January 11, 2022

Afternoon Update:

Matt Zapotosky & Devlin Barrett of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department is forming a new domestic terrorism unit to help combat a threat that has intensified dramatically in recent years, a top national security official said Tuesday. Matthew G. Olsen, the head of the Justice Department's National Security Division, announced the unit in his opening remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee, noting that the number of FBI investigations of suspected domestic violent extremists -- those accused of planning or committing crimes in the name of domestic political goals -- had more than doubled since the spring of 2020.... Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) opened the hearing with a video showing footage and news coverage from the [January 6, 2021] riot.... 'They are normalizing the use of violence to achieve political goals,' Durbin said. Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) countered with a video showing footage of riots the previous summer at racial justice protests around the country. 'These anti-police riots rocked our nation for seven full months, just like the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol rocked the nation,' Grassley said." The AP's story is here.

In a Senate hearing Tuesday, Anthony Fauci was prepared for Rand Paul:

Eh bien, là, les non-vaccinés, j'ai très envie de les emmerder. (Trans., roughly: The unvaccinated, I really want to piss them off. -- Emmanuel Macron, in an interview with Le Parisien, Jan. 4

Yeah, moi aussi. -- Marie

Aamer Madhani of the AP: "The United States on Tuesday announced $308 million in additional humanitarian assistance for Afghanistan, offering new aid to the country as it edges toward a humanitarian crisis since the Taliban takeover nearly five months ago. White House national security council spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement that the new aid from the U.S. Agency for International Development will flow through independent humanitarian organizations and will be used to provide shelter, health care, winterization assistance, emergency food aid, water, sanitation and hygiene services."

California. Marie: I guess I'd better stop disparaging the LAPD. Wow! ~~~

Florida Congressional Race. Dave Weigel of the Washington Post: "Voters in South Florida will elect a new member of Congress on Tuesday, with health-care company CEO Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick heavily favored to replace Rep. Alcee L. Hastings, a fellow Democrat who died last year. After early voting concluded on Sunday, registered Democrats had cast more than 38,000 of about 50,000 total early ballots. The 20th Congressional District, which connects majority-Black parts of Palm Beach and Broward counties, went for President Biden by a 3-to-1 margin in 2020, and both major parties saw the November Democratic primary -- which Cherfilus-McCormick won by just five votes, after a recount -- as the decisive battle for the seat."

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Katie Rogers of the New York Times: "President Biden will endorse changing Senate rules to pass new voting rights protections during a speech in Atlanta on Tuesday, the most significant step he will have taken to pressure lawmakers to act on an issue he has called the biggest test of America's democracy since the Civil War.... Mr. Biden will say he supports a filibuster 'carve-out' in the case of voting rights, [an] official said." ~~~

~~~ Nick Corasaniti & Reid Epstein of the New York Times: "... President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris [will] deliver major speeches on voting rights on Tuesday in Atlanta.... But several leading voting rights and civil rights groups are pointedly skipping the speech, protesting what they denounced as months of frustrating inaction by the White House -- which they said showed that Mr. Biden did not view Republican attacks on voting rights with sufficient urgency.... [The groups] groups have lost patience with the White House for refraining to single out Senator Joe Manchin III or Senator Kyrsten Sinema for their opposition to changing the filibuster rules." ~~~

     ~~~ Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post: "While the passion fueling [the voting rights groups'] argument is understandable, their actual argument is not. They've got the wrong target, and the wrong tack.... Biden is neither an empowered king nor an autocrat.... Biden and Harris are going to Georgia to do the one thing they absolutely can do: use the bully pulpit to drum up public support and pressure those standing in the way of progress.... Advocates should focus on convincing [Sens. Joe] Manchin and [Kyrsten] Sinema that adherence to a Senate rule in the face of glaring voter suppression and potential voter subversion is a threat to democracy. More importantly, though, where are the Republicans?"

Anton Troianovski & David Sanger of the New York Times: "The United States and Russia emerged from seven hours of urgent negotiations on Monday staking out seemingly irreconcilable positions on the future of the NATO alliance and the deployment of troops and weapons in Eastern Europe, keeping tensions high amid fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei A. Ryabkov, Russia's lead negotiator, insisted after the meeting that it was 'absolutely mandatory' that Ukraine 'never, never, ever' become a NATO member. His American counterpart, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, reiterated that the United States could never make such a pledge because 'we will not allow anyone to slam closed NATO's open door policy,' and she said that the United States and its allies would not stand by if Russia sought to change international borders 'by force.'" More on Russia's threat to Ukraine linked under "Way Beyond the Beltway."

Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "Richard Clarida, the Federal Reserve's vice chair, announced Monday that he will resign, following more revelations of his stock trading at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. Clarida, whose term as the Fed's second-in-command was to expire at the end of this month, sent a letter to President Biden on Monday saying he would resign on Jan. 14. He's the third Fed official in recent months to resign over questionable trades during the pandemic, as the Fed began its tremendous intervention to support the financial system. These trades are now under review by an inspector general, as the officials were in a position to possibly benefit from insider knowledge of economic conditions. Scrutiny over Clarida's disclosures began in October after initial reports from Bloomberg News showed that he bought shares in February 2020 of an investment fund that held stocks, just before the Fed announced it was prepared to help the economy as the pandemic began to take hold...."

Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "... the miners' union and the West Virginia A.F.L.-C.I.O. came out last month with statements pleading for passage of President Biden's Build Back Better Act -- just hours after [Sen. Joe] Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, said he was a 'no.'... With the miners now officially on the opposite side of the mine owners, it signaled the escalation of a behind-the-scenes struggle centered in Mr. Manchin's home state to sway the balking senator, whose skepticism about his party's marquee domestic policy measure has emerged as a potentially fatal impediment to its enactment.... The decision of the labor groups to come out forcefully in support of Build Back Better could be significant.... But Mr. Manchin has also long been allied with the coal industry. His own family has profited from waste coal from abandoned mines, which the Manchins sell to a polluting power plant in his home state. And Mr. Manchin has received more campaign donations from the oil, coal and gas industries than any other senator in the current election cycle." ~~~

     ~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post elaborates on the miners' & mine owners' positions regarding the provisions of BBB. "...now that this fundamental conflict between mine workers and owners has been exposed, it should be harder for Manchin to sink BBB in the end, even under another pretext, without being perceived as operating in owners' interests."

Melanie Zanona & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has vowed to remove three Democratic lawmakers from key committee assignments if Republicans win back the chamber in the upcoming midterm elections. Citing a 'new standard' that Democrats had created last year by removing GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona from their committees for inflammatory rhetoric and posts, McCarthy

Michael Schmidt & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "Since the [House's January 6] committee was formed last summer, [Mike] Pence's lawyer and the panel have been talking informally about whether he would be willing to speak to investigators, people briefed on the discussions said. But as Mr. Pence began sorting through a complex calculation about his cooperation, he indicated to the committee that he was undecided, they said.... In recent weeks, Mr. Pence is said by people familiar with his thinking to have grown increasingly disillusioned with the idea of voluntary cooperation. He has told aides that the committee has taken a sharp partisan turn by openly considering the potential for criminal referrals to the Justice Department about Mr. Trump and others. Such referrals, in Mr. Pence's view, appear designed to hurt Republican chances of winning control of Congress in November."

Amber Phillips of the Washington Post reviews what the House committee might do to force Reps. Jim Jordan, Scott Perry or any other members of the House to testify or sit for interviews & supply documents. Phillips paints a bleak picture. MB: But why not just skip all the legal hoohah and strip these Trumpistas of their committee assignments & privileges they may enjoy, dump them in windowless basement offices, cut their staffs and haul them before the Ethics Committee for failure to cooperate? IOW, punish them in ways that are readily available rather than trying to slog through the courts. Oh, and don't allow Jim Jordan to enter the House floor or a committee room without wearing a suit jacket. Let's get creative, people.

Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass. Now, our ancestors sacrificed their blood, their sweat, their tears, their fortunes and sometimes their lives ... Are you willing to do the same? My answer is yes. Louder! Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America? -- Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), January 6, 2021, rallying insurrectionists ~~~

~~~ Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: Mo "Brooks has faced intense scrutiny over his fiery rhetoric that morning to a crowd that soon stormed the U.S. Capitol in a violent attack. But less public attention has been paid to Brooks's key role in the lead-up to Jan. 6. A review of his speeches, tweets and media appearances as well as affidavits and other court filings reveals his central part in mobilizing the effort to overturn Joe Biden's victory by repeatedly claiming that the election was stolen and then becoming the first member of Congress to declare he would challenge the electoral college results.... Brooks's extraordinary efforts to subvert the election were the culmination of a political transformation mirroring the GOP's larger embrace of Trump.... Now he's running for the U.S. Senate with Trump's endorsement and is still campaigning on those falsehoods."

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Donald Trump's hours of silence while a violent mob ransacked the Capitol -- egged on by his own words and tweets -- could be plausibly construed as agreement with rioters' actions, a federal judge suggested Monday. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta made the analysis as he pressed Trump's lawyers about their efforts to dismiss a series of lawsuits against the former president seeking to hold him financially liable for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection. 'What do I do about the fact the president didn't denounce the conduct immediately?' Mehta wondered.... 'Isn't that ... enough to at least plausibly infer that the president agreed with the conduct of the people that were inside the Capitol that day?'... Trump's attorney, Jesse Binnall..., [responded,] 'The president cannot be subject to judicial action for any sort of damages for failing to do something.'... The exchange was potentially the most significant in an explosive -- and lengthy -- hearing on three lawsuits filed against Trump for his actions leading up to and on Jan. 6."

Do Georgia Prisons Still have Chain Gangs? Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "Donald Trump's attorneys have met in person with Georgia prosecutors who are considering possible criminal charges against the former president for calling the state';s top election official and demanding he 'find' more votes, Rachel Maddow reported on her program Monday.... Trump's efforts concerning the Georgia vote may have violated a number of laws, including state statutes against conspiracy to commit election fraud, criminal solicitation to commit election fraud and 'intentional interference' with the performance of election duties, which are all subject to fines and imprisonment."

Stephanie Saul & Anemona Hartocollis of the New York Times: "A lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday accused 16 of the nation's leading private universities and colleges of conspiring to reduce the financial aid they award to admitted students through a price-fixing cartel. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Chicago on behalf of five former undergraduates who attended some of the universities named in the suit, takes aim at a decades-old antitrust exemption granted to these universities for financial aid decisions and claims that the colleges have overcharged an estimated 170,000 students who were eligible for financial aid over nearly two decades. The universities accused of wrongdoing are Brown, the California Institute of Technology, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Northwestern, Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, Rice, Vanderbilt and Yale."

** The Slaveholders Who Shaped the U.S. Julie Weil, et al., of the Washington Post: "From the founding of the United States until long after the Civil War, hundreds of the elected leaders writing the nation's laws were current or former slaveowners. More than 1,700 people who served in the U.S. Congress in the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries owned human beings at some point in their lives, according to a Washington Post investigation of censuses and other historical records.... Of the first 18 U.S. presidents, 12 were enslavers, including eight during their presidencies.... The country is still grappling with the legacy of their embrace of slavery. The link between race and political power in early America echoes in complicated ways, from the racial inequities that persist to this day to the polarizing fights over voting rights and the way history is taught in schools.... This database helps reveal the glaring holes in many of the stories that Americans tell about the country's history." Includes database.

Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Marie: Remember way last month when Anthony Fauci (and others) were calling for Fox "News" to fire the excreable Jesse Watters after he urged an audience to "ambush" Fauci & "go in for the kill shot"? (In context, Watters' language was supposed to refer to an ambush interview, but especially because Fauci & his family have received many death threats, no normal person would make such incendiary remarks.) Well, Fox made a powerful response Monday: ~~~

~~~ Colby Hall of Mediaite: "Jesse Watters has been named the permanent host of the 7 PM hour on Fox News." MB: Watters, who probably has been an obnoxious prick since he was a toddler, got his big media break when he became a regular on Bill O'Reilly's Fox "News" show where he specialized in -- ambush interviews.

Kasha Patel of the Washington Post: "The warmth of the world's oceans hit a record. Again. A new analysis, published Tuesday in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, showed that oceans contained the most heat energy in 2021 since measurements began six decades ago -- accelerating at a rate only possible because of human-emitted greenhouse gases. Since the late 1980s, Earth's oceans warmed at a rate eight times faster than the preceding decades."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

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.

Fenit Nirappil, et al., of the Washington Post: "The United States is poised to surpass its record for covid-19 hospitalizations as soon as Tuesday, with no end in sight to skyrocketing case loads, falling staff levels and the struggles of a medical system trying to provide care amid an unprecedented surge of the coronavirus. Monday's total of 141,385 people in U.S. hospitals with covid-19 fell just short of the record of 142,273 set on Jan. 14, 2021, during the previous peak of the pandemic in this country." The article is free to nonsubscribers.

Noah Weiland & Sarah Kliff of the New York Times: "Private insurers will soon have to cover the cost of eight at-home coronavirus tests per member per month, the Biden administration said Monday. People will be able to get the tests at their health plan's 'preferred' pharmacies and other retailers with no out-of-pocket costs, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. They can also buy the tests elsewhere and file claims for reimbursement, just as they often do for medical care." The AP's report is here.

Illinois. Mitch Smith of the New York Times: Chicago "Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a deal with the Chicago Teachers Union on Monday that would return students to classrooms on Wednesday after a dispute over coronavirus safeguards canceled a week of classes in the country's third-largest school district."

Way Beyond the Beltway

E.U. Mike Ives of the New York Times: "David Sassoli, the president of the European Parliament, died on Tuesday in Italy, his spokesman and the parliament';s office in Washington said. He was 65."

Russia/Ukraine/U.S. Ask the Weatherman! Julian Barnes, et al., of the New York Times: "The number of Russian troops at Ukraine's border has remained steady in recent weeks..., but American officials say that President Vladimir V. Putin has begun taking steps to move military helicopters into place, a possible sign that planning for an attack continues.... The hard winter freeze that typically comes to Ukraine by January has not happened in many areas of the country. As long as the ground remains muddy [making movement of troops & equipment difficult], senior administration officials said, Mr. Putin might be forced to push back a ground offensive until February at the earliest. To get a better sense of possible conditions this year, the Biden administration has enlisted meteorologists to look more closely at the likely weather in Ukraine in the coming weeks, according to a U.S. official."

Comments

[Ken Winkes]

How dare the House Committee on the Insurrection politicize an investigation into an attack on the Capitol intended to disrupt the certification of a presidential election?

Apparently that act, though planned, directed and encouraged by the Executive Branch, unlike the investigation into it, had no political intent or component whatsoever.

[Forrest Morris]

Republicans accusing Democrats of being "political."
Pardon my ignorance, but I always thought anything going on in
Congress between Republicans and Democrats would be political.
It ain't like social: let's get together and do good stuff for the
people and the country.
It's political: screw you, I got mine, now move along.

We shouldn't be too harsh with Putin. How will rich people (and
the trumps) get that $200.00 an ounce Russian caviar if we cut off
trade with Russia? I tried caviar once. Must have been from one
of our local river fish. Like salty whole tapioca.

[Ken Winkes]

What you all think of this one?

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/expel-members-of-congress-who-supported-the-january-6-insurrection?

My feeling are mixed this morning...tho' my stronger urge is to throw the bums out.

For obvious reasons our present kinda reminds me of the 1860's, a time I'd rather the nation did not revisit.

[Marie Burns]

That nitwit senator Ron Johnson helped me figure out something. I see that the right won't let go of the Covid-was-created-in-a-Chinese-lab story; there's some new wrinkle today I didn't bother to read. But then I remembered that Ron Johnson asked rhetorically, "Why do we assume that the body's natural immune system isn't the marvel that it is? Why do we think that we can create something better than God in terms of combating disease?"

So, by this line of thinking, God wouldn't let bats or other natural, God-given means unleash the virus in the first place, would she? Ergo, the virus must be the creation of some evil, mad scientists. There's a wacko explanation for everything. Peace be with you.

[Akhilleus]

Biden is giving a stem winder. It’s a good speech, but it’s not directed at the execrable members of the Party of Traitors. It’s directed at Manchin and Sinema.

And it won’t work. Simema is an idiot.

Joe Manchin is not listening. He’s sitting on his yacht listening to Tennessee Ernie Ford singing about 16 tons of No. 9 coal. And he’s singing “Joe Biden don’t ya call me, ‘cause I won’t vote, I sold my sold my soul for coat from Big Coal”.

I know he’s not talking to the traitors because he asked this:

“Do you want to be on the side of Martin Luther King or George Wallace?

John Lewis or Bull Connor?

Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”

These are not rhetorical questions to Republicans. Is there any way you could imagine Ted Cruz or Tom Cotton or Mitch McConnell or ANY FUCKING ONE OF THEM coming out for John Lewis over Bull Connor, or King over Wallace?

Nev-er.

The speech is directed somewhat to the chimerical undecideds (aka morons), and the public in general, but the only two people who really matter, who are standing in the way of saving democracy from the all out assault by the traitors, won’t give a shit.

Manchin is enjoying his role as democracy killer which will put him in solid with his donors.

That’s what matters to him.

‘Nuff said.

But good try, Joe.

[Marie Burns]

@Akhilleus: The one very useful thing Biden did -- and this is something I've been wonder about myself -- is to say that 16 sitting senators (including Mitch! [or Addison, as some prefer]) have voted in the past to renew the Voting Rights Act. But somehow that same law sucks now? What's the difference, folks? Trump? Too many people of color exercising their right to vote? Too few confederates to vote for you?

But as to your contention that Tom Cotton & Li'l Randy would rather stand with Bull Connor, etc., -- well, yeah. You ain't just whistling Dixie. But they are.