;)
December 18, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Forgot this one this morning: ~~~
~~~ Zachary Cohen & Holmes Lybrand of CNN: "Roger Stone ... met briefly Friday with the House select committee investigating the January 6 riot and asserted his Fifth Amendment rights to every question asked, he said."
Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "A congressional year that began with an assault on the seat of democracy ended at 4 a.m. Saturday with the failure of a narrow Democratic majority to deliver on its most cherished promises, leaving lawmakers in both parties wondering if the legislative branch can be rehabilitated without major changes to its rules of operations. 'It has been a horrible year, hasn't it?' asked Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, as she looked back on failed efforts to convict a former president and to create a bipartisan commission to examine the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as well as numerous legislative endeavors that could not find bipartisan majorities." MB: If Lisa had wanted to make it a little less horrible, she could have announced she would vote in favor of the Buiid Back Better bill, no matter what was in it. (She was the only GOP senator to vote to advance restoration of part of the voting rights act.)
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Jake Tapper & Jamie Gangel of CNN: "Members of the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol believe that former Texas Governor and Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry was the author of a text message sent to then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows the day after the 2020 election pushing an 'AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY' for three state legislatures to ignore the will of their voters and deliver their states' electors to Donald Trump, three sources familiar with the House Committee investigation tell CNN. A spokesman for Perry told CNN that the former Energy Secretary denies being the author of the text. Multiple people who know Rick Perry confirmed to CNN that the phone number the committee has associated with that text message is Perry's number.... The text was first presented publicly on the House floor Tuesday night by Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, and reads: 'HERE's an AGRESSIVE (sic) STRATEGY: Why can t (sic) the states of GA NC PENN and other R controlled state houses declare this is BS (where conflicts and election not called that night) and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to the SCOTUS.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Rick Perry isn't all that bright, but apparently he has a Smartphone because if we're to believe his spokesperson, the phone must have generated the coup plot all by itself. The real bottom line: there is now solid evidence that a former Trump Cabinet member was plotting a coup even before all the votes were counted & sharing those nefarious plans with Trump's top aide. (North Carolina eventually went to Trump.) And Perry, being a former governor, would know how to manipulate state legislatures. ~~~
~~~ Steve M.: "As I always say, Donald Trump didn't turn the GOP into an anti-democratic party. The GOP has been opposed to democracy since at least the era of George W. Bush and his obsession with voter fraud. Trump vastly increased the level of anti-democratic aggression, but pre-Trump Republicans were already with the program. Some have preferred to create a veneer of legitimacy about their anti-democratic activities, which would explain why Republicans in the states resisted Trump's efforts to steal the 2020 election after the votes were in and counted, but they're all fine with the notion of putting a thumb or two on the scale to ensure Republican victories."
Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) signaled support for the bipartisan House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob, saying what the panel is trying to uncover is 'something the public needs to know.' In an interview with Spectrum News that aired Thursday, McConnell said he looks forward to hearing what else the committee will reveal about the insurrection, a view that puts him at odds with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who has attacked the work of the panel as purely political. 'I think the fact-finding is interesting. We're all going to be watching it,' McConnell said. 'It was a horrendous event, and I think what they're seeking to find out is something the public needs to know.' McConnell's statements are noteworthy given that earlier this year he opposed the creation of [a fact-finding commission]...." ~~~
~~~ Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "On Tuesday, CNN's Manu Raju asked [Mitch] McConnell about the revelation that Trump allies ... had pleaded with [Trump chief-of-staff Mark] Meadows during the riot to get Trump to stop it. The text messages showed those people recognized Trump was the catalyst for the events, despite their later comments. McConnell ... responded: 'I do think we're all watching, as you are, what is unfolding on the House side, and it will be interesting to reveal all of the participants who were involved.'... [McConnell's possible motive: he recognizes that the committee's findings will] reflect quite poorly on those involved, and McConnell recognizes it will be difficult to dispute that.... Whatever the [motive]..., what he's saying is a departure from his party that significantly hamstrings efforts to undermine the committee."
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Brandon Straka, a Donald Trump ally who spoke at a Jan. 5 'Stop the Steal' rally in Washington -- and has since pleaded guilty for joining the mob that stormed onto the grounds of the U.S. Capitol the next day -- has provided investigators with information they say 'may impact the government's sentencing recommendation.' It's an indication that Straka, one of the few Jan. 6 defendants who is also of interest to congressional investigators, has cooperated with prosecutors in a substantive way.... Straka pleaded guilty in October to a single misdemeanor charge and was set to be sentenced next week. But prosecutors have asked for a 30-day sentencing delay so that his new evidence 'can be properly evaluated.'"
Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "A Florida man [Robert Palmer] who hurled a fire extinguisher at police officers during some of the most ferocious fighting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced on Friday to more than five years in prison, the longest term handed down so far to any of the more than 700 people charged in the attack.... Prosecutors say he threw a wooden plank-like spear at the police, sprayed a fire extinguisher at officers and then hurled the empty canister at them.... Before his sentencing hearing in Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Palmer, 54, wrote a letter to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, saying that he had come to recognize that Mr. Trump and his allies had lied to their supporters by 'spitting out the false narrative about a stolen election and how it was "our duty" to stand up to tyranny.'"
Jesse Wegman of the New York Times: "While [voter fraud scam artists] pretend to care about real election crimes, their purpose ... is to concoct a world in which the votes of certain people (and it always seems to be the same people) are presumptively invalid. That's why they are not chastened by data demonstrating -- again and again and again and again — that there is essentially no voter fraud anywhere in this country. Thanks to their efforts, about three quarters of Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen, and they won't be convinced by evidence to the contrary.... Voter fraud is vanishingly rare. It is virtually never coordinated. And when it does happen, it is often easily discovered and prosecuted by authorities.... Donald Trump turned fact-free charges of voter fraud into an art form, but the exploitation of the predictable public fear generated by that sort of rhetoric has been a central feature of the Republican playbook for years.... The goal of the voter-fraud brigade ... was to indoctrinate voters with the terror of stolen elections, and to pave the way for a hostile takeover of American democracy in the future." ~~~
~~~ Marie: We probably should stop thinking of the voter-fraud nonsense as a conspiracy theory and think of it more as the promotion of bigotry against Democratic voters, particularly Democratic voters of color. Racist bigotry has been the defining appeal of the Republican party since Richard Nixon & Lee Atwater developed their "Southern stragegy"; fake voter fraud is just another iteration of "you can't trust them Nee-gros."
** Retired Army Generals Paul Eaton, Antonio Taguba & Steven Anderson, in a Washington Post op-ed: "As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, we -- all of us former senior military officials -- are increasingly concerned about the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election and the potential for lethal chaos inside our military, which would put all Americans at severe risk. In short: We are chilled to our bones at the thought of a coup succeeding next time.... The potential for a military breakdown mirroring societal or political breakdown is very real. The signs of potential turmoil in our armed forces are there. On Jan. 6, a disturbing number of veterans and active-duty members of the military took part in the attack on the Capitol.... Recently, and perhaps more worrying, Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino, the commanding general of the Oklahoma National Guard, refused an order from President Biden mandating that all National Guard members be vaccinated against the coronavirus. Mancino claimed that while the Oklahoma Guard is not federally mobilized, his commander in chief is the Republican governor of the state, not the president. The idea of rogue units organizing among themselves to support the 'rightful' commander in chief cannot be dismissed."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: A new book by political scientist Barbara Walter argues: "'We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.'... The United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency -- the 'pre-insurgency' and 'incipient conflict' phases -- and only time will tell whether the final phase, 'open insurgency,' began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6. Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy.... Other [studies] have reached similar findings.... It is no exaggeration to say the survival of our country is at stake."
Sonia Rao of the Washington Post: “Peloton dropped its ad featuring 'Sex and the City' actor Chris Noth on Thursday after he was accused of sexually assaulting two women in separate incidents. Later that same day, actress Zoe Lister-Jones referred to him as a 'sexual predator.' The Hollywood Reporter detailed the allegations against Noth in an article published Thursday, stating that the women had reached out earlier in the year in response to the promotion of .. [a] 'Sex and the City' reboot that premiered last week. According to the publication, the press cycle 'stirred painful memories' of the alleged incidents, said to have occurred in Los Angeles in 2004 and New York in 2015. Both women [-- who said Noth raped them --] remained anonymous. Noth ... said in a statement to the Hollywood Reporter that the allegations were 'categorically false' and described the encounters as consensual."
Marie: Over the past ten years or so, I have made quite a few purchases from Wayfair, an online furniture & decor store. Now, according to QAnon, it turns out Wayfair is a hub for child sex trafficking! (Washington Post link.) According to QAnon -- and many "regular people" taken in by the hoohah -- products Wayfair markets as pricey cabinets are actually kidnapped girls. It seems sex-trafficking conspiracy theories have been a major boon for QAnon, which grew out of the fake Pizzagate child sex-trafficking hoohah and then expanded to pro-Trump propaganda, on the insane theory that Trump would save girls from become victims of the sex-traffickers. Rosanne Boyland, an insurrectionist who died at the January 6 siege of the Capitol, bought into the Wayfair story. "She was certain that on Jan. 6, Trump was going to announce the arrest of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and his master plan to save the children.... To those studying QAnon, Rosanne's story was further proof that conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking were serving as on-ramps to far-right radicalization and disturbing acts of violence. Outside of the insurrection, there have been at least nine QAnon-inspired crimes in 2020 and 2021 committed by people who believed they were in the midst of saving the children, according to data from a University of Maryland analysis." If you have a WashPo subscription, this long article is worth reading.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
Mitch Smith of the New York Times: "About 1,300 Americans are dying from the coronavirus each day. The national case, death and hospitalization rates remain well below those seen last winter, before vaccines were widely available. But suddenly, positive tests are growing. State officials in New York reported more than 20,000 coronavirus cases on Friday, which they said was more than on any other day of the pandemic. In Connecticut and Maine, reports of new infections have grown by around 150 percent in the last two weeks. In Ohio and Indiana, hospitalization rates are approaching those seen during last winter's devastating wave. "Living in a constant crisis for 20 months-plus is a little overwhelming," said Dr. Matthew Deibel, the medical director for emergency care at Covenant [in Saginaw, Michigan].... With coronavirus hospitalizations increasing 20 percent nationally over the last two weeks, to 68,000 people, doctors and nurses are speaking with renewed alarm about conditions and pleading with people to get vaccinated."
Lauren Hirsch, et al., of the New York Times: "A federal appeals panel on Friday reinstated a Biden administration rule requiring larger companies to mandate that their workers get vaccinated against the coronavirus or submit to weekly testing by early January. The decision, by a split three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati, overturned a ruling last month by its counterpart in New Orleans, the Fifth Circuit, that had blocked the government from carrying out the rule. The contested rule, issued by the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has faced a wave of lawsuits from businesses and Republican-controlled states. Several challengers immediately said they planned to file or already had filed emergency motions with the Supreme Court to block the rule." A CNBC report is here.
** Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "The Trump administration engaged in 'deliberate efforts' to undermine the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic for political purposes, a congressional report released Friday concludes. The report, prepared by the House select subcommittee investigating the nation's Covid response, says the White House repeatedly overruled public health and testing guidance by the nation's top infectious disease experts and silenced officials in order to promote ... Donald Trump's political agenda."
Pete Muntean of CNN: "Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly, who testified unmasked at a Senate hearing on Wednesday, has since tested positive for the coronavirus, the airline said in a statement. 'Although testing negative multiple times prior to the Senate Commerce Committee Hearing, Gary tested positive for COVID-19 after returning home, experiencing mild symptoms, and taking a PCR test,' Southwest (LUV) said. 'Gary is doing well and currently resting at home, he has been fully vaccinated and received the booster earlier this year.'... Kelly testified at the hearing that he believes masks do not add substantial protection to airplane passengers and cited aircraft ventilation systems."
Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "Moderna is pausing a patent dispute with the federal government over its groundbreaking coronavirus vaccine, saying it is 'grateful' to government scientists who collaborated with the company and wants to 'avoid any distraction' in the fight against the omicron variant. The decision could have implications for the Biden administration's global vaccination strategy, as officials look for leverage to share mRNA vaccine discoveries with developing countries in an effort to ramp up worldwide supply. It is also expected to turn down the heat on the Cambridge, Mass., vaccine maker, which projected as much as $18 billion in sales from its vaccine this year, and has received stinging criticism for doing too little to share its breakthroughs with poorer nations." MB: Yes, because $18 billion (and counting) is kind of a "distraction."
Beyond the Beltway
Minnesota. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "Testifying in front of the jurors who will decide her fate, Kimberly Potter broke down on Friday as she watched body camera video that captured her fatal shooting of a 20-year-old Black man during an encounter that began with a traffic stop over an air freshener. The shooting of Daunte Wright, she said, was the only time she had ever fired her gun in 26 years of policing in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb. And, Ms. Potter said, it had been a mistake. She had meant to stun Mr. Wright with her Taser, a weapon she said she had also never used in the field. Ms. Potter, who is white, shook her head and tightly closed her eyes as a prosecutor played a video of her shouting 'I'll Tase you!' and 'Taser! Taser! Taser!' before firing a single bullet into Mr. Wright's chest."
Puerto Rico. Patricia Mazzei of the New York Times: "Two years ago, federal agents arrested Puerto Rico's former education secretary, Julia Keleher, as part of a sprawling corruption investigation whose accusations helped uncork public dissatisfaction with the island's leaders and contributed to the furious ouster of a young and ambitious governor.... On Friday, a federal judge in Puerto Rico sentenced Ms. Keleher to serve six months in prison and 12 months of house arrest and pay a $21,000 fine. She had pleaded guilty in June to two felony counts involving conspiracies to commit fraud. Ms. Keleher's sentencing came amid a new spate of corruption arrests -- three mayors in three weeks -- that has dominated headlines in Puerto Rico."
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Reader Comments (12)
“Living in a constant crisis for 20 months plus is a little overwhelming.” So is catching the damn thing. Ask me. I know. But I wasn’t stupid enough to run around unvaccinated like the assholes who continue to endanger others’ lives.
And geez, it’s not like the solution is swim a moat full of alligators, climb a fifty foot barbed wire covered wall and slay a dragon with a pen knife. Get a shot and wear a mask. It’s not that hard. What’s truly overwhelming is that as we approach a million dead, shitheads on the right are still spreading lies as well as the disease. And threatening anyone who tries to make things better.
My take on McConnell:
A Republican operative too sane and smart to have drunk his party's Kool-Aid, who because of his clear vision has survived and prospered long enough to do the party's bidding, and because that bidding usually has negative consequences, great harm to the country along the way.
Granted, he has used his long tenure in Congress, his position as Senate Majority and Minority Leader and Senate "rules" themselves to wreck the country, most prominently by creating a loony Supreme Court that thinks the country was founded to allow corporate greed to prosper, a woman's role should be confined to breeding, and if you squeeze your eyes shut tightly enough you won't see racism anywhere, but above it all he has survived.
And he hasn't survived by saying crazy things or by getting caught. Right now, he's continuing to do the Devil's work, not allowing anything resembling voting right legislation to pass in the Senate, as a prominent instance, but he doesn't want to go down with the extremists who planned and carried out the coup.
So, a little distance between him and them is necessary for his (and I'd imagine he thinks the essential elements--the anti-tax, the anti-abortion, the anti-corporate regulations--of his party's) survival.
And the way he's handily arranged it by refusing to create a Senate committee to investigate the coup attempt, he can use the Democrats in the House to do his dirty work for him, and as some of that dirty surfaces as he suspected it would, he can stand to the side and applaud it.
Smart guy, McConnell. I don't like what he's done to the country. but he is one canny cookie.
The Pretender, the Gym Jordans, the Perrys are the buffoons.
McConnell is not one of them.
AK: good to know you are back in the swing, as they say, never a guy who'd be dumb enough to slay a dragon with a pen knife–-EVER!
Ken: thanks for taking up our Shell Bearing Turtle–-something I intended to do but you've nailed him pretty accurately. I'll just add that he now senses a change in the weather and he has always managed to take its temperature making sure he's warmly covered. He began, early on, a particular fervent fight for survival–-something his mother instilled in him once he got polio.
Now here's a story to brighten your day. Herbert Washington stands up––tall and straight and proud–––to McDonalds and wins.
Washington D.C. needs more Washingtons.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/mcdonalds-owner-bias-lawsuit_n_61bda7f3e4b0bb04a6250127
What Mitch said was typical Republican strategy. One out of a hundred times they will say something bland and logical so they and their allies can point back to that one statement again and again as proof of their reasonableness. It is just the usual talking out of two sides of their mouth to two different audiences. And the press buys the fakeout every time like the naive suckers they are. They make a big deal of a single Republican saying a normal thing a single time. They promote it like they think they can retrain the GOP into a prodemocracy party they believe they used to be. The press never learn or stop to ask Why would Mitch say this to me on camera?
I am certain Mitch loathes Donald Trump. For all the times Mitch saved Trump's ass, Trump now disses Mitch every chance he gets. Lately, Trump has been calling for Mitch's ouster as GOP Senate leader. Mitch's wife quit her job as Trump's transportation secretary the day after the Capitol insurrection. I don't think the McConnell-Chaos sit around the dinner table talking about how much they like Trump.
Mitch already knows more than we do about what Trump did to start and encourage the insurrection. Mitch may have been one who called Trump & told him to call off the barbarians who had breached the gates. I'm sure he knows of others who did, too. And he knows the response they got.
So I think his comments -- which are couched in a way he can downplay them if he wants to -- are preparing the public for the committee's hearings & final report. It's going to be bad for Republicans in general; already the committee has caught high-profile Republicans like Mark Meadows, Gym Jordan & Rick Perry plotting the coup, and it's impossible to believe they won't find out more about Trump, too. The public already knows enough damning info about Trump's part in the coup attempt that he should have been convicted in his Senate impeachment trial. If Mitch had had backing from enough senators, I believe he would have voted to find Trump guilty. But, as you all say, Mitch always has his finger to the wind, and he knew which way the wind was blowing when impeachment came to a Senate vote. It could be the breeze is blowing from more than one direction now.
Everybody's referring to him as "Mitch," a sort of warm nickname. He's already halfway there, making us more comfortable with himself as the devil we know.
His real name is Addison. Addison sounds kind of ... stuffy.
Addison.
And it's a disease.
Shifting messages for a shifting reality:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/18/politics/white-house-omicron-warning-joe-biden/index.html
A shift to severity, not to numbers of Covid infections and deaths.
Makes sense as the variants keep coming and one third of the population seem bent on serving as a permanent Petri dish in which the virus can continue to evolve.
It's too bad the administration can't say the same about gun deaths and economic inequality, social diseases Republicans also deliberately nurture.
Unlike Covid variants, these diseases are more and more deadly.
Fatty boot licker and hell class ratfucker, liar, and schemer Roger (Please bang my wife) Stone spent yesterday taking the fifth for any and all questions concerning his role in trying to overthrow the government.
Not long ago, the big boss of Stone’s current crime family declared that anyone taking the fifth was obviously guilty. “The Fifth amendment is for the mob” opined that great legal conniver and captain of casuistries, Donald J. (for jerkoff) Trump.
Exactly. But he (Trump) has taken the fifth in plenty of cases where he was guilty as the dog who ate your slippers while you were at work.
And now Stone.
Such upright citizens.
AK: I once had a stray dog––found him tied to a tree at my son's pre-school lot when I first got there. Later when picking up my son the dog was still there, whimpering, looking forlorn and when inquiring inside about whose dog it was nobody knew. I took the dog home–-"of course, you did" said the mister who was not happy about it. This dog, ( I named him after my father–-for fun) was soon a pain in our backsides and the day when he chewed up our slippers and destroyed part of the couch was the last straw. Poor thing had his reasons, I suppose.
Too bad we can't send Stone and Fatty to the farm for wayward canines where poor ole Charley ended up.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-post-grasps-for-new-direction-as-trump-era-boom-fades-11639695007. Never let fascist Murdoch's/Republicans/opposition define your direction. False narrative media. Fascists seem to do it better then Democrats.
It's amazing, but down here in a deep red area where there have been a lot of younger folks being featured in the obituary columns that no one has died from covid. It's after a "short illness" or no cause. Kind of like suicides, something not socially acceptable.