;)
January 7, 2022
Afternoon Update:
Marie: RAS raises an excellent point in today's Comments. Why weren't Republicans at least at Thursday's ceremonies honoring the police officers who saved their lives a year earlier? Where was Mitt Romney? Where was Mike Pence, for Pete's sake? Our last image of him might be of his broken, limp body hanging from the gallows in front of the Capitol if not for D.C. and Capitol police. Republicans' ingratitude is stunning.
Nick Niedzwiadek & Sarah Ferris of Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday invited President Joe Biden to deliver his first State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on March 1."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "Members of the Supreme Court's conservative majority seemed skeptical on Friday that the Biden administration has the legal power to mandate that the nation's large employers require workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or to undergo frequent testing. A federal workplace safety law, they indicated during a two-hour argument, did not provide legal authority for the sweeping emergency measure. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the states and Congress, rather than a federal agency, were better situated to address the pandemic. Justice Amy Coney Barrett said the challenged regulation appeared to reach too broadly in covering all large employers. Justices Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh suggested that the governing statute had not authorized the agency to impose the mandate clearly enough...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Liptak slyly notes that the Supremes have imposed strict Covid protocols for their workplace. But, you know, if a liberal does it, it must be wrong. ~~~
~~~ Oh, Guess What? Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "Ohio's solicitor general, Ben Flowers, participated in Supreme Court oral arguments [against] the Biden administration's vaccine mandates remotely on Friday after testing positive for Covid. He had been vaccinated and boosted against the disease [MB: which almost certainly is why he reportedly had mild symptoms].... The Supreme Court had required participants to take a PCR test Thursday, which detected the virus in Flowers, Irwin said, 'so for that reason, he is arguing remotely.' Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill also made remote arguments before the court against the mandates on Friday 'in accordance with Covid protocols,' according to a statement her office gave to Reuters, but the statement did not elaborate further."
Steve Erlanger of the New York Times: "NATO foreign ministers met virtually on Friday to prepare their responses to Russia's ongoing military buildup near Ukraine amid general skepticism about Moscow's willingness to de-escalate and negotiate in earnest. After the meeting, the NATO secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, warned that 'the risk of conflict is real' involving a further Russian invasion of Ukraine. But he asserted that the 30-member alliance was united in its desire for peaceful diplomacy. If diplomacy fails, he said, the alliance is prepared to continue supporting the integrity and independence of Ukraine both 'politically and practically' while creating 'significant consequences' that 'carry a heavy price for Russia.'... The meeting was a chance to confirm allied agreement about how to respond to varying Russian actions, and, importantly, an opportunity for Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to consult with allies and brief them about the U.S. position before U.S.-Russia bilateral talks next week in Geneva." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I get that isolating Russia as much as possible & imposing harsh economic sanctions are about all its adversaries can do here, short of some form of violence. But looming over these "solutions" -- in my mind -- is what happened when other Western powers, including the U.S., tried to bring Germany to its knees after World War I. It is possible that the Russian people will blame Putin for forcing them into bread lines; on the other hand, they're apt to show some national pride & resent the countries that sanctioned their country -- just as 20th-century Germans did. As for a better solution on dealing with Russian aggression, I don't have one.
Sad News. Dartunorro Clark of NBC News: "Cyber Ninjas, the company that led a partisan review of 2020 ballots in Arizona, is closing down following a scathing report by election officials and the threat of $50,000 a day in fines. 'Cyber Ninjas is shutting down. All employees have been let go,' Rod Thomson, the company's representative, said in a text message Thursday evening. The Florida-based company, founded in 2013, has less than a dozen employees, according to its LinkedIn page.... Maricopa County Superior Court Judge John Hannah said he would impose a $50,000 fine against Cyber Ninjas every day until it hands over documents related to the so-called audit after the Arizona Republic newspaper filed a public records request, The Associated Press reported Thursday." MB: Seems to me that even if Cyber Ninjas closes down, principals of the defunct company will have to provide the court-ordered docs or pay the daily fines.
Foiled by the Googles. Elisabetta Povoledo of the New York Times: "Ever since he broke out of Rome's Rebibbia prison 20 years ago where he was facing murder charges, Gioacchino Gammino had managed to evade capture. He fled to Spain, changed his name and cut off ties with his family, creating a new life for himself, at one point working as a chef in an Italian restaurant. But last month, Italian investigators finally tracked down Mr. Gammino, 61, in a town northwest of Madrid, thanks in part to ... Google Maps.... Investigators had used the Google tools to look up a fruit and vegetable store -- 'El Huerto de Manu' -- that they believed could have ties to the fugitive, and happened upon an image of a man standing in front of the store. The man in the image had the same size and build as Mr. Gammino...."
~~~~~~~~~~
The Washington Post's live updates of events related to the commemoration of last year's insurrection are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
** Mary Jalonick, et al., of the AP: "President Joe Biden on Thursday forcefully condemned Donald Trump's election 'big lie' that sparked the deadly breach of the Capitol by his supporters and continues to motivate deep national division. He marked the anniversary of the insurrection by declaring he will stand and fight for 'the soul of America.' Biden's criticism was blistering of the 'defeated president' who he blamed for the attack that has fundamentally changed Congress and raised global concerns about the future of American democracy. 'For the first time in our history, a president not just lost an election, he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of power as a violent mob breached the Capitol,' Biden said. 'But they failed.' His voice booming at times, filling the ornate hall with statues of the country's leaders and heroes, he said called on Americans to see Jan. 6 for what it was. 'Democracy was attacked,' Biden said at the Capitol. 'We the people endure. We the people prevailed.'" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ The text of President Biden's speech is here. The text of Vice President Harris's remarks at the Capitol is here. Both via the White House. ~~~
~~~ Tyler Pager & Annie Linskey of the Washington Post: President "Biden's remarks do not mark a permanent shift in strategy about how to handle Trump, according to the president's aides and allies. Rather, they said, Biden felt he had no choice but to directly address Trump's culpability in the Capitol insurrection last Jan. 6 and the threat he poses to democracy. 'You can't talk about what happened on January 6 without talking about the former president's role in it,' Mike Donilon, a White House senior adviser, said in an interview. 'There's no way to be truthful about what happened there without doing that.' Biden and his team also calculated that his speech at Thursday's remembrance event would draw maximum media attention." ~~~
~~~ Jeff Zeleny, et al., of CNN: "It was only a little more than a month ago when President Joe Biden, asked about another head-shaking revelation regarding his predecessor, seemed to balk at a mere mention of the man. 'I don't think about the former President,' he claimed, pausing for dramatic effect before walking offstage at the White House. But on Thursday, it was evident Biden has actually been thinking quite a lot about Donald Trump.... Biden ... helped write some of the lines [in Thursday's speech] himself.... The speech harkened back to themes from Biden's campaign, when he repeatedly pledged to 'restore the soul of the nation.' It was, he said again and again, the central reason for jumping back into the political arena on a mission to defeat Trump."
~~~ Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "The extraordinary moment, in which a sitting president accused his predecessor of holding 'a dagger at the throat of America, at American democracy,' marked a sharp pivot in Mr. Biden's strategy for dealing with Mr. Trump and his continuing promotion of the baseless assertion that the 2020 election was marred by fraud." ~~~
~~~ Marie: On Thursday, Republicans like Lindsey Graham complained about Biden's "brazen politicization" of the insurrection. Really? There was a time, not so very long ago, when every national politician -- no matter his party or political philosophy -- would have spoken out against sedition and insurrection. Politicians may not have given many speeches against attempts to overthrow the government, but that is because such speeches were unnecessary. They did give flowery, "patriotic" speeches, of course, about Constitutional principles and democratic "values." None would have considered the premise of Biden's speech -- that a violent attack on the Capitol was "a dagger at the throat of ... American democracy" -- to be even vaguely controversial. In a country that is not united by race or religion or social and economic experience, the uniting element is a shared adherence to Western democratic principles and norms. Or it was.
~~~ ** Peter Baker of the New York Times: "The president's address began a commemoration that ... only underscored just how riven the country remains a year after rioters armed with hockey sticks, baseball bats, crutches, flagpoles, fire extinguishers, bear spray and stolen police batons broke into the Capitol to disrupt the counting of the Electoral College votes ratifying Mr. Trump's defeat. Democrats ... marked the anniversary with a day of events, including speeches, personal testimony, a panel of historians, videos, moments of silence and a candlelight vigil, while Republicans by and large stayed away and refused to participate. No Republican senators showed up on the floor for a session of remarks recalling that day. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of Mr. Trump's most vocal critics, was the only elected member of her party to join a moment of silence in the House chamber, bringing along her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney."
Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "By shunning Thursday's commemoration of the Jan. 6 attack, Republican leaders, as usual, left a vacuum that let the wing nuts speak for the party. Trumpian Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) announced that they would give 'a Republican response,' on the Jan. 6 anniversary, and in the absence of any other Republican response, theirs became the Republican response.... And so, in a meeting room in the Cannon House Office Building, two flights up from where Democratic lawmakers were at the same time recalling their personal horrors from Jan. 6, the duo spent 37 minutes telling reporters that Jan. 6 was a 'fed-surrection,' a plot perpetrated by the FBI.... In his address Thursday from the Capitol, President Biden asked: 'Are we going to be a nation that lives not by the light of the truth, but in the shadow of lies? We cannot allow ourselves to be that kind of nation.' But the Republicans' ongoing attempt to disappear Jan. 6 shows that we already are."
Jake Johnson of Common Dreams: "... lofty rhetoric and symbolic commemorations of the deadly Capitol assault won't change the fact that congressional Democrats are running out of time to thwart the GOP's sweeping attacks on the franchise ahead of the crucial 2022 midterms, in which Republicans are well-positioned to gerrymander their way back to control of the House of Representatives.... 'This anniversary calls not only for commemoration, but also for action -- urgently,' Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement Thursday. "If Congress fails to pass legislation to secure the right to vote and protect Americans' democratic freedoms, we invite these attacks to continue.'"
Ellie Silverman, et al., of the Washington Post: Harper "White, a 25-year-old legislative assistant and correspondent for Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.), spoke to a crowd of hundreds on Thursday outside the Capitol on the anniversary of a violent mob's entry into the building. [Other speakers included House Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) & Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)]... Less than three miles away [outside the back entrance to the D.C. jail], a much smaller crowd -- including the mother of Ashli Babbitt, the pro-Trump rioter who was killed when she stormed the Capitol last January -- gathered outside the D.C. jail to support people who were charged in the insurrection and are being held there. These rival events reflect the fact that a year after the Capitol riot, much of the country remains divided on what happened."
Annals of "Journalism," Ctd. Michael Grynbaum of the New York Times: "Many conservative media outlets covered Thursday's anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot by lobbing criticism at Mr. Biden for his morning speech.... One chief narrative on conservative platforms was the notion that Democrats and mainstream journalists had overblown the attack on the Capitol and were overly fixated on Thursday's commemoration of Jan. 6, which marked the first interruption of the peaceful transfer of power in American history.... Still, there were long stretches where Fox News entirely set aside the subject of the Capitol attack." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Both CNN & MSNBC devoted most of their coverage Thursday to the insurrection & related stories. During a commercial break, I found Fox "News" on the dial: a host & a guest were discussing how George Soros controlled American district attorneys.
Betsy Swan, et al., of Politico: "Then-Vice President-elect Kamala Harris was inside Democratic National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021, when a pipe bomb was discovered outside the building, according to four people familiar with her movements that day. Capitol Police began investigating the pipe bomb at 1:07 p.m., according to an official Capitol Police timeline of events obtained by Politico. The timeline says that Capitol Police and the Secret Service evacuated an unnamed 'protectee' at approximately 1:14 p.m, seven minutes later. The four people, among them a White House official and a former law enforcement official, confirmed that Harris was the Secret Service protectee identified in the timeline.... Harris' presence inside the building while a bomb was right outside raises sobering questions about her security that day. It also raises the chilling prospect that the riots could have been far more destructive than they already were, with the incoming vice president's life directly endangered." The Washington Post's story is here.
Mark Moore of the New York Post:"Former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Thursday that ... Donald Trump 'gleefully' watched television coverage of the Capitol riot in a private dining room at the White House and praised how his supporters were 'fighting' for him.... 'All I know about that day was, he was in the dining room gleefully watching on his TV as he often did, [saying] "Look at all of the people fighting for me," hitting rewind, watching it again,' Grisham said.&" MB: According to an on-air report I heard, Grisham was not at the White House on Jan. 6 but learned about Trump's reactions from other staff who observed him. ~~~
~~~ Jim Acosta of CNN: "A former Trump White House official said ... Donald Trump initially refused to tweet the words 'stay peaceful' as the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, was escalating.... Trump tweeted at 2:38 p.m. ET that day: 'Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!' The tweet came 20 minutes after Trump supporters were smashing through windows and evacuations of lawmakers had begun. The former official ... said Trump did not want to include the words 'stay peaceful' and was 'very reluctant to put out anything when it was unfolding.' Trump was 'letting it play out,' the official said of the violence at the Capitol. Top Trump aides -- including the then-President's daughter, Ivanka, and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows -- were pleading with Trump to call off the mob, the ex-aide said. Those officials eventually convinced Trump to include the 'stay peaceful' message in the tweet about the Capitol Police, the former aide added."
About Mo. Brad Reed of the Raw Story: "In an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, former [Kevin] McCarthy staffer Ryan O'Toole recalled sheltering with lawmakers who were hiding in fear after a mob of Trump supporters breached the Capitol.... [However,] 'You had some members express a different view,' he said. 'One member, Mo Brooks for example, was glad. He was cheering on the fact that the 117th congress had started this way. That was much to the dismay of others in the room.'" MB: I suppose the reason Mo thought the attack was a laugh riot was that he (1) had foreknowledge of the insurrection, so (2) was probably still wearing body armor.
Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: After Ted Cruz rightly called the Capitol insurrection a "terrorist attack" on Wednesday -- and not for the first time -- Fox "News" host & VIP Tucker Carlson criticized Cruz. So Ted asked to appear on Tucker's Thursday night show, whereupon TuKKK "began the interview by calling Cruz a liar -- repeatedly -- and Cruz didn't even directly dispute the premise." Cruz's groveling at Tucker's feet continued from there.
Mean Judge Nixes Insurrectionist's Jamaican Vacay. Jonathan Edwards of the Washington Post: Anthony "Williams, a Michigan man accused of storming the U.S. Capitol a year ago in what he allegedly called the 'proudest day of my life,' can't travel outside the country without a federal judge's approval. So on Thursday, the anniversary of the Capitol riot, he filed a motion to [vacation with his girlfriend in Jamaica]. Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell denied his request within hours.... Williams is indicted on five charges, including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, and has pleaded not guilty."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Friday are here.
Jacob Bogage & Dan Diamond of the Washington Post: "The White House is finalizing details with the U.S. Postal Service to deliver 500 million coronavirus test kits to households across the country, according to four people familiar with the plans, kick-starting a key part of President Biden's response to the raging omicron variant. The administration will launch a website allowing individuals to request the rapid tests.... Officials aim to begin shipping the kits by mid-January."
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Friday on the legality of two initiatives at the heart of the Biden administration's efforts to address the coronavirus in the workplace. The challengers -- states led by Republican officials, businesses, religious groups and others -- say Congress has not authorized the measures, adding that they are unnecessary and in some ways counterproductive. The administration says that workplace safety and health care laws have given it ample authority to take bold action in the face of a lethal pandemic."
New Jersey. Tracey Tully of the New York Times: "One in every three residents of [an Edison,] New Jersey, nursing home for frail military veterans died as the [corona]virus raced unchecked through the state-run facility.... [One-hundred-one] residents who died in the first eight months of the pandemic.... A state-run veterans home in Paramus ... had an equally devastating death toll: 89. Now, in a sober acknowledgment of failings, New Jersey has agreed to pay $53 million to families of 119 veterans who lived in the two facilities. The families had been preparing to file lawsuits that accused the state of gross negligence. The average payout is expected to be roughly $445,000 as part of an out-of-court settlement that is believed to be the first of its kind nationwide.... Similar lawsuits are pending across the country against private and public nursing homes."
Beyond the Beltway
Oregon Gubernatorial Race. Mike Baker of the New York Times: "Nicholas Kristof, a former New York Times columnist seeking to become the next governor of Oregon, does not qualify to run for the office this year because he failed to meet the state's three-year residency requirement, state officials announced on Thursday. Secretary of State Shemia Fagan said the decision came after the agency reviewed the voting and taxpaying history of Mr. Kristof, including his registration as an Oregon voter in December 2020 after having been previously registered in New York.... Mr. Kristof said that he planned to challenge the decision in court and that he was confident he would prevail." Politico's report is here.
Virginia. Lisa Friedman of the New York Times: "A rare confirmation battle is brewing around the nomination of Andrew Wheeler, who ran the Environmental Protection Agency under ... Donald J. Trump, to take a similar role in an incoming Republican state administration in Virginia. Democratic leaders said they would try to block Mr. Wheeler from taking charge of conservation programs, environmental cleanups and climate change initiatives like the ones he opposed as E.P.A. administrator. Resistance to Mr. Wheeler began building just moments after his nomination to be natural resources secretary was announced on Wednesday by Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who will be sworn in on Jan. 15."
Way Beyond
Kazakhstan. Ivan Nechepurenko, et al., of the New York Times: "The authoritarian leader of Kazakhstan said Friday that he had authorized the nation's security forces to 'fire without warning' as the government moved to bring an end to two days of chaos and violence after peaceful protests descended into scenes of anarchy. 'We hear calls from abroad for the parties to negotiate to find a peaceful solution to the problems,' President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said in an address to the nation. 'This is just nonsense. What negotiations can there be with criminals and murderers,' he said. 'They need to be destroyed and this will be done.' The government said that order had been 'mainly restored' across the country as Russian troops joined with the country's security forces to quell widespread unrest." ~~~
~~~ Andrew Higgins of the New York Times: "... if the turmoil in Kazakhstan has once again exposed the vulnerability of the strongman leaders the Kremlin has trusted to keep order, it has also presented Russia with yet another opportunity to reassert its influence in its former Soviet domain, one of Mr. Putin's most cherished long-term goals. The arrival in Kazakhstan of 2,500 troops from a Russian-led military alliance amid continuing spasms of violent protest was the fourth time in just two years that Moscow has flexed its muscle in neighboring states -- Belarus, Armenia and Ukraine being the other three -- that the West has long tried to woo.... And once Russian troops arrive, they seldom, if ever, go home."
News Ledes
When you walk through the door of opportunity, you have one responsibility, and that is to make sure you leave the door open. -- Sidney Poitier, to a friend, Franklyn Wilson, a former Bahamanian cabinet minister ~~~
~~~ CNN: "Sidney Poitier, whose elegant bearing and principled onscreen characters made him Hollywood's first Black movie star and the first Black man to win the best actor Oscar, has died. He was 94." Update: Poitier's New York Times obituary is here. ~~~
~~~ New York Times: "President Biden, Former President Barack Obama, Harry Belafonte, Denzel Washington, Oprah Winfrey and others paid tribute to Mr. Poitier. Flags in the Bahamas, where he grew up, were lowered to half-staff." This is a live-blog, with some interesting items.
CNBC: "The U.S. economy added far fewer jobs than expected in December just as the nation was grappling with a massive surge in Covid cases, the Labor Department said Friday. Nonfarm payrolls grew by 199,000, while the unemployment rate fell to 3.9%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. That compared to the Dow Jones estimate of 422,000 for the payrolls number and 4.1% for the unemployment rate."
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Reader Comments (13)
So support for the sedition caucus resumed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/us/politics/congress-corporate-donations-2020-election-overturn.html
What's the surprise? Despite the happy talk toward the end of the article, today's capitalism is no friend of democracy. Why would it be when its success is defined only by the bottom line.
Fascism has been described as business interests working hand in glove with an autocratic government, and in many ways the country is already there.
That capitalism undergirds individual liberty has long been a myth.
@Ken Winkes: My, haven't you become radical! The question of what-all "undergirds individual liberty" is an interesting one. I would say that so far in economic history, nations with the greatest success in permitting & facilitating individual liberties are those that operate under a form of regulated capitalism. (And, yes, there may be exceptions, especially in small nations.) It isn't that the style of the economic structure is so important, but rather that personal liberty is more likely to be of high value in a healthy economy, especially one that can afford to educate its people. In a weak or struggling economy, simple survival takes priority over civil rights and other enlightened social goals.
There does seem to be a balancing point between raw capitalism and regulation, and that balancing "point" may be fairly broad and likely differs from nation to nation. The U.S. was at the right place in the 1960s & '70s, and that allowed us to make our greatest moves toward "liberty for all." Since then, we've moved the needle in the direction of raw capitalism, an imbalance that has proved disastrous. The more oligarchical or kleptocratic system under which the U.S. runs today is surely a major factor in the social unrest Republicans have exploited, usually by making up fake white grievances against the likes of "Sharia law" and "critical race theory."
@Marie
I did take a late night short cut through the tangle of how economic arrangements affect our individual freedoms.
Did say "today's" capitalism to distinguish where we are from where we were back in the day but realize that didn't cover the extent of the tangle.
Agree almost wholly with what you said but will offer one morning caveat. We have never managed successfully to regulate the acquisitive impulse at the heart of capitalism which when it succeeds in concentrating wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands limits the liberties of the majority.
The monopolists with their stranglehold on commerce (and to greater and lesser degrees our government) have always been with us. Wall Street has earned its bad name over centuries and we're all familiar with Norris' "The Octopus" and Sinclair's "Jungle," both of which go back quite a ways.
And while GMC.following WWII was not exactly a monopoly, it did exert tremendous power and it used some of that power to perpetuate the myth (yes, myth) that it was in business to share with everyone the immense bounty it created for itself.
I was thinking just yesterday of GM's "Parade of Progress" display which I saw at the Seattle World's Fair in 1962. It was designed to put a shiny face on consumerism's great promise for all, but this skeptic's memory has long linked that presentation to the frequently misquoted but still disturbing line about what is good for General Motors being for the country and Eisenhower's warning about the growth of the M-I complex.
So, yes, regulation. Unleashing selfishness, our worst and most. destructive impulse, and allowing it to reach super-sized proportions is the economic equivalent of creating a nuclear reactor without control rods and thinking we can prosper next door to it.
Radically yours,
Ken
Upon awakening this morning viewed the first snow laded land this season. I have always loved the feeling of being safe and sound inside––like a warm blanket protecting one from the cold, icy, outside. It almost seems metaphorical since just the day before we once again lived through the outrage of the insurrection. The snow will melt and the sense of safety will subside and we will have to face the fact that our country is on the brink.
I found the absence of Republicans joining the Democrats yesterday in their vigil, shocking!-- the Cheney's being the exception. Perhaps I missed it, but I have yet to hear their reasoning––again the exception being Matt and Marjorie doing their thing. And I'm wondering–– if one of those thugs had actually killed a Republican that day––would it have changed the whole scenario?
Dear radical Ken: Susan Sontag once said she despised capitalism but compared to others it was the best of the bunch.
For a change of pace: If you were a fan of Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show" ( one of the best films depicting the demise of small towns) and "Paper Moon"–– with a superb cast––-then read his obit, it's filled with goodies and shows how a promising director can fall flat on his face but rise again quietly and in the end stick it to the one who stuck it to him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/movies/peter-bogdanovich-dead.html
Breaking news: Sidney Poitier dies at 94. This beautiful, talented man lived a long life and that life will be celebrated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/movies/sidney-poitier-dead.html
P.D.,
Interesting. Hadn't heard that one.
So capitalism is the economic equivalent of what Churchill (and others) have said about government: “Democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”
I'll buy both, and am not surprised that when I'm buying one, I'm signing up for a twofer.
I agree that not even the so called moderate Republicans bothered to show up to pay their respects to all the people who saved their lives is disgraceful. I was reminded yesterday of the video of Romney being yanked to safety while he was casually walking down the hall as the cultists were just beginning their hunt in the Capitol.
No R's could be at the capital 1/6 activities yesterday because they all had to take a day of mourning for ex-Sen Johnny Isakson (R-GA). Isakson was a "moderate" whose funereal activities would have been low-attended or boycotted by R congresspersons in normal times, but yesterday gave them a good excuse not to go to work.
A little traveling music ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SA5MuZCbWJY
Another shocker from now you see me, now you don't cyber-ninjas...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/cyber-ninjas-the-firm-hired-to-conduct-an-election-review-in-arizona-ordered-to-pay-50000-a-day-in-sanctions/2022/01/07/d6e8dfcc-6fb8-11ec-a5d2-7712163262f0_story.html
Scammers scam. They're all pretenders, aren't they?
@Patrick: Rachel Maddow said last night that 30 Republican U.S. senators attended Isakson's funeral, which means 20 did not. Isakson died on December 19; i. e., close to three weeks before the funeral. I have a feeling the Isakson family could have found another date to bury Johnny's remains. Whaddaya bet Mitch McConnell asked that the funeral be held January 6?
Given our sordid, mostly futile history of interventionalism, perhaps the best solution to Russian relations with The Ukraine might be to back off and mind our own business: Might their so-called aggression be attributed to the well-documented, aggressive expansion of NATO into Eastern Europe and the Near East, along with offensive weaponry, in spite of prior agreements not to do so. Best analogy is the Cuban missile kerfuffle, although there may not be nukes Turkey or Slovakia or Latvia. But who knows? And, The Ukraine has been in and out of Imperial Russia for centuries, and later the USSR. How 'bout letting them work it out?
Marie: Those 20 solons who did not show in the Peach State were most certainly dedicating their Thoughts and Prayers to good ol' Johnny yesterday, and it would have been a travesty, a scandal and a shanda fur da goyim (whoops, wrong culture, sorry!) for them to have worked on such a sad sad day. So of course they could not be there, or even phone it in.
Maybe Addison M. McConnell was involved, but I think that by now these R's are like flocks of starlings, or schools of mullet, they all move as one without a command discernible by humans. (They may hear the commands; they are not humans?)