;)
December 8, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Jacqueline Alemany & Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol said it is preparing to hold Mark Meadows, who served as ... Donald Trump's chief of staff, in criminal contempt for not complying with the panel's subpoena as it ramps up efforts to force former Trump administration officials to cooperate with its inquiry. Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said in a letter sent Tuesday evening to Meadows's attorney, George Terwilliger III, that the panel's patience has run out.... In the letter, Thompson outlined some of the documents that Trump's former chief of staff has already provided to the committee, including a Nov. 7, 2020, email 'discussing the appointment of alternate slates of electors as part of a "direct and collateral attack" after the election.' Also mentioned in the letter is a Jan. 5 email 'regarding a 38-page PowerPoint briefing titled "Election Fraud, Foreign Interference & Options for 6 JAN: that was to be provided "on the hill"' and a Jan. 5 'email about having the National Guard on standby.' ~~~
"Meadows provided the committee last week with 'certain relevant messages' from 'saved and backed up phone data' from his personal cellphone, according to Thompson's letter. The text messages produced by Meadows include a Nov. 6, 2020, correspondence 'with a Member of Congress apparently about appointing alternate electors in certain states as part of a plan that the Member acknowledged would be "highly controversial" and to which Mr. Meadows apparently said, "I love it."'" MB: You can download the letter from Thomson by clicking on the link. I thought maybe Meadows -- I won't appear, I will appear, I won't appear flipflops were a form of delay, but it looks as if he really did change his mind again -- after Trump dissed his book. Some of the docs Meadows provided before deciding he was unable to lunch today would seem to be fairly incriminating.
Katrin Bennhold & Melissa Eddy of the New York Times: "After 16 years as leader of Germany and unofficial leader of Europe, [Angela] Merkel on Wednesday left the office she first took over when President George W. Bush was still in the White House in a characteristically understated way. 'Congratulations dear Mr. Chancellor, dear Olaf Scholz,' Ms. Merkel told her successor in a small gathering at the chancellery.... Ms. Merkel was the central political figure in Germany and Europe through four U.S. presidents and five British and eight Italian prime ministers. Her steady accretion of authority drew admirers and detractors alike, but she remained a singular source of stability for the continent through repeated crises."
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Paul Sonne, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin in a video call Tuesday not to mount a new invasion of Ukraine and laid out the economic and security costs Russia would face if the Kremlin chooses to go down that path, as the White House attempts to forestall a renewed war in Europe. Biden also offered a diplomatic route to end the war scare that has arisen since the Kremlin, for the second time this year, massed troops and materiel near the border with Ukraine, raising fears of an offensive far larger and more deadly than its invasion eight years ago." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday afternoon.) The New York Times story, by David Sanger & Michael Crowley, is here.
Useless Commission Writes 288-page Report. Charlie Savage of the New York Times: "The bipartisan commission appointed by President Biden to study possible changes to the federal judiciary unanimously approved a final report on Tuesday that flagged 'profound disagreement' among its members over the issue that led to the panel's creation: calls to expand or 'pack' the Supreme Court with additional justices. By a vote of 34 to 0, the commission approved a 288-page report that offered a critical appraisal of arguments for and against that and many other ideas for changes to the Supreme Court, including imposing 18-year term limits on justices and reducing their power to strike down acts of Congress. But the group did not offer specific recommendations."
A Win for Foghorn Leghorn, a Shame on the Senate. Emily Flitter of the New York Times: “Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor whom critics painted as a communist after President Biden picked her for a key banking regulator job, withdrew from consideration for the post on Tuesday. In a letter to the White House, Ms. Omarova said it was 'no longer tenable' for her to seek the position of comptroller of the currency. Mr. Biden, who said Ms. Omarova had 'lived the American dream' by escaping her birthplace in the former Soviet Union and serving the United States, accepted her request. 'Saule would have brought invaluable insight and perspective to our important work on behalf of the American people,' he said in a statement. 'But unfortunately, from the very beginning of her nomination, Saule was subjected to inappropriate personal attacks that were far beyond the pale.'"
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: "The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed a $768 billion defense policy bill after lawmakers abruptly dropped proposals that would have required women to register for the draft, repealed the 2002 authorization of the Iraq war and imposed sanctions for a Russian gas pipeline, in a late-year drive to salvage a bipartisan priority. The legislation, unveiled hours before the vote, put the Democratic-led Congress on track to increase the Pentagon's budget by roughly $24 billion above what President Biden had requested, angering antiwar progressives who had hoped that their party's control of the White House and both houses of Congress would lead to cuts to military programs after decades of growth. Instead, the measure provides significant increases for initiatives intended to counter China and bolster Ukraine, as well as the procurement of new aircraft and ships, underscoring the bipartisan consensus on Capitol Hill for continuing to spend huge amounts of federal money on defense initiatives, even as Republicans lash Democrats for spending freely on social programs.... The lopsided 363-to-70 vote on Tuesday sent the legislation to the Senate, where it is expected to pass with strong bipartisan support as soon as this week."
Emily Cochrane & Margot Sanger-Katz of the New York Times: "The House approved legislation on Tuesday that would pave the way for a swift increase in the debt ceiling amid a Republican blockade, after congressional leaders in both parties agreed to try an unusual maneuver that could avert the threat of a first-ever federal default. The 222-to-212 vote came after days of quiet bipartisan talks to resolve the stalemate culminated in a deal. Only one House Republican, Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, joined Democrats in voting in favor of the measure.... Its passage was not guaranteed in the evenly divided Senate, where Republicans have for weeks refused to let Democrats take up any bill to provide a long-term increase. But Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, signaled confidence that enough of his colleagues could accept the solution. The Treasury Department has said that it could breach the statutory limit on its ability to borrow to finance the federal government's obligations soon after Dec. 15 without congressional action." ~~~
~~~ Kelsey Snell of NPR tries to explain the Senate deal on raising the debt limit: "Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., agreed on a proposal that would allow the Senate to increase the federal borrowing limit without the threat of a Republican filibuster. The move is an attempt to end a months-long standoff as Republicans have refused to join Democrats in voting to increase the debt limit.... The approach combines a one-time change to Senate rules with a measure to prevent scheduled cuts to Medicare payments.... If the one-time change passes the Senate, the bill still needs to be signed into law by the president. Only then would the opportunity to increase the federal borrowing limit with a simple majority vote in the Senate kick off. The one-off agreement would allow Senate Democrats to avoid default, assuming the party is unified on the amount of borrowing power they're willing to allow. Democrats say their goal is to choose a figure that will resolve the debt limit until after the midterm elections in November 2022." MB: I still don't get it. It's two different bills, one on Medicare & one, after the first becomes law, could raise the debt limit by majority vote, sans filibuster? Good grief. ~~~
~~~ Well, Yes. Sarah Ferris, et al., of Politico: "The House passed a bill Tuesday night to expedite a debt ceiling fix in the Senate, allowing Democrats to essentially raise the nation's credit limit on their own and thwart a Christmastime default. The measure -- which is the result of an 11th-hour accord between party leaders -- tees up a new path for Congress to hike the nation's borrowing ability, preventing the Treasury Department from running out of cash as soon as this month.... Under the plan, at least 10 Senate Republicans would vote to allow Democrats to raise the debt ceiling with a simple majority. The Senate could start voting to allow this process Thursday, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he's 'confident' the plan has enough GOP support. But both chambers would need to actually hike the debt limit in a separate vote -- one that could take until early next week to clear both the House and Senate." MB: This is ridiculous. After this remarkable demonstration of GOP cowardice, Republicans should never, ever criticize any Democrat for anything less than a felony conviction. (On the other hand, if Mitch will broker this kind of nonsensical pact to ensure the full faith & credit of the USA, let's see if he'll do it for voter rights, too. [Okay, he won't.])
Marianna Sotomayor & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) plans to introduce a resolution Wednesday to strip Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) of her committee assignments for repeatedly making anti-Muslim remarks aimed at Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), hoping the action forces House Democratic leadership to punish the lawmaker before the end of the year. Pressley's resolution, first obtained by The Washington Post, comes amid mounting pressure by House Democrats for Boebert to be reprimanded for her Islamophobic attacks that surfaced via video of the Colorado Republican suggesting at an event in her district over Thanksgiving break that Omar was a suicide bomber."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff under ... Donald J. Trump, on Tuesday informed the committee scrutinizing the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol that he was no longer willing to cooperate with its investigation, reversing a deal he reached with the panel just last week to sit for an interview and provide documents.... Instead, he proposed that Mr. Meadows answer questions in writing through what he called an 'orderly process' that would create a 'clear record of questions and related assertions of privilege.' The turnabout was the second in two weeks by Mr. Meadows, who had initially refused to comply with a subpoena from House panel in line with a directive from Mr. Trump, but told the panel last week that he would be willing to provide documents and sit for a voluntary interview." CNN's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Mike Lillis of the Hill: "The leaders of the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol are vowing to launch criminal charges against Mark Meadows if he refuses to cooperate in the probe.... Meadows ... is scheduled to testify privately before the panel on Wednesday.... 'if indeed Mr. Meadows refuses to appear, the Select Committee will be left no choice but to advance contempt proceedings and recommend that the body in which Mr. Meadows once served refer him for criminal prosecution,' [committee chair Bennie] Thompson [D-Miss.] [MB: and vice-chair Liz Cheney (R-Wy.)] said in a statement." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Meadows' memoir of his happy days in service of Trump was publicly released Tuesday. Meadows thought Trump would love the book. Instead, as Lillis reports, "Trump is reportedly livid about the book, characterizing it publicly as 'fake news.' And Meadows has since walked back his own narrative, saying it was misinterpreted by a liberal media hellbent on disparaging the former president." ~~~
~~~ Zachary Cohen, et al., of CNN: "The House select committee investigating the January 6 riot has formally subpoenaed the phone records of more than 100 people, a substantial number that includes former Trump officials and associates of the ex-President such as his one-time chief of staff Mark Meadows, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. The committee has already begun receiving some data from phone providers, the sources said. The records do not include the content of the calls but rather details about who called or texted whom, when and for how long, giving them the ability to draw a web of communications before, during and after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. Congressional investigators also believe this data will help them piece together communications between those in ... Donald Trump's official orbit and the people who organized the rally that preceded the Capitol attack and rioters who participated in the violence. While the records do not include information about the substance of those communications, the panel believes it may be able to learn those details from individuals who are cooperating with the investigation.... An attorney for Meadows took issue with the subpoenas, writing in a letter to the committee on Tuesday that they are part of the reason his client will no longer cooperate with the panel." ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to Meadows' attorney, the objection is that the records sweep would include phone calls that included "intensely personal communications." Really? Is Meadows worried the January 6 investigators will find out Meadows called his girlfriend/boyfriend 16 times? His masseuse? Sorry, Mark; I don't think they care about your "intensely personal" sex life (if you have one).
Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Roger Stone, a longtime adviser to ... Donald Trump, is refusing to be deposed or hand over documents to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, his attorney said in a letter dated Monday. The letter, which Stone provided to NBC News on Tuesday, invokes his Fifth Amendment right not to testify."
Rick Newman of Yahoo! News: "An 'investor presentation' [Donald Trump's new] company recently filed with the Securities and Exchange commission is provoking guffaws among business analysts, with laughable evasions and barely any business strategy. "It does feel like every public action by this company is designed give the impression that it is a joke," Bloomberg analyst Matt Levine wrote on Dec. 7. The oddest part of the [Trump Media & Technology Group] presentation is the 'technology team' listed on Slide 21. The company has apparently filled 30 important jobs already, but it only lists these team members with a first name and last initial. The chief technology officer is 'Josh A.' 'Steve E.' is VP of engineering. One of the senior mobile developers is 'BJ.' Are these real people or stand-ins? We may never know: As a footnote explains: 'personnel subject to change.' One key employee is very well known: Devin Nunes, the pro-Trump California Congressman who's quitting his job in January to become CEO of TMTG, with Trump as chairman. Nunes has no business experience, except for fishy ties to a family farm.... The New Yorker pointed out in a piece of satire [MB: by Andy Borowitz] speculating that Trump will stiff Nunes as he has done with many contractors and investors in his years as a real-estate developer. Maybe it's not satire." ~~~
~~~ Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Ken wrote in yesterday's Comments thread that he "can't wait until the stock goes public." MB: Sounds like one of those deals where the initial public offering is $40/share but soon becomes a penny stock. But still, an excellent opportunity to reduce one tax liability for stock gains. RAS also complimented Nunes on his excellent move to join Team Trump just as securities investigators are beginning to look into the shady financing of TMTG: "Nice of him to volunteer to be the latest fall guy." ~~~
~~~ A Giant Grift. Judd Legum of Popular Information calls TMTG "a $1.6 billion mirage. He points out that TMTG's merger with Digital World Acquisition Company (DWAC), a publicly-traded Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) -- the deal the SEC is investigating -- boosted DWAC's stock to $175/share, pretty amazing for a stock that was previously valued at $10/share. "[The value] has since settled in at around $43, which still values TMTG at almost $1.6 billion.... That's not bad for a company that has no product, no users, no publicly identified executives, and no revenue.... [Under the arrangement between TMTG DWAC, Donald] Trump, before TMTG has a single product or subscriber, could collect $1.3 billion.... It's a deal that makes Trump money and the investors money. The people holding the bag will be retail investors paying premium prices for a mirage of a company because they like Trump."
Meredith McGraw of Politico: "During Brett Kavanaugh's controversial 2018 Supreme Court confirmation hearings..., Donald Trump 'strongly considered' dropping the nominee and instead going with a 'stronger candidate,' according to a new book by Trump's former chief of staff Mark Meadows. It wasn't because of accusations that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted Christine Blasey Ford while in high school, but because he'd professed that he 'liked beer' during his hearings and was, in Trump's estimation, being too apologetic.... At the time he was having private reservations about Kavanaugh, Trump was publicly fighting for his confirmation, mocking Blasey Ford's testimony at a rally and brushing off concerns from GOP lawmakers about his viability as a Supreme Court nominee." McGraw has more on Meadows' book.
Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post: "The Constitution, [Brett] Kavanaugh posited [during last week's Supreme Court hearing on Mississippi's anti-abortion law], is 'neutral' on abortion, 'neither pro-life nor pro-choice.' Consequently, 'this Court should be scrupulously neutral on the question of abortion ... rather than continuing to pick sides.'... The fundamental flaw here is that the Constitution exists in no small part to protect the rights of the individual against the tyranny of the majority. The Bill of Rights and the 14th Amendment exist to put some issues off limits for majority rule -- as Justice Robert H. Jackson put it in a 1943 ruling protecting the right of Jehovah's Witness schoolchildren not to be forced to salute the flag.... The Supreme Court, in protecting abortion rights, isn't telling women what to do: It is preserving space for them to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies."
** Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "The mainstream media's fixation with false equivalency between the two political parties and fear of criticism from the right has led to distorted coverage and misleading characterizations of the assault on democracy.... A democracy that can no longer recognize existential threats is in no position to defend itself against shameless foes." Rubin provides plenty of examples of the GOP's assault & the media's euphemisms for these attacks. And she faults Democrats for being "apparently ... temperamentally unsuited to calling out their opponents as anti-democratic or un-American." ~~~
~~~ Dan Froomkin of Press Watch interviews Dana Milbank of the Washington Post about his recent column on journalists' being "accessories to the murder of democracy." MB: Froomkin & Milbank used to be colleagues at the WashPo, where Froomkin's blogposts about the White House were among the most popular opinion pieces. Inexplicable, Fred Hiatt fired Froomkin in June 2009, to the dismay & bewilderment of real journalists at other outlets. ~~~
~~~ Barton Gellman of the Atlantic: "Technically, the next attempt to overthrow a national election may not qualify as a coup. It will rely on subversion more than violence, although each will have its place. If the plot succeeds, the ballots cast by American voters will not decide the presidency in 2024. Thousands of votes will be thrown away, or millions, to produce the required effect. The winner will be declared the loser. The loser will be certified president-elect.... Democrats, big and small D, are not behaving as if they believe the threat is real. Some of them, including President Joe Biden, have taken passing rhetorical notice, but their attention wanders. They are making a grievous mistake.... For more than a year now, with tacit and explicit support from their party's national leaders, state Republican operatives have been building an apparatus of election theft.... Trump and his party have convinced a dauntingly large number of Americans that the essential workings of democracy are corrupt, that made-up claims of fraud are true, that only cheating can thwart their victory at the polls, that tyranny has usurped their government, and that violence is a legitimate response." ~~~
~~~ Marie: If, like me, you don't have a subscription to the Atlantic, Gellman's article would be a good place to "spend" a freebie. Gellman cites, at length, a project led by Robert Pape of the University of Chicago, which has conducted a number of surveys & analyses of the January 6 insurrectionists. Here's one finding that stood out for me: the team noticed a number of factors about the insurrectionists that surprised them. But "Only one meaningful correlation emerged. Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline." ~~~
~~~ Although Gellman's central thesis comes as no surprise to us, I was struck by this statistic about the insurrectionists because of a snippet I heard on NPR as I was driving home Tuesday: a guest made an assertion I never thought of: the reason we are the only developed nation without a national healthcare system is racism; American politicians (in today's U.S. politics, read Republican politicians) don't want minorities to "get free stuff." Huh. That sure explains the virulent opposition to ObamaCare, doesn't it? More generally, the suggestions makes a lot of sense. When Republicans say "socialism" (or "communism" -- see story on Saule Omarova's withdrawal from consideration, linked above), they don't mean "not capitalism"; they mean "not white." Wow!
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Wednesday are here.
Allison Pecorin of ABC News: "Republican-led efforts to repeal President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate on private businesses will once again get a vote in the Senate Wednesday, and this time a repeal is expected to pass. The Senate will likely vote Wednesday on Republican Sen. Mike Braun's effort to repeal the mandate on private sector businesses with more than 100 employees. Every Republican signed onto the proposal.... Some moderate Democrats are expected to back the repeal effort.... Republicans are bringing up the repeal for a vote using a procedural tool called the Congressional Review Act, which allows Congress to overturn rules created by federal agencies and only requires 51 votes to pass the Senate. The bill would still need to go over to the House, where it is unlikely to be brought up by Democratic leadership."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Tuesday are here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Beyond the Beltway
Wisconsin. Patrick Marley of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "A conservative group issued a report Tuesday saying it found no evidence of widespread fraud in Wisconsin's presidential election but believed officials did not closely follow all the state's voting laws. The report by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty provides Republicans with material they can use to argue Wisconsin's elections system needs to be overhauled. But it also includes findings Democrats can seize on to emphasize that there is no credible evidence to question Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin.... Despite ... finding [no evidence of fraud], the institute leveled numerous criticisms at how the election was conducted and contended changes need to be made for future contests. The report comes as Republicans who control the Assembly conduct their own review of the election at a cost of $676,000 to taxpayers. Former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who is overseeing that review, has focused on many of the same issues that WILL targeted in its report." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Wisconsin Republicans can't find any evidence of voter fraud, but they're going ahead in their tireless effort to ensure "election integrity" by limiting ballot access, gerrymandering & increasing GOP politicians' control over elections, especially federal elections (thanks, Ron Johnson!).
Way Beyond
France, Turkey, etc. Ben Hubbard & Aurelien Breeden of the New York Times: "The French police arrested a Saudi man on Tuesday in connection with the assassination of the dissident writer Jamal Khashoggi, but French authorities warned that they were still verifying his identity. A French judicial official confirmed that the man, identified as Khalid Alotaibi, 33, was arrested at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle airport north of Paris on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by Turkey, just before he was to board a flight for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A man by that name is accused of being a member of the team that killed Mr. Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.... If his identity is confirmed, France could extradite him to Turkey to face charges there." A BBC News report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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Reader Comments (16)
This one reminds me something about a camel's nose--or another way station on the road to theocracy.
https://www.npr.org/2021/12/08/1061996765/supreme-court-weighs-mandating-public-funds-for-religious-schools-in-maine
And it also suggests another possible downside to inadequately funding public schools.
You might say Devin Nunes is mooving on, but certainly not
mooving up. Bet he's going to be cowed voraciously by he new boss.
his new boss. Damned spell check.
@Forrest Morris: I use gmail for my emailing, and Google's Otto Korrect is almost creepy. Not only does Otto properly correct most of my misspellings & my "grammatical typos" (i.e., "his" for "he"), but he also often correctly anticipates what I'm going to write next. So if I type, "I look f" Otto fills in "orward to your reply." (He gives me a chance not to take his suggestion, too.) This is more true of business-type letters than personal ones, of course, but Otto still creeps me out a little. I once wrote a short note to my architect, but in fact, Otto wrote about a third of it.
Republicans are snowflakes: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/12/saule-omarova-smeared-as-a-communist-withdraws-nomination.html#comments & and Mark Meadows yes-I-will-no-I won't testify. There are times when the loss of Al Franken's humor from the halls of congress is a real loss. I mean, can anyone really imagine Moscow Mitch or Orange Turd digging to plant a garden or changing a tire?
Is there a reason that the Dems can't just raise the debt ceiling to a quadrillion dollars so we can be done with this charade for a while?
Marie: If you want to delve into the history of how racism has affected the politics of U.S. federal social programs (like health care), especially those that started with the New Deal, read "Fear Itself" by Ira Katznelson (2013, 486 pp). The book provides detailed history of how the FDR administration and the "liberals" in the US northern states were required by the congressional Southern Bloc (Democrats), in a solid-Democratic congress, to ensure the continuance of white supremacist policies in New Deal programs including Social Security, TVA, voting rights, transportation and infrasructure investments, etc. The dust jacket refers to the "Faustian Bargain" whereby New Dealers got Southern Democrats' votes only on the condition that the racial hierarchy that had defined the South since Reconstruction would remain.
A semi-funny substory in the book is about Southern Democrats trying to deny absentee votes to Black soldiers deployed overseas in 1944. The basic problem was that their ballots would be counted for precincts where they could not vote had they been at home. It's only funny because it shows that the racism never goes away, it just changes form.
If you were studying Critical Race Theory, this is one book you would want to have read. A lot of the structural racism in the post-Depression economy began with the laws and programs noted in this book. Along with "The Color of Law" by Richard Rothstein, it explains a lot about race and wealth in the U.S.
If the parents concerned about teaching CRT were serious, these two books would be the first two they would ban from little Bobbi Sue's reading list.
I have spent a good part of the morning digesting the superb but lengthy piece in the Atlantic by Barfon Gellman. It sits there in my insides like a heavy stone. "The party is in thrall" is the beginning, which sounds almost sexy but then he begins the long slog of sheer terror by saying the insurrection takes on the aspect of rehearsal and a year ago he couldn't have predicted that Trump could have compelled the whole party's genuflection to the BIG LIE–––and has built the first American mass political movements in the past century by any means necessary.
The last time America saw middle class whites involved in violence was the expansion of the second KKK in the 1920's.
The one meaningful correlation re: the violent protestors come from towns in which the white population is in decline.
"21 million people in the U.S. who are essentially a mass of of kindling or a mass of dry wood that, if married to a spark, could in fact ignite."
Another victory for the Fox anti-vax freeeedom fighters.
Me.
I’ve been feeling pretty awful for about six days. I went to the doctor yesterday. It’s covid. Now I was fully vaccinated as of last March. I only go to a few places, the grocery store, book store, and the gym. I wear a mask at the first two. At the gym I’m never within ten feet of anyone else and I’m always there when there are twenty or fewer people in the whole place.
Nonetheless, I live in a blood red, anti-vax, anti-mask state where hundreds of thousands of idiots get their medical advice from MTG, TuKKKer, and a variety of imbeciles who would rather spread a deadly disease than get a shot just so they can own the libs and stand up like real ‘mericans, for their freeeedoms.
Luckily I’ve gotten vaccinated, because it’s pretty bad even with that deterrent. But now my ten year old has to stay home from school. He will likely miss his class’s Christmas party (yeah, it’s “Christmas” party here). So this is really disrupting our lives. Certainly, it could be a lot worse, but I’m just pointing out that all of this (including great discomfort on my part) could have been avoided, except confederate politicians and media shills saw a way to fuck with people’s lives for their own benefit and amusement.
None of these creeps will pay a price (except maybe for the unvaccinated ones who catch covid and die…). They leave paying the bill to others. Like they always do.
The Army Times has an article about all the national guards that were sent to the border and it was as successful as you would expect.
"Leaders initiated more than 1,200 legal actions, including nonjudicial punishments, property loss investigations, Army Regulation 15-6 investigations and more. That’s nearly one legal action for every three soldiers. At least 16 soldiers from the mission were arrested or confined for charges including drugs, sexual assault and manslaughter. During the same time period, only three soldiers in Kuwait, a comparable deployment locale with more soldiers, were arraigned for court-martial.
Finally, one soldier couldn't take it anymore. The person penned a kind of manifesto, slipping it under every door in his brigade headquarters.
“Someone please wave the white flag and send us all home,” the letter begged. “I would like to jump off a bridge headfirst into a pile of rocks after seeing the good ol’ boy system and f*cked up leadership I have witnessed here.”
https://www.armytimes.com/news/your-army/2021/12/08/death-drugs-and-a-disbanded-unit-how-the-guards-mexico-border-mission-fell-apart/
AK: Terrible news! YOU have covid? did you get a booster? how did this happen? I am so sorry and so angry that someone like you were given this virus by someone who obviously ignored the danger. Please keep us informed as to your health. We love you, Bud!!!!!! and I think how hard this is going to be for your wife and young son. PD
@Akhilleus: I'm so sorry you're sick. Please take every seemingly unnecessary precaution to keep yourself as healthy as possible. REST UP. Baby yourself. If you think you might need to go to the hospital, go to the hospital. If your REAL doctor recommends some expensive anti-viral regimens, don't decide they're too expensive.
We're thinking about you. And you don't need to waste any energy being angry at the goons who made you sick. I'm angry enough for both of us.
Marie
Akhilleus,
More good wishes from afar.
We always take news (good or bad) more personally when it affects someone we know.
Since I feel I know you- -all RC'ers feel that way about one another, I'm sure--as a family member, I'm glad you told us and hope you understand that get well wish I'm sending your way is especially heartfelt.
Other than that: What Marie said.
I’m so sorry that you’re unwell. Please give yourself all the care you need, including soothing music of your choice (and no news).
@Ak, so sorry to hear. I'll drink a wee dram of Jameson to help you feel better soon.
Akhilleus: I'm sorry to hear you got it.
My Dad was a doc, and always said bourbon (two fingers) and equal parts water was a good way to start most cures.