;)
February 3, 2022
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Julian Barnes of the New York Times: "The United States has acquired intelligence about a Russian plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine using a faked video that would build on recent disinformation campaigns, according to senior administration officials and others briefed on the material. The plan -- which the United States hopes to spoil by making public -- involves staging and filming a fabricated attack by the Ukrainian military either on Russian territory or against Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine."
**Remembering Zucker. Margaret Sullivan of the Washington Post: Jeff "Zucker's relationship with Donald Trump will define his legacy. Zucker, as much as any other person in the world, created and burnished the Trump persona -- first as a reality-TV star who morphed into a worldwide celebrity, then as a candidate for president who was given large amounts of free publicity.... Zucker created Trump the TV sensation, which was the necessary foundation for Trump the candidate.... CNN infamously took his campaign speeches live, sometimes going so far as to broadcast images of an empty lectern with embarrassing chyrons such as 'Breaking News: Standing By for Trump to Speak.'... Zucker also brought on the air Trump surrogates who should have had no place on a national news network: ... Corey Lewandowski..., Jeffrey Lord and Kayleigh McEnany...."
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "The National Archives decided on Tuesday that it will turn over former Vice President Mike Pence's records to the House Select Committee early next month, after ... Donald Trump said he wanted to keep secret more than 100 documents. This is the first set of records related to Pence's office that the Archives has cleared for release after House investigators sought them and comes as top officials around Pence on January 6 testify to the panel."
Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post: "In a body full of MAGA sycophants and Ivy League-educated senators spewing anti-elite rhetoric, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) manages to stand out. From his fist-pumping approval of the Jan. 6 mob to his whining that his canceled book deal amounts to censorship, Hawley has specialized in inflammatory stunts and victimhood to shove himself to the front of the line of wannabe MAGA cult leaders who seek to follow defeated ... Donald Trump. So no one can be surprised when Hawley adopts the talking points of Trump's favorite dictator, Russian President Vladimir Putin. As President Biden draws a tough stance against Putin's designs on Ukraine and deploys troops to our NATO allies, Hawley has taken Putin's side in the central dispute. Does Ukraine have a right to determine its alliance? Hawley's answer: Nyet!"
~~~~~~~~~~
Sarah Dadouch, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden said Thursday that a U.S. Special Operations forces counterterrorism mission overnight in northwestern Syria had killed the leader of the Islamic State militant group. The raid killed thirteen people, including children, local first responders said. No U.S. casualties were reported in the operation, which left a U.S. helicopter destroyed on the ground. In a statement Thursday, Biden said: 'Last night at my direction, U.S. military forces in northwest Syria successfully undertook a counterterrorism operation to protect the American people and our Allies, and make the world a safer place. Thanks to the skill and bravery of our Armed Forces, we have taken off the battlefield Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi -- the leader of ISIS. All Americans have returned safely from the operation.'... A U.S. official with knowledge of the situation said the civilian casualties were caused by a man in the targeted compound who detonated explosives, killing multiple women and children." ~~~
~~~ Ghaith Alsayed, et al., of the AP: "U.S. special forces landed in helicopters and assaulted a house in a rebel-held corner of Syria, clashing for two hours with gunmen, witnesses said. Residents described continuous gunfire and explosions that jolted the town of Atmeh near the Turkish border...." The New York Times is liveblogging developments.
Dan Lamothe, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden is dispatching additional U.S. military personnel to Eastern Europe at the recommendation of the Pentagon, and about 3,000 service members are expected to deploy in the coming days, U.S. officials said Wednesday. The deployments of U.S. troops from Germany and Fort Bragg, N.C., are temporary moves intended to reassure NATO allies, according to two U.S. officials in Washington who spoke on the condition of anonymity.... The moves reflect concerns that Russia is preparing to invade Ukraine, and other service members could also be ordered to go and remain on a heightened alert status, the officials said." An AP report is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Andrew Desiderio of Politico: "Republican senators are unmoved by Tucker Carlson's relentless warpath against support for Ukraine -- even as it widens an existing rift in their party. The Fox News prime time host and others on the far-right have excused and even rationalized Russia's aggression toward Ukraine and downplayed its relevance to U.S. national security. And while GOP senators are shrugging off his name-and-shame campaign, Carlson's views are permeating the GOP base in a way that could undermine Republicans' efforts to emphasize cross-party unity as they seek to deter a Russian invasion of Ukraine." (Also linked yesterday.) But it looks like Josh loves Tucker. ~~~
~~~ Felicia Sonmez of the Washington Post: "The White House on Wednesday pushed back against Sen. Josh Hawley's suggestion that the United States would be worse off if Ukraine were admitted to NATO, accusing the Missouri Republican of 'parroting Russian talking points.' Ukraine is not a member of NATO, the military alliance of 30 mainly Western countries -- including the United States -- united by a mutual defense treaty. But as Russia once again threatens to invade Ukraine, NATO members have been sending troops and other reinforcements to the region, and the question of the country's potential admission to the alliance has risen to the forefront."
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "President Biden unveiled a plan on Wednesday to reduce the death rate from cancer by at least 50 percent over the next 25 years -- an ambitious new goal, he said, to 'supercharge' the cancer 'moonshot' program he initiated and presided over five years ago as vice president. Mr. Biden, joined by his wife, Jill Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris, also announced a campaign to urge Americans to undergo screenings that were missed during the coronavirus pandemic. And he said he would create a new 'cancer cabinet' to center the fight against cancer inside the White House." (This is an update of a story linked yesterday.)
Seung Min Kim of the Washington Post: "The White House is formally tapping three outside advisers who are veterans of politics and communications to help shepherd President Biden's eventual Supreme Court pick through the Senate confirmation process. The new team is led by former senator Doug Jones (D-Ala.), whose selection as the Supreme Court nominee's guide was made public this week. The two others are Minyon Moore, political director in the Clinton White House who is tasked with mobilizing a nationwide constellation of outside groups to build support for Biden's nominee, and Ben LaBolt, who served as both campaign and White House spokesman for former president Barack Obama. LaBolt will be advising on communications and messaging."
Anna Phillips & Jacob Bogage of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration launched a last-minute push Wednesday to derail the U.S. Postal Service's plan to spend billions of dollars on a new fleet of gasoline-powered delivery trucks, citing the damage the polluting vehicles could inflict on the climate and Americans' health.... The EPA and the White House Council on Environmental Quality sent letters to the Postal Service on Wednesday that urge it to reconside plans to buy mostly gas-powered vehicles and conduct a new, more thorough technical analysis. The EPA also asked the Postal Service to hold a public hearing on its fleet modernization plans, a request the agency had rejected when California regulators made it Jan. 28.... Over the past week, environmentalists and California's top air quality regulator have called on the EPA to block the Postal Service from moving forward with what they described as a poorly thought-out purchase...." ~~~
~~~ Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "Representative Gerald Connolly, the Virginia Democrat who leads the House subcommittee overseeing the United States Postal Service..., called on Wednesday for the resignation of Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general, saying he flouted President Biden's plan to electrify the federal fleet by placing a multibillion-dollar order for mostly gasoline-powered vehicles.... The order, for up to 165,000 trucks, would be the Postal Service's first large-scale vehicle purchase in three decades, according to a statement from Oshkosh Defense. Both the Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality wrote to Mr. DeJoy on Wednesday to say that the Postal Service had made the wrong decision to buy gasoline powered trucks based on a flawed environmental analysis.... Other Democrats said they wanted the board that oversees the post office to remove Mr. DeJoy.... The E.P.A. estimated the climate damages that would be caused by the new fleet at $900 million."
Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: A December 18, 2020 memo that circulated among Trump allies advocated that "Donald Trump should invoke the extraordinary powers of the National Security Agency and Defense Department to sift through raw electronic communications in an attempt to show that foreign powers had intervened in the 2020 election to help Joe Biden win. Proof of foreign interference would 'support next steps to defend the Constitution in a manner superior to current civilian-only judicial remedies.'... The previously unreported proposal, whose provenance remains murky, in some ways mirrors other radical ideas that extremists who denied Biden's victory were working to sell to Trump.... By law, the NSA cannot target a U.S. person's communications without a court order." The story goes on to describe a meeting at the Trump hotel, organized by MyPillow Guy Mike Lindell & attended by several Republican senators & some goofy "self-styled technical consultants and intelligence experts ... [who] laid out a variety of baseless conspiracy theories that included foreign powers such as China and Venezuela hacking voting machines...."
Alan Feuer, et al., of the New York Times: "Fifteen days after Election Day in 2020, James R. Troupis, a lawyer for the Trump campaign in Wisconsin, received a memo setting out what became the rationale for an audacious strategy: to put in place alternate slates of electors in states where ... Donald J. Trump was trying to overturn his loss.... The memos show how just over two weeks after Election Day, Mr. Trump's campaign was seeking to buy itself more time to undo the results. At the heart of the strategy was the idea that their real deadline was not Dec. 14, when official electors would be chosen to reflect the outcome in each state, but Jan. 6, when Congress would meet to certify the results.... The plan to employ alternate electors was one of Mr. Trump's most expansive efforts to stave off defeat, beginning even before some states had finished counting ballots and culminating in the pressure placed on Mr. Pence...."
There's Witness Tampering & There's Witness Suppression. Tara Palmeri of Politico: "In the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump seriously considered issuing a blanket pardon for all participants in the Jan. 6 riot, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. Between Jan. 6 and Joe Biden's inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump made three calls to one adviser to discuss the idea.... 'Is it everybody that had a Trump sign or everybody who walked into the Capitol' who could be pardoned? Trump asked, according to [another] adviser. 'He said, "Some people think I should pardon them." He thought if he could do it, these people would never have to testify or be deposed.'... Trump's consideration of preemptive pardons quickly hit a wall. It was unclear how he could pardon an entire class of people that hadn't been charged." Emphasis added. MB: IOW, Trump's "compassion & generosity" were once again merely means to ensure that none of the hundreds of co-conspirators & actors in the coup plot would testify against him.
Holmes Lybrand, et al., of CNN: "Former Department of Justice official Jeffrey Clark and his attorneys met with the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection for nearly two hours on Wednesday, two months after the panel voted to hold him in contempt for his lack of cooperation.... [Committee chair Bennie] Thompson [D-Miss.] said he had not gotten a readout of the proceedings and could not say if Clark plead the Fifth Amendment, as he had previously said he would.... Clark is key to the panel's investigation as he was one of the officials within the Justice Department pushing to pursue unfounded claims of voter fraud in the weeks after the 2020 election, and, according to officials who interacted with him was in touch with ... Donald Trump repeatedly."
Kyle Cheney, et al., of Politico: "The Jan. 6 select committee has subpoenaed the phone records of Arizona GOP Chair Kelli Ward and her husband, Michael Ward, who both signed documents falsely claiming to be among their state's presidential electors in 2020.... T-Mobile indicated it would turn over the records by Feb. 4 unless the Wards filed suit.... The Wards filed suit Tuesday against the House panel in federal court in Arizona seeking to block the couple's phone provider, T-Mobile, from sharing their records with the committee. The lawsuit was initially assigned to U.S. District Court Judge Susan Brnovich -- the wife of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who is running for Senate and is an ally of ... Donald Trump -- but she quickly recused herself from the matter." MB: Kelli Ward was the driving force behind the Cyber Ninja's "fraudit" of Maricopa County 2020 ballots.
Katelyn Polantz of CNN: "Retired Army Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served on the National Security Council and emerged as a star witness against ... Donald Trump during the 2019 Ukraine impeachment, is suing Donald Trump Jr., Rudy Giuliani and former Trump White House staffers, alleging they conspired against him. Vindman, in a new lawsuit filed in DC District Court, said Trump's family, his lawyers, right-wing media and others in the White House tried to intimidate and retaliate against him because he was willing to testify against the President, calling out Trump's entreaties of Ukraine for his personal political gain. He bluntly called the efforts to intimidate him obstruction. And the lawsuit, articulating over 73 pages Vindman's saga in Trump's first impeachment, aims to capture the plight whistleblowers face after standing up to a powerful political machine." (Also linked yesterday.)
Antonio Planas & Ron Allen of NBC News: "Six 'tech savvy' juveniles have been identified as persons of interest by the FBI in threats to historically Black colleges and universities that appear to be racially motivated. More than a dozen historically Black colleges and universities received bomb threats on Tuesday, the first day of Black History Month.... A law enforcement official ... says [the teens used] sophisticated methods to try to disguise the source of the threats, which appear to have a racist motivation."
Oh Dear. Zucker Rhymes with.... Michael Grynbaum & John Koblin of the New York Times: "Jeff Zucker resigned on Wednesday as the president of CNN and the chairman of WarnerMedia's news and sports division, writing in a memo that he had failed to disclose to the company a romantic relationship with another senior executive at CNN.... The abrupt end of his nine-year tenure immediately throws into flux the direction of CNN and its parent company, WarnerMedia, which is expected to be acquired later this year by Discovery Inc. in one of the nation's largest media mergers. In a memo to colleagues that was obtained by The New York Times, Mr. Zucker wrote that his relationship came up during a network investigation into the conduct of Chris Cuomo.... [Mr. Zucker had a relationship with] Allison Gollust..., one of the highest-ranking leaders of the network.... Ms. Gollust said in a statement on Wednesday that she was remaining in her role at CNN." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ CNN's report, by Brian Stelter & Oliver Darcy, is here. MB: I don't think Zucker really had to resign. Gollust would have been required to reveal the relationship, too. She didn't, and she's staying. Neither was married & they had worked together for years prior to beginning their relationship, so the so there's no fake "scandal." It all seems perfectly natural to me. Seems to me Zucker is using his failure to report the affair when it began as an excuse to "explore other opportunities." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Dominic Patten & Ted Johnson of Deadline: "... the relationship itself is not what triggered WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar's call to Zucker in recent days informing him that he had to exit or face termination, we've learned. Rather, it was Zucker's failure to disclose the relationship, in violation of WarnerMedia policy. Mere days afte Kilar was informed of Zucker's omissions by outside lawyers probing the now-fired Chris Cuomo's stint at CNN, the exec called Zucker and told him, 'You can't remain here.'... Discovery's largest shareholder, John Malone, a critic of CNN, made it known that corporate procedures had to be followed to the letter in regards to Zucker, we hear. Being that WarnerMedia's standards of business conduct require disclosure of relationships that develop with a boss and subordinate, Zucker's goose was officially cooked." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Okay, I was wrong. This was other men's excuse for getting rid of Zucker.
Lachlan Markay of Axios: "Some big-name 2022 [Republican] candidates are cutting checks to high-profile backers who endorsed their campaigns, records show.... Key endorsements are a known boon to campaigns battling for support, especially among ideologically committed primary voters. The payments raise the specter of a quid pro quo." MB: It would be a surprise if Donald Trump wasn't getting in on this "paid endorsement" racket.
Groundhog Day News. As previously reported in yesterday's Comments, Amanda Watts of CNN also reports, "Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow Wednesday, meaning that if you believe in a groundhog's ability to predict the weather -- we're in for six more weeks of winter." (Also linked yesterday.)
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Thursday are here.
Lolita Baldor of the AP: "The Army said Wednesday it will immediately begin discharging soldiers who have refused to get the mandatory COVID-19 vaccine, putting more than 3,300 service members at risk of being thrown out soon. The Army's announcement makes it the final military service to lay out its discharge policy for vaccine refusers. The Marine Corps, Air Force and Navy have already discharged active-duty troops or entry-level personnel at boot camps for refusing the shots. So far, the Army has not discharged any."
Beyond the Beltway
New York. Michael Wilson of the New York Times: "On Wednesday, 12 days after he was trapped in a bullet-fueled attack in a Harlem hallway..., [NYPD] officer Wilbert D. Mora, who at 27 impressed his seniors with his diligence and quiet manner in just three years on the job, was laid to rest before thousands at a funeral under the soaring arches of St. Patrick's Cathedral."
New York. Benjamin Weiser & Troy Closson of the New York Times: "A Brooklyn man was charged on Wednesday with selling a deadly dose of fentanyl-laced heroin to the actor Michael K. Williams, who was best known for his portrayal of the gay stickup man Omar Little in the television series 'The Wire.' The man who was charged, Irvin Cartagena, and three others were accused of being part of a drug-trafficking crew that continued to sell the drug even after knowing it had killed Mr. Williams -- operating in broad daylight amid apartment buildings in Brooklyn and Manhattan, according to a criminal complaint. The sale of the fatal dose to Mr. Williams in a hand-to-hand transaction in Brooklyn's Williamsburg neighborhood on Sept. 5, 2021, was captured on security video, the authorities said.... The other men charged along with Mr. Cartagena, 39, were Hector Robles, 57; Luis Cruz, 56; and Carlos Macci, 70. All are from Brooklyn, the government says."
Texas. A Conspiracy of Butterflies. Sharon Pruitt-Young of NPR: "The National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas, has announced that it's closing its doors 'for the immediate future' after ongoing harassment directed at employees and the center itself. The center, a nonprofit nature reserve nestled near the U.S.-Mexico border, unwittingly became the subject of conservative conspiracy theories and political conflict in recent years, having been locked in a years-long legal battle with the Trump administration and We Build the Wall regarding a planned border wall.... The National Butterfly Center filed a lawsuit in 2017 after the Trump administration allegedly began construction of a wall, using chainsaws to destroy trees and other plant life, on center-owned property without permission." ~~~
~~~ Sneha Day of the Texas Tribune: "The National Butterfly Center, along the U.S.-Mexico border in Mission, has long been the target of QAnon conspiracy theories falsely tying the organization to human trafficking. The center is a 20-year-old nature conservatory for wild butterflies. There are no law enforcement investigations into the organization or its staff for human trafficking.... In 2019, Brian Kolfage, a supporter of ... Donald Trump, tweeted out false rumors accusing Treviño-Wright of human trafficking. The National Butterfly Center responded by suing Kolfage and his organization, We Build the Wall, for defamation and disparagement in state court. Kolfage and others were indicted in 2020 over allegedly redirecting funds from We Build the Wall to personal expenses.... The harassment escalated in late January when a right-wing congressional candidate from Virginia, Kimberly Lowe, visited the nature conservatory, [center director Marianna] Treviño-Wright said. Lowe demanded the center give her access to the river 'to see all the illegals crossing on the raft.' Treviño-Wright said Lowe tackled her when she asked Lowe to leave the premises."
Washington State, etc. Mike Baker of the New York Times: "Among the thousands of mail-in ballots that were rejected in Washington State during the 2020 election, auditors have found that the votes of Black residents were thrown out four times as often as those of white voters. The rejections, all of them because of problematic signatures, disqualified one out of every 40 mail-in votes from Black people -- a finding that already is causing concern amid the national debate over voter access and secure balloting. Washington, a state with broad experience in mail-in balloting, found that rejection rates were also elevated for Native American, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander voters.... The findings in Washington State mirror mail-ballot research that has been conducted in other states in recent years, including Georgia and Florida."
Way Beyond
Canada. Amanda Coletta & Annabelle Timsit of the Washington Post: "Ottawa police said Wednesday that a 'significant element' from the United States has been involved in the participation, funding and organization of a self-described 'Freedom Convoy' that has for several days jammed streets in the capital to protest public health measures and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. 'They have converged in our city, and there are plans for more to come,' said Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly. He said that the participants, who also include locals and other Canadians, are 'putting our city and our residents, our partners and our officers at great risk.'... Some protesters carried Confederate flags, and at least one flag with a swastika drawn on it could be seen.... Meanwhile, media reported that there had been a breakthrough in a blockade of a busy U.S.-Canada border crossing in southern Alberta, with protesters agreeing to open up one lane of traffic in each direction, citing lawyers working with the group." MB: This takes the bad behavior of American tourists abroad to a whole 'nother level. Congrats, confederate Nazis.
~~~ Netherlands. The Dutchman Definitely Would Not Recognize Rotterdam Now. Miriam Berger of the Washington Post: "Rotterdam has agreed to temporarily dismantle part of its historic Koningshaven Bridge so that Jeff Bezos's 417-foot-long, three-mast yacht can pass through the waterway sometime this summer, according to a spokeswoman for the city. The Dutch company Oceano has been building the massive vessel for an estimated $500 million in the nearby city of Alblasserdam. Once completed this year, the ship, known as Y721, will be the world's largest sailing yacht, according to Boat International. But to reach the open seas it must first pass through Rotterdam -- considered the maritime capital of Europe -- and the city's historic steel bridge, locally known as De Hef, which has a clearance of just over 131 feet.... It was decommissioned in 1994 after being replaced by a tunnel, but later declared a national monument. The bridge underwent a major restoration from 2014 to 2017, after which the city said it would not be dismantled again, according to the Dutch broadcaster Rijnmond.... Oceano and Bezos will pay to dismantle the bridge, Rijnmond reported."
News Ledes
Market Watch: “New requests for U.S. unemployment benefits fell for the second week in a row to 238,000, as the record omicron wave receded and more people were able to go back to work. Initial jobless claims declined by 23,000 from a revised 261,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said Thursday."
Washington Post: Tens of thousands of customers in Texas were without power Thursday morning as a major winter storm continued moving east across the United States, bringing snow, sleet and freezing rain to Midwestern and Southern states. Nearly 53,000 power outages were reported in Texas early Thursday, along with about 15,000 in Arkansas, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide." ~~~
~~~ CNN: "A triple whammy of sleet, snow and ice has bombarded more than 2,000 miles in the eastern US -- and many are now stuck in the storm with no electricity. More than 100 million people in 25 states stretching from the Mexican to Canadian borders were under winter weather alerts Thursday, CNN meteorologist Monica Garrett said." ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is live-updating storm developments here.
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Reader Comments (10)
February is Black History Month, so lets all get into those libraries
and demand they burn any books by black authors, or any books
that hint that blacks can be or do anything others can.
We can replace them with things like "Gone With the Wind", but of
course, we'll have to cut out that line "Frankly my dear, I don't give
a damn". And any books teaching anything about sex, oh no, let
those kids have babies as young teenagers, that'll teach 'em about sex.
Oh, sorry, I forgot, we're not all in Texas or the Carolinas, etc.
Forrest: The denying of sex ed for students has for years been a bugaboo with those saying that "maybe" we would have fewer teen pregnancies if said teens had any idea what they were doing. My kids learned things through the Unitarian Universalist church, in year-long programs that had previously been labeled as too graphic for a New Jersey school district who had commissioned it. I'm not at all surprised that general book-banning now includes books with "questionable" language and graphic descriptions of one kind or another. Wingers have always been this way. Always. Abortion bad but don't deal with the fallout from teen pregnancies, STDs and the like... As for "alternative lifestyles," well, those kids are on their own.
There is NO moral sense, no sense of duty, no responsibility, no humane response, no signs of intelligent life on the right. The UUs have tried, Girl Scouts have tried, schools have tried, and still we have these flurries of book-banning, etc, now expanded to include everything else beyond sex ed they can think of.
How original of someone in Congress to call for DeJoy's ouster. The rest of us have been calling for it since he was hired. Congress as a whole, J6 committee excepted, is incompetent, particularly the Senate.
How long before the idiots on the right, led by TucKKKer, begin whining about how maybe ISIS is as blameless as Russia? 3--2--1...
"There is NO moral sense, no sense of duty, no responsibility, no humane response, no signs of intelligent life on the right." I'd Jeanne just about summed it up perfectly. When John Malone can show Zucker the door without peep one about how either are right-wing, fascism enablers....No moral sense & no humane response. Google John Malone. The first 9 pages have not one article with a negative word about him. This 'nothing' about a guy who made his billions providing cable access to Faux and Murdoch.
DeJoy is doing a fantastic job. It takes 5 days for a Netflix disc
to get here from Columbus Ohio. I can drive it in five hours.
The fantastic job he's doing is screwing up the mail, for what
reason is a mystery to me. We still have the same number of
employees in our local post office and none of them can explain
this.
I did read some time ago that he got rid of a number of sorting
machines which doesn't make sense because then the mail would
have to be sorted by hand which would mean more employees.
Citizen,
I met John Malone way back when. I was testifying before a sub-committee on the importance of local input and local access to communities being bulldozed by cable companies back in 80’s. Malone, as king of TCI (one of the early cable tv giants), pulled out all the stops and spent a ton of money to ensure that locals had as little input as possible into what he saw as his own personal piggy bank: their pocket books.
He was instrumental in making sure that allies in congress protected the cable industry, especially from charges of monopoly. In fact, there are few better examples of natural monopolies than a cable operation. Those of you who have cable tv…how many cable operators are in business in your city or town? Can you tell one operator, who specializes in horrible service and price hikes every year, to pound sand and sign up with a competitive operation?
John Malone was considered a god by other cable companies who all sought to take the money and run, with full congressional protection, just like their hero, big John.
Oh, and by the way…if you have cable tv but never watch the liars and traitors on Fox, don’t look now, but you’re paying for them anyway. Fox charges cable operators (who are all too happy to help their buddies at Treason TV) more than any other offering except ESPN. Regular news operations like MSNBC and CNN get between .30 and .70 per subscriber per month. Fox? $3. This amounts to almost $2 billion/yr from cable subscribers, most of whom never watch it.
In fact, Fox makes so much money off cable TV, that they could lose all their advertisers and still make a killing. So when you hear about sponsors pulling their spots from TuKKKer KKKarlson’s nightly rant and lie fest, you know Fox execs are sitting in some board room laughing their asses off.
And John Malone played a big role in making this all happen and helping the ongoing Nazification of America.
"Inside Mississippi’s only class on critical race theory"
Things aren't quite as scary when they get a little light shone on them. Young Republican woman takes a critical race theory law class and finds out that it's not the “hostile, academic, divisive, race-obsessed, poisonous, elitist, anti-American” horror that she had been told by her media.
Here's a song that hits back at Collins and the GOPs disingenuous attacks on Biden's future Supreme Court pick
Marie,
Thanks so much for that clip of “The Dutchman” with Steve Goodman and Jethro Burns (playing a Gibson F5 for a change). I haven’t heard it in decades, but it was a staple in a lot of the folk clubs I haunted years ago: the Bitter End and Folk City in the Village, the Back Room at the Idler and Passims (originally Club 47) in Cambridge.
As Goodman got to the chorus, I found myself automatically chiming in with “Let us go to the banks of the ocean, where the walls rise above the Zuiderzee…”
Great stuff, man.
And listening to the pure picking of Steve and Jethro, I had to smile thinking of times I’d drag my rock n roll band mates into one of those clubs. One guy, after hearing blues wizard Paul Rishell ride his National Steel around the place like a jockey on Seabiscuit, said he might have to think about giving up the guitar altogether. I guess he thought I was taking him to hear slightly out of tune three chord folkies playing bad Bob Dylan. Paul straightened that shit out, but quick.
Funny how a single song can float you back in time and carry so much emotional weight. I guess this constitutes actual mystic chords of memory. So, thanks for that.
https://youtu.be/Ux-lQaoZewk
If you’re interested…
AK: this is for you: A long piece in the New Yorker on "Led Zeppelin Gets into Your Soul" –––along with other bands during that era that rocked us–––for while––-and some still do.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/31/led-zeppelin-gets-into-your-soul-jimmy-page-robert-plant-and-bob-spitz-biography
Thinking about Nazis today and how Hitler was enraged at the Jews in Vienna not because Jews were practicing the arts instead of agriculture, but because they wouldn't let him into art school. We can see, if we delve into this history, how tightly the elimination of the Jews was bound to a hatred of cosmopolitanism. He didn';t give a hoot about the poor religous Jews from Eastern Europe,––the main enemy had always been the educated Jews of Western Europe. In other words, the real target was the elite–--who brought with them the "bacillus of cosmopolitism."
I was thinking about Nazis today because we appear to have large groups roaming around our country–- dressed in Nazi gear, waving Nazi flags and marching head long into fomenting terror. "Jews will not replace us!" wasn't enough of a signal especially since the President of the U.S. at the time waved them off and saying what fine people they were on – both sides. So while we are dealing with all the shit storms–-weather wise and otherwise, we are seeing a redux of something we thought was dead and gone. It makes me crazy!!!!!
@Akhilleus: The lyrics of "The Dutchman" force the listener out of the present time. When I was young, it caused me to look apprehensively toward the future; today it sends me back -- just as it did you. At the same time the song hints at soppy nostalgia, it imposes a stark reality on the arc of life. It is a love story with an overwhelming sadness to it.
For me, a good part of that sadness has always been for the loss of Steve Goodman.
Marie,
Steve was a superb musician, gone far too soon. I had never heard his cover of this song but I instantly got into his unique phrasing. It was like hearing from an old friend you haven’t spoken to in years. The vocal mannerisms and style of talking/singing are immediately recognizable. And the dude’s guitar playing? Chops to burn, and not a single note too many, the bane of lesser musicians who try to use speed and jumbles of notes to make up for actual talent (are you listening Ted Nugent?). I first got to know him through his work backing up John Prine, another immense talent gone into the night. Thank god for recordings.