Here’s TFG:
“Our Country is SICK inside, very much like a person dying of Cancer. The Crooked FBI, the so-called Department of ‘Justice,’ and ‘Intelligence,’ all parts of the Democrat Party and System, is the Cancer. These Weaponized Thugs and Tyrants must be dealt with, or our once great and beautiful Country will die!!!”
Because his treasonous actions could result in a criminal referral, the country is SICK!!!! Dying of CANCER!!!
One of my favorite writers is Dashiell Hammett. Hammett was a master of snappy, memorable, pointed dialogue. In his book “The Maltese Falcon”, Hammett’s detective, Sam Spade is accosted by a swiveling little creep who promises lurid, over the top outcomes if he doesn’t get what he wants.
Spade’s reply is perfect for Trump-style yammering:
“The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter.”
Ain’t it the truth?
Borowitz knows all:
https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/poll-most-people-want-to-know-elon-musks-location-so-they-can-avoid-him
In Peru the struggle between Left and Right continues, and I fear that tho the deposed president won a close popular vote, the Right will eventually have its way.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/12/17/peru-protests-pedro-castillo/