;)
July 17, 2022
Afternoon Update:
David Goodman & Edgar Sandoval of the New York Times: "The first comprehensive assessment of the law enforcement response to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, found that officers from local, state and federal agencies collectively failed to take swift action, a broad indictment of police action at Robb Elementary School. The 77-page report, released Sunday by a special Texas House committee, spread responsibility for 'systemic failures' broadly among the scores of officers who responded and those who waited outside a pair of connected classrooms where the gunman killed 19 children and two teachers. The decision to finally confront the gunman was made by a small group of officers, including specially trained Border Patrol agents and a deputy sheriff from a neighboring county, the report found, concluding that the order could have been issued far earlier by other officers at the scene.... But a flawless police response would not have saved most of the victims, the report found.... The report did serve to clarify and solidify what had been a frequently shifting official account of events at the school.... The report found the 'egregious poor decision making' went beyond [Uvalde Schools police chief Pete] Arredondo and included the dozens of well-armed officers from [state police director Steven] McCraw's own agency, the Department of Public Safety, as well as the scores from the U.S. Border Patrol." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post report, which is here, presents a slightly difference picture of the report's findings. The Texas Tribune's report is here. It includes this link to a pdf of the report.~~~
~~~ Marie: There are a few arguments that should also die in this Great American Tragedy (that's what it is: a self-inflicted disaster): (1) that "what stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun." Here you had nearly 400 hundred well-armed, well-trained officers who dared not or did confront a gunman who had killed children and teachers with an assault rifle. (2) that arming schoolteachers will protect children from gun violence. If hundreds of offiicers couldn't do it, how do you expect a single, relatively inexperienced schoolteacher to save the children? (3) hat Americans should own assault weapons (perhaps for shooting prairie dogs). Had those officers been confronting "a bad guy with a six-shooter," it stands to reason they would not have waited more than an hour to do so.
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump did 'nothing' to stop the riot at the Capitol as it was unfolding on Jan. 6, 2021, and new witnesses will fill in the gaps in Trump's activities that day when the House select committee investigating the attack holds its next hearing, members of the bipartisan panel said Sunday. Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who is scheduled to lead the prime-time hearing on Thursday, said the session 'is going to open people's eyes in a big way' as they examine Trump's actions in detail over the hours the Capitol was overrun by a mob seeking to stop the certification of Joe Biden's electoral college win. 'We have filled in the blanks,' Kinzinger said on CBS's Face the Nation on Sunday. Trump 'didn't do very much but gleefully watch television during this time frame.'" ~~~
~~~ Julia Mueller of the Hill: "Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) on Sunday said he saw little value in attempting to have Donald Trump testify before the committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol because he did not trust the former president would tell the truth, even under oath. 'Donald Trump has made it clear that he doesn't mind not telling the truth. Let's just put that mildly. He lies all the time. I wouldn't put it past him to even lie under oath, so I'm not sure what the value is there,' Kinzinger said Sunday on CBS 'Face the Nation.'"
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Phil Mattingly, et al., of CNN: "Saudi Arabia's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, hit back at Joe Biden after the US President confronted him about the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a meeting between the two leaders on Friday.... In response to Biden bringing up Khashoggi, MBS cited the sexual and physical abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison by US military personnel and the May killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the occupied West Bank as incidents that reflected poorly on the US, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, the Saudi foreign minister, told reporters on Saturday." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Yeah, okay. George W. Bush was president when the Abu Ghraib abuses took place, and Joe Biden has no control over what individual Israeli soldiers do. IOW, Biden had nothing to do with either atrocity. By contrast, MBS ordered Khashoggi's assassination, according to the CIA. MBS is not very good at whataboutism.
Marie: To listen to some of the pundits on the teevee, you would think they either know nothing about reality or at least have forgot about this guy: ~~~
~~~ I don't know whether or not it was wise for Biden to go to Saudi Arabia. Probably only time will tell. But I do sense that he did so not because he wanted to dance & stroke a glowing orb but because he thought it was necessary to promote U.S. & international interests.
Hugo Lowell of the Guardian: "The Secret Service's account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday. At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements. The inspector general also said that though the secret service opted to have his office do a review of the agency's response to the Capitol attack in lieu of conducting after-action reports, it then stonewalled the review by slow-walking production of materials.... The Secret Service ... [said] in a statement that data on some phones were lost as part of a pre-planned 'system migration' in January 2021, and that [the IG's] initial request for communications came weeks later in late February 2021. Bu the select committee questioned the Secret Service's emphasis on that date..., and noted in [their letter accompanying a] subpoena' of the Secret Service] ... that the request for electronic communications in fact first came from Congress, ten days after the Capitol attack." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I have heard a few teevee commentators claim that the erasures could be innocent, the result of the Secret Service's being so balkanized that one department doesn't know what the other is doing. That seems like a ridiculous excuse. Even the lowest-level, out-of-it IT person (1) must have been aware of the insurrection AND (2) must have been schooled in the Preservation of Records Act. If these text messages were not preserved, heads must roll, and I'm not talking about the heads of a few low-level techies. The Secret Service reports to the DHS. which is headed by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. If Mayorkas doesn't get on top of this immediately, President Biden should ask for his resignation.
Rebecca Beitsch & Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Department of Justice (DOJ) is facing pressure as the House Jan. 6 select committee's presentation of damning evidence involving the Trump White House has raised questions about whether federal prosecutors have kept pace with the lawmakers' inquiry and how long the former president can escape being directly investigated.... And many observers say they remain concerned the Justice Department seems to be dancing around directly investigating Trump. [For instance,] Ryan Goodman ... [of] the New York University School of Law ... [asked,] 'How can you criminally investigate Jeff Clark, and the alternate slate of electors and avoid where it lands, where it ends up, which is with Donald Trump. But by that time, if they haven't really opened up an investigation on him as the target, we&'re now already 18 months following these events. It's really a dereliction of their responsibilities to do a fulsome and rigorous investigation....'" The reporters cite other legal experts. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Not very important, but I do wish people who spoke in public knew the meaning of the word "fulsome." It does not mean "exhaustive" or "in-depth," as it is frequently used (and as I assume Goodman means it here). Rather, fulsome means "complimentary or flattering to an excessive degree." What we don't need is an excessively complimentary or flattering investigation of Donald Trump. We'll leave that to Trump & the Trumpbots.
Maggie Haberman & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Around 5 in the afternoon on Christmas Day in 2020..., President Donald J. Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago home ... on the phone with a little-known conservative lawyer who was encouraging his attempts to overturn the election, according to a memo the lawyer later wrote documenting the call. The lawyer, William J. Olson, was promoting several extreme ideas to the president. Mr. Olson later conceded that part of his plan could be regarded as tantamount to declaring 'martial law.'... The plan included tampering with the Justice Department and firing the acting attorney general, Jeffrey A. Rosen, according to the Dec. 28 memo by Mr. Olson.... The document highlights the previously unreported role of Mr. Olson in advising Mr. Trump as the president was increasingly turning to extreme, far-right figures outside the White House to pursue options that many of his official advisers had told him were impossible or unlawful...." Includes a copy of Olson's memo. Olsen now represents the MyPillow Guy. And he's just as wacky. Read on. ~~~
~~~ Marie: A couple of stories I linked to last week made clear that in the weeks before the 2020 election, Trump realized he might lose. It was then (or earlier!) he began to conjure up plans to fight a Biden win by any means. These subsequent phone calls & meetings he had with the wackadoodles were strategy sessions to figure out the various ways he would carry out the ambitions he had had all along. So whether it was Bannon or Flynn the MyPillow Guy or the Overstock Guy who was feeding him ideas, Trump was the No. 1 perp.
Devlin Barrett & Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post: "Jury selection in the case [against Steve Bannon, for contempt of Congress,] is due to begin Monday, and the trial is likely to be brief -- prosecutors say their case will take a day, and given the judge's limitations on which witnesses Bannon can call and what issues he can raise, it's unclear how long Bannon's own case may take, or if he will testify."
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. Attorney, in an MSNBC column, makes the case for charging Donald Trump with manslaughter: "Five people died in the Jan. 6 attack.... The loss of life was predictable in light of the size of the mob, their emotional state and their use of force. We recently learned from Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony another key fact -- ... Donald Trump knew that the crowd was armed, adding to the risk that someone would be killed. According to Hutchinson..., White House counsel Pat Cipollone ... urged White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to persuade Trump to take action to stop it. According to Hutchinson, Cipollone told Meadows: 'Something needs to be done or people are going to die and the blood's going to be on your f---ing hands....' Under federal law, involuntary manslaughter occurs when a person commits an act on federal property without due care that it might produce death.... Unlike most members of the public who have no duty to take action to prevent a crime, a president has a constitutional duty to 'take care that the laws be faithfully executed.'" Read on. McQuade outlines the elements prosecutors would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, and how Trump's state-of-mind, actions & inaction meet those requirements.
Joe Manchin, infamous double-crossing, money-grubbing publicity whore, has been getting a lot of press these last few days. All of it is bad: ~~~
~~~ Leah Stokes, in a New York Times op-ed: "... Mr. Manchin has wasted what little time this Congress had left to make real progress on the climate crisis.... By stringing his colleagues along, Mr. Manchin ... also delayed crucial regulations that would cut carbon pollution. Wary of upsetting the delicate negotiations, the Biden administration has held back on using the full force of its executive authority on climate.... While he claimed on a West Virginia talk show on Friday that it wasn't over, that 'we've had good conversations, we've had good negotiations,' this is doublespeak; he simply doesn't want to be held accountable for his actions. He has consistently said one thing and done another.... Over the past year, Mr. Manchin has taken more money from the oil and gas industry than any other member of Congress -- including every Republican -- according to federal filings.... He also personally profited from coal, making roughly $5 million between 2010 and 2020 -- about three times his Senate salary.... Many of the people and places we hold dear will face the consequences of his moral corruption."
Michael Scherer & Rachel Roubein of the Washington Post: "The Republican Party has a long history of resisting abortion bans without exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. Every Republican candidate for president since Roe was decided in 1973, including former president Donald Trump, has supported the exceptions.... But Republicans have grown more willing to talk about rape in the context of abortion since the high court's June 24 ruling overturning Roe.... Abortion restrictions have gone into effect in roughly a dozen states since the court ruling, all of which include an exception for life of the mother. Most do not include an exception for rape or incest, with the exception of South Carolina -- which includes exemptions for both - and Mississippi's trigger law that has an exception for rape, according to The Guttmacher Institute.... Rape and incest exceptions are often debated on the floor of state legislatures before lawmakers vote on a bill. But they often don't make it into the laws, according to Elizabeth Nash, a principal policy associate at Guttmacher."
Dana Goldstein & Ava Sasani of the New York Times: "... the ordeal of the child rape victim in Ohio who had to cross state lines for an abortion, and the ugly political fight that followed, have highlighted two uncomfortable facts: Such pregnancies are not as rare as people think, and new abortion bans are likely to have a pronounced impact on the youngest pregnant girls. New bans in nearly a dozen states do not make exceptions for rape or incest, leaving young adolescents -- already among the most restricted in their abortion options -- with less access to the procedure. Even in states with exemptions for rape and incest, requirements involving police reports and parental consent can be prohibitive for children and teenagers.... State and federal data suggest there are still thousands of [young girls getting pregnant] each year."
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "... Ireland and the United States have traded places. Ireland leaped into modernity, rejecting religious reactionaries' insistence on controlling women's bodies. America lurched backward, ruled by religious reactionaries' insistence on controlling women's bodies."
Presidential Election 2024. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post: "... here's our latest list of the 10 most likely 2024 Democratic nominees. As usual, this list factors in both likelihood to run as well as likelihood to win if they did run." For those of you who don't have a WashPo subscription, here are the potential candidates, in ascending order: "Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Roy Cooper, Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsom, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg & Joe Biden. Now, stop and think about how strong & presidenty each of these candidates would appear standing next to, say, Ron DeSantis, in the eyes of an "independent" Pennsylvania voter.
Way Beyond the Beltway
Ukraine, et al. The New York Times' live updates of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Sunday are here: "Russia appears set to resume its ground offensive -- after what analysts called a pause to regroup troops before doubling down on Ukraine's south and east.... A Ukrainian cargo plane carrying mines crashed in northern Greece, killing all eight Ukrainian crew. Amid speculation that the shipment might be bound for Ukraine, Serbia's defense minister said the mines were being sent to Bangladesh.... A U.S. Air Force veteran living in Ukraine has been detained by pro-Russian separatists, his brother said, becoming at least the third American to be captured in Ukraine since the start of the war."
News Lede
New York Times: "Three people were killed at a mall in Greenwood, Ind., in a mass shooting that ended when another armed individual fatally shot the gunman, city authorities said. Two additional people were hospitalized in the shooting, which began when a man with a rifle and several magazines of ammunition entered the food court and started firing, Chief Jim Ison of the Greenwood Police Department said. The authorities did not indicate a motive for the shooting and did not identify the gunman. Mayor Mark Myers said late Sunday that the public faced no further threat and that the Greenwood Police Department was in control of the scene."
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Reader Comments (9)
Maureen Dowd's piece on Ireland's changes is as astonishing as it is welcome although she only cites a limited version, the abortion change is monumental. O'Toole's book that I've mentioned before "We Don't Know Ourselves: A Personal history of Modern Ireland" digs deeply into its history. Hypocrisy shrivels when it is named in sunlight, the old saying goes, and one of those shriveling took place in the nineteen-nineties. In 1992, Eamonn Casey, the popular Bishop of Galway, fled Ireland for New York. His American lover, Annie Murphy, had told the Irish Times, about her long affair with Casey and about their son, Peter. born in 1974, who was being financially supported by the Bishop who took the money from the Galway diocese without their knowledge. The kicker was that Casey had urged Annie to give up the child saying that in God's eyes, this child had been born in sin. O'Toole tells us that with this story a code of silence had been broken forever. And then of course came all the political changes. In the end what really changed was that ordinary Catholics realized that when it came to "lived morality" they were way ahead of their teachers, and certainly, one could say, way ahead of that God Himself who was, and will always be, that figment of so many imaginings.
The stories of the fallout of destroying Roe are so heartbreaking and disturbing. And we will only hear more of them as doctors become too scared to uphold their oaths to do no harm. Too scared to even whisper the word abortion. Even when these anti-abortion activists don't end up killing the women, the mental scars they are inflicting on people across this nation cruel and horrific. They are also inflicting unnecessary pain and suffering on lives they pretend to be worrying about. Monsters.
I want blue states to pass a law that says that anyone who opposes abortion has to wear a stupid hat any time they are out in public. Failure to do so will mean they can be sued for $10k by anyone who can prove it in court. Since they are fine with people being told what they can do with their own bodies they should have no problems with following the law or facing the consequences. Though we already know that that little bit of inconvience would too much for them and an affront to their personal sovereignty.
@RAS: Every time I read or hear another story about young women's difficulties in getting abortions or the hoops doctors have to jump through to try to provide abortion services, I think of that smug bastard Sam Alito sneering at his victims with pious comtempt. And I get madder & madder.
@RAS: The hat trick could work, though I'm certain the state would have to pay for the stupid hats because forcing someone to buy a hate in order to express an opinion would curb his free speech rights. BUT being forced to wear a hat when expressing his anti-abortion opinions or after have expressed such opinions does not curb his free speech.
On the other hand, the first guy who got beat up or otherwise penalized for wearing the stupid hat might win an anti-discrimination suit, and I can see where the Supremes themselves would develop a sudden interest in HIS Constitutional right to privacy. Of course if that guy has a Constitutional right to privacy, don't we all? The Supremes might have to reverse their reversal of Roe, after all.
BTW, readers should not take too seriously my wishes to punish the righteous Unpunished in some absurd way. So do I really think anti-abortionists should be required to wear stupid hats to express their views? Well, no. Do I really think Donald Trump, the great lover of conspiracy theories, should be the subject of one himself? Mostly no. But when these people do so much harm to so many, it is diverting to to think of them paying some price for their bad acts.
I understand, it's cathartic to imagine these awful people receiving back a little bit of what they put out into the world. I know that the plunger hats (though symbolism of them being pieces of shit that clog the pipes of society was nice) won't happen. The Left has too many sane adults in the room to resort to such juvenile retaliation on their fellow citizens. Though I would be willing to throw in a few bucks to help purchase some hats if they decided that they wanted to stoop down to their level.
But ... you could start a religion, the prime article of faith of which is that women have the right to do as they think best. Throw that up against Alito's First Amendment wall and see what sticks.
(NB: US jurisprudence as of now says that courts are not capable of and should not interrogate the basis of articles of faith. Except of course native Americans can't do peyote, because ... just because.)
…because Nino sed so.