;)
December 19, 2021
S.N.A.F.U. Azmat Kahn of the New York Times: "... cases ... drawn from a hidden Pentagon archive of the American air war in the Middle East since 2014 ... -- the military]s own confidential assessments of more than 1,300 reports of civilian casualties, obtained by The New York Times -- lays bare how the air war has been marked by deeply flawed intelligence, rushed and often imprecise targeting, and the deaths of thousands of civilians, many of them children, a sharp contrast to the American government's image of war waged by all-seeing drones and precision bombs. The documents show, too, that despite the Pentagon's highly codified system for examining civilian casualties, pledges of transparency and accountability have given way to opacity and impunity. In only a handful of cases were the assessments made public. Not a single record provided includes a finding of wrongdoing or disciplinary action. Fewer than a dozen condolence payments were made, even though many survivors were left with disabilities requiring expensive medical care. Documented efforts to identify root causes or lessons learned are rare.... This is the first part of a series. Part 2 will examine the air war's human toll." ~~~
~~~ Michael Levenson of the New York Times lays out six key takeaways from Part 1 of the series. It's a devastating picture of U.S. air operations. ~~~
~~~ The military reports of civilian casualties, via the New York Times, are here. "The documents were obtained through Freedom of Information requests beginning in March 2017 and subsequent lawsuits filed against the Defense Department and the U. S. Central Command. The Times has categorized the published reports as credible, noncredible & process docs. ~~~
~~~ Marie: If you have served in the military or know people who have, then you know how screwed up the military has been, is and will be.
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 Build 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.) (Also linked yesterday afternoon.
Mike DeBonis of the Washington Post: "In its final business of the year, the Senate confirmed Rahm Emanuel, the controversial former Chicago mayor and White House chief of staff, as ambassador to Japan early Saturday morning on a bipartisan vote. Emanuel's confirmation came as Senate Democrats struck a deal with Republicans to advance dozens of other Biden administration nominees, including ambassadors to major U.S. allies that had been sitting in limbo because of opposition from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who sought to force a vote that could block the Russian-owned Nord Stream 2 pipeline.... Early Saturday morning..., Democrats agreed to a pipeline vote next month in return for the confirmation of nearly 50 ambassadors -- including envoys to Ireland, Switzerland, Sweden and the European Union -- plus several other Biden administration nominees.... Emanuel was the only State Department nominee to require a roll-call vote.... More than 100 Biden nominees remain on the Senate calendar awaiting floor action." ~~~
~~~ Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The Senate confirmed President Biden's 40th federal judicial nominee early on Saturday morning, the most judges confirmed in a president's first year in the last 40 years. In a pre-dawn mad dash before leaving Washington for the holidays, lawmakers confirmed 10 district court judges, bringing the year-end total to 40 and notching an achievement not seen since former President Ronald Reagan. It underscored how the White House has set a rapid pace in filling vacancies on the federal bench, even besting the records set by the Trump administration, which maintained a laser focus on reshaping the judiciary.... The Senate confirmed 18 circuit and district court judges in ... Donald J. Trump's first year in office, and 12 in President Barack Obama's inaugural year. Mr. Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, pledged to counter the Trump era's aggressive efforts to transform the judiciary with young right-wing judges who are mostly white and male. Since January, the president has sent the Senate an extraordinarily diverse roster of nominees, both in terms of ethnic background and professional experience."
Whitney Wild of CNN: "'Stop the Steal' leader Ali Alexander has handed over to the House Select Committee investigating January 6 thousands of text messages and communication records that include his interactions with members of Congress and ... Donald Trump's inner circle leading up to the riot, according to a court document submitted late Friday night. The revelations emerged from Alexander's challenge to the committee's effort to obtain his phone records directly from his telecommunications provider.... The move comes more than a week after Alexander sat for several hours of testimony with committee organizers.... Alexander is a central figure for investigators seeking to understand how the rallies on January 6 were funded, organized, promoted and eventually erupted into an attack at the Capitol intended to stop the certification of electoral votes for Joe Biden's presidency."
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." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Noah Bookbinder of CREW, in an NBC News opinion piece: "Donald Trump should never have been allowed to retain ownership of his Washington, D.C., hotel while president. A new report confirmed that the controls allegedly in place to limit potential corruption failed completely. Trump exposed these flaws in the system; Congress must act now before they are exploited again. This week, the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure issued a report finding that the General Services Administration ... completely failed to prevent or even identify potential legal and constitutional violations arising from Trump's ownership of the hotel.... Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., the committee's chairman, told NBC News the report 'brings to light GSA's flagrant mismanagement of the Old Post Office lease and its attempt to duck its responsibility to support and defend the U.S. Constitution's emoluments clauses.'... The Protecting Our Democracy Act, which the House passed last week, includes provisions strengthening the enforcement of the emoluments clauses and gives more teeth to congressional oversight and more protection to inspectors general and whistleblowers. The Senate should pass it as soon as possible."
Jason Samenow of the Washington Post: "Exceptionally mild weather dominating the Lower 48 this month shows little sign of meaningful change through the Christmas holiday. This means rather underwhelming chances for a white Christmas in many parts of the United States, a state of affairs to which we probably should become accustomed. Our warming climate appears to be eating away at white Christmas chances, newly available data shows." MB: Speak for yourself, Jason. I'm having a white weekend-before-Christmas. It's 4:30 am ET, & the snowplow just went past my front door, no doubt plowing deep snowpiles onto the ends of my driveway. The guy is perverse.
Kelly O'Donnell & Minyvonne Burke of NBC News: "President Joe Biden will deliver a speech Tuesday to address the omicron variant and unveil new steps the administration is taking to help communities in need of assistance, a White House official told NBC News on Saturday. Biden is expected to go beyond his already unveiled 'winter plan' with additional measures while 'issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated,' the official said. The news comes amid a rise in Covid-19 cases and pleas from federal health officials for people to get vaccinated."
Erin Doherty of Axios: "The Omicron variant has been detected in 89 countries and has a 'substantial growth advantage' over the Delta variant, the World Health Organization announced.... COVID-19 cases detected with the newest variant are doubling every 1.5 to 3 days in areas where there is community spread, WHO said. 'Omicron is spreading rapidly in countries with high levels of population immunity,' said the organization, adding: 'given current available data, it is likely that Omicron will outpace Delta where community transmission occurs.'"
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Saturday are here: "New York State reported yet another increase in coronavirus cases on Saturday as a convergence between the fast-spreading Omicron variant and a winter surge of the Delta variant continues to drive a spike in infections." ~~~
~~~ SNL Live-ish. Emily Yahr of the Washington Post: "In a first for 'Saturday Night Live,' hours before an episode was set to air, producers scrapped the planned show and sent most of the cast home...." Tom Hanks & Tina Fey pitched in to help out scheduled host Paul Rudd. "It's going to be a little bit like that new Beatles documentary. A lot of old footage but enough new stuff that you'like, 'Okay, I'll watch that,'" Rudd said. An NBC News story is here.
Washington State. Mike Baker of the New York Times: "State Senator Doug Ericksen, a Republican who had led efforts to oppose Washington State's Covid-19 emergency orders and vaccine mandates, has died after his own battle with the illness. He was 52." An AP story is here.
Beyond the Beltway
The Party of Racists Steps Up Its Game. Nick Corasaniti & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "... a growing number of Black elected officials across the country -- ranging from members of Congress to county commissioners -- ... have been drawn out of their districts, placed in newly competitive districts or bundled into new districts where they must vie against incumbents from their own party. Almost all of the affected lawmakers are Democrats, and most of the mapmakers are white Republicans. The G.O.P. is currently seeking to widen its advantage in states including North Carolina, Ohio, Georgia and Texas, and because partisan gerrymandering has long been difficult to disentangle from racial gerrymandering, proving the motive can be troublesome. But the effect remains the same: less political power for communities of color. The pattern has grown more pronounced during this year's redistricting cycle, the first since the Supreme Court struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act in 2013.... Efforts to curb racial gerrymandering have been [further] hampered by a 2019 Supreme Court decision, which ruled that partisan gerrymandering could not be challenged in federal court." ~~~
~~~ AND There's This. Michigan. Tara Bahrampour of the Washington Post: "The U.S. government may have missed counting tens of thousands of people in Detroit in the 2020 Census, according to a report released this week by the University of Michigan.... After census data was released this summer, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan questioned the results, noting that electric company records showed active contracts for more households than the 2020 Census enumerated.... Decennial census data is used to determine a decade's worth of congressional apportionment, redistricting and allocation of $1.5 trillion a year in federal funds. The report follows analyses suggesting the 2020 Census may have undercounted Black people at a significantly higher rate than usual. Around four-fifths of Detroit's population is Black. At a news conference Thursday, Duggan ... said the city plans to appeal to the U.S. Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, and might sue in federal court." MB: Not much chance the undercount was an accident.
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Reader Comments (19)
Last night readied this one for the AM, Marie, and see you've linked it already.
A longtime thorn in the side of Washington State politics is no more:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/18/world/covid-omicron-vaccines-delta?#a-washington-state-senator-died-at-52-after-a-covid-infection
Not gloating. Our twelve-year-old vaccinated granddaughter has tested positive. We are negative, so far...
And a very short sermon.
Douthat asks if politics can save religion. I thought the answer was easy.
"The evidence, Ross, is that it is far more likely that religion will kill our politics and the nation along with it. It has already made a very good start."
Didn't link the Douthat piece. Really silly stuff this time, not worth reading.
@Ken Winkes: We all hope for few symptoms & a speedy recovery for your granddaughter. And the rest of the family avoids Covid altogether.
I have a confession to make. I never knew why Covid was dubbed Covid-19. I thought it had something to do with the structure of the virus or the number of trials it took to isolate it -- or something. Nope. It's called Covid-19 because it was first identified in 2019. And here we are in the last days of 2021, with no end of Covid-19 in sight.
Ken: I do not read Douthat, but clicked on the essay yesterday because I was intrigued with the title ("Can Politics Save Religion" or something like that). As I read it I thought that the writer was completely ignorant of history, especially the history of Europe prior to the American Revolution, in which religious wars and politics were the bane of peace, civility and tolerance. The idea that a political consensus can support the health of a religion is entirely contradicted by that history, and takes from religion what should be one of its main ideas -- the separation of faith from earthly power -- a la "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's". European merging of church and state led to some of the greatest corruptions and offenses against human rights of all time.
After having concluded that the writer was a deprived blockhead, at the bottom of the text I saw the Douthat byline and realized that there was a reason I don't read Douthat.
Marie,
Thanks.
Since her parents are both doctors, we know that young lady with the blazing red hair will be following all the protocols and getting the best of care. Still, we'll all be having a very Covid Christmas...
Can't find a reference for it but remember one of the reasons the Right was initially and officially unworried about Covid-19 was its understanding that the number 19 meant it was the 19th iteration of the virus, and since no one had noticed the first 18, the 19th couldn't be all than bad.
Ken: Our American grandson and granddaughter both tested positive several months ago–-both had been vaccinated sans booster. Diego had symptoms ––lost sense of taste and smell for about a week but Lina, when tested a second time, tested negative. Both now are in fine fettle. Here's wishing the same for your granddaughter.
Re: the dough-nut: I'd venture to say that religion has already killed more than just our politics––-"tis the temper of the hot and superstitious part of mankind in matters of religion ever to be fond of mysteries and for that reason to like best what they understand least" said Neuton who spent a great deal of his life mining the Bible and church history plus other branches of theology. And whether he nibbled on apples whilst pursuing all this is left to our imagination as would be his take on those who refuse a vaccine because of their religious belief–-whatever cockamamie reason that would be.
I can't believe I'll say anything in support of Lisa Murkowski the Senator & beneficiary of her daddy the senator, Frank, but I'll mention some things. When you are the elected official where over half your state is controlled by people in D.C. almost half a dozen time zones away, maybe your issues aren't their issues. The fact and perception on the ground is that DC cares more about the land than the people who live there. Witness the Democratic party disregarding the middle 3/4 of the country in favor of the coasts. "Some people are losers." That's what I was told by a well intentioned Sierra Clubber about closing a coal plant in a fly-over state. Lisa understands all this. Tester understands all this. Tom Foley didn't understand this. For Lisa and Don Young, it is all about bringing in the bacon and getting their folks to the polls to vote. The Democrats allow versus marginalize as Manchin slithers into the gears so as to prevent bacon and alienate people from going to the polls. Obama by having a limp response to all things Bundy, is why you don't have kids set the rules about the cookie jar. Lisa Murkowski and Deb Haaland have way more knowledge about what works in the flyovers than Brillant Barry and his Keystone Democrats. Joe and Kamala look like coastal elites from here; sorry Joe.
Ken,
Best wishes that your granddaughter makes a speedy recovery. We’ve noticed that young people who test positive don’t have as bad a time, as a general rule, as older people who come down with the Trump Virus. The fact that she was vaccinated should help attenuate her symptoms.
Regarding Douchehat, Patrick’s assessment of his stunningly paltry knowledge of history is on the money.
Some of the bloodiest, cruelest (and longest) wars have been fought over religion. By the 16th C, most of Europe had had it. The Peace of Augsburg, in 1555, finally made a move in the direction of religious freedom (sort of) with the establishment of the concept of cuius regio, eius religio (whose country, their religion) which decreed that a ruler could choose the dominant religion of his country. So, this wasn’t exactly religious freedom for the peasants, but it was a step in a better direction.
But religious shit, as it always does (and is still doing) hit the fan again and there was this little disagreement called the Thirty Years War which killed upwards of 8 million Europeans. Germany lost fully 50% of its population! In America, today, that would be somewhere around 165 million people.
The Peace of Westphalia brought an end to that round of religious madness and set the stage for the modern states. Residents of a region were no longer obliged to worship as the ruler saw fit, but religious problems continued. The Church, for one, was not happy about allowing mere mortals to make their own decisions, a condition we still see in this country hundreds of years later with theocrats on the Supreme Court and in congress grasping at every lever of power they can to force the rest of us to abide by their religious beliefs (on pain of imprisonment in some cases, cf Texan Illegal Abortion Law).
And over and above all that, if politics must be bent to the service of religion (and only one religion, at that!) in order to “save religion”, as Douchehat frets, it ain’t much of a religion.
Ignorance of history is the secret sauce for the modern Republican Party of Traitors, and a boon to the “validity” of whiny, argumentative intellectual positions of such as Douchehat.
Akhilleus,
You may have noticed that some months back I began to rename some days of the week as they appear in my RC universe.
Sunday--Sermon Day (usually every other).
Saturday--Picking on Douthat Day.
The Sermons take some work.
As you and Patrick point out, PonD Day, not so much...
What really gravels me about the Douthats of the world ( one which doesn't appear in RC Land) is that these folks have had the benefit of a great education (Lord Haw Haw, the Cruzer, etc.) and have deliberately chosen to learn nothing from it.
(Wish they could come face to face with Ms. Luther, my German instructor who properly chewed me out for my failure to take advantage of the opportunity to learn that my fine university afforded. I will never forget the reaming she gave me in her thick German accent...)
Kinda like that horse and water thing. Horses Asses, all.
I'll say one thing for religion & politics: I'm guessing religion is what keeps Joe Biden from being a steaming ball of hate. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." Joe Biden has to spend most of his working day undoing the messes that Trump created AND fighting the anti-vaxxers whom Trump encourages. Meanwhile, Trump not only tried every which way to steal the election from Biden, Trump is still claiming Biden didn't win the election, Trump is doing all he can (fairly successfully) in scaring Congressional Republicans into stonewalling Biden's agenda AND Trump continues to tell lies about Biden.
Maybe Biden spends his evening sticking pins in a big fat Trump voodoo doll (which itself would be a kind of religious experience), but probably he relies on the tenets of his own faith to keep his cool. I think I despise Trump more than Biden does.
Marie, possibly President Biden is doing what my mother used to tell us (often) when things didn't go the way we wanted, or we had to do things we didn't want to do:
"Offer it up for the poor souls in purgatory."
The idea was you could say a prayer for them and knock a few days off their sentence. It was not lost on young minds that this was a Catholic version of "pay it forward."
@Ken Winkes: When I was 10 or 11, I used to enjoy looking thru my mother's college yearbooks. Even tho she went to a girl's school -- Florida State College for Women, now just Florida State -- the yearbooks made college look like lots of fun. My mother disabused me of that idea; she said it was a lot of work. I also had a sour-faced teacher who backed Mom up: when I boasted to the teacher that I had been accepted to a very good state university, she said dryly, "Anyone can get in; it's staying in that's the challenge." And then there was that dean of women at U.W.-Madison who told the same tale deans at most state universities probably did during freshman initiation: "Look to your left. Look to your right. One of the three of you will flunk before sophomore year."
However, I think maybe a majority of kids go off to the college with the ideas that danced in my head when I pored over those yearbooks: it's going to be great fun!
BTW, one of the women in my mother's class was Nancy Kulp, best known as the very unattractive Miss Jane Hathaway in "The Beverly Hillbillies" TV series. She also had a part as an unattractive woman on the even earlier "Bob Cummings Show," which is probably how I knew who she was. When she was in college, Nancy Kulp was beautiful & some of the photos in the yearsbooks were studio glam shots.
Marie,
Religion has one very handy psychological element.
Since no religious belief has a foundation in reality and could be said to be the faith equivalent of an erasable sketch pad, people can make of it what they will.
And they do.
Religion is used to justify everything from love to hate, from generosity to greed.
Though I prefer the love-generosity spectrum, it's hard to take any of it seriously.
Can this marriage be saved?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/12/19/manchin-build-back-better-biden/?
Maybe the more incisive question: Should it be?
And now for a bit of comic relief in a PSA …
https://twitter.com/brittlestar/status/1471898438707068935?s=20
Citizen: I did not expect your screed against all things coastal, nor your appreciation of the fly-over states, loaded with oblivious people who really ARE uneducated, uncaring know-nothings. To call people coastal elites is to lump a lot of people together, which you just dumped on, with regard to the unmasked, unvaccinated SOBs in the states you are apparently loving. Both Obama and now Biden have spent most of their presidencies putting out fires created by people and administrations who are collectively selfish, militaristic greedy people.
One of those opportunistic greedy people just tanked the BBB after dangling all the others trying to make him see sense and quality of helping his own state and others. This guy is a pig. Biden gave him way to much time and leeway. As for the Brat in CO, the less said the better. Your scorn seems quite unnecessary-- Democrats govern very poorly, but republibrats don't govern at all. Seems like you should reserve your scorn for them.
Akhilleus,
The 30 years war that you mention brings to mind how those religious wars also brought music to its knees in Germany. One of the reasons that Shuetz' music (1585-1672) sounds so austere to our ears that oftentimes there were so few singers that he had to figure out musical ways to have the music penetrate the emptiness of those large churches he was in. I guess that no one figured out that killing all the people would empty out all the churches.
Here's a comment Bobby Lee just added to yesterday's thread that I think is worth moving forward:
"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."
@citizen625 & @Jeanne: What citizen625 & many white Americans don't realize about Barack Obama was the overwhelming pressure he was under to "fit in." Hillary Clinton was under the same kind of pressure, but somewhat less so. That's evident when citizen refers to Obama as "Barry." Obama was the President who, according to his critics, could do no right. I mean nothing. After he tried to gently explain rural Pennsylvanians to some San Francisco voters as "clinging to their guns & religion," he was pilloried for months & cast as a "coastal elite" even though he came up from nothing. And we remember Hillary's "deplorables." In both cases, they were right. But a Black man & a woman can't be honest about the bad behavior of their critics. Instead, they have to tiptoe around -- and make sure they're wearing the right outfit: Peter King (R-NY) thought maybe Obama should be impeached for wearing a tan suit in August when discussing the assassinations of Americans abroad.
I'm not sure there's a word for the phenomenon -- like "gaslighting" -- but there should be: Obama was damned if he did & damned if he didn't. If you are a member of a racial, ethnic or religious minority or if you've ever been an abused spouse of any persuasion, you know what I mean. It takes a huge amount of discipline to overcome the oppression of being "forever wrong." Obama did it. (Michelle Obama is not as good at it, and I identify with her. I'm not that good at it, either.)
So, citzen625, as Jeanne suggests, in this high season for Christianity, walk a mile in "Barry"'s shoes. His "limp response" to the Bundy phenomenon was calculated. It might have been a good idea to send his white veep out to rip Bundy, but Joe isn't all that well-suited to that job, either. Decent people are appalled by the deplorables, but only some of the decent people are allowed to say so.
Points taken. Part of the reason for the edge in my comments is when people thousands of miles away lord over your economics & health resentments build. Two of biggest Super Fund sites are Richland, WA & Butte, MT. Much of the wealth has left the area. There are more people in metro Boston than all of the Dakotas, MT, WY, NM, NE. We're left with Superfunds from Richland to the Bakken to Los Alamos. I generalize, in part, to show that nobody likes their individuality to be generalized away. Ignorance is available in Southy, in Kenosha, and in the mayor of San Francisco. I would agree that, for what was possible within our country, Obama did just about the best job possible. Nobody is excellent at everything; using a term of familiarity with the former president intentionally flattens the playing field. Just like Joe. Using titles, too often perpetuates caste divisions and classism. Boston Brahmins. Ivy Leagues. My original point remains: Lisa and Deb know more about the fly-overs than most people who don't and never have lived here. Finally, how much of the wealth from elsewhere has ended up concentrated within 100 miles of Boston, for one? The Ivy League endowment (https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamandrzejewski/2021/10/31/ballooning-ivy-league-endowment-forecasted-to-top-1-trillion-by-2048/?sh=1db7ed193a37) is expected to top $1Trillion. That is bigger than all the education budget of all the states mentioned earlier. I have scorn, in part, because when I tried to get a Hillary bumper sticker in 2016, they were unavailable in my state and I had to call Brooklyn. In September. Jeanne, you are absolutely right: education matters. People like me feel better when it goes both ways. Marie, I can't hope to walk a mile in his shoes. As I told my people after his election, I'm glad I've finally voted for someone smarter than I am. The preface from his most recent autobiography mentions "renewing" relationships in the wake of C-19. That's a good place to start. Listening is step one.
Ken, I'm another rooting for your granddaughter (and you).