;)
Sunday
Jun042023
June 4, 2023
Afternoon Update:
Julia Shapero of the Hill: "Several Republican presidential hopefuls slammed former President Trump for his comments praising North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday, after the country received a seat on the World Health Organization's (WHO) executive board. Former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley
Michael Sainato of the Guardian & Agencies: "A rights group has said 16 migrants had been 'lied to' and deceived after being transported from Texas to California and dropped off outside a church in Sacramento. The migrants from Venezuela and Columbia entered the US through Texas reported the Associated Press. They were flown to California from New Mexico via a private chartered plane, but it's unclear who paid for the travel. The California department of justice and California governor's office is currently investigating who paid for the travel and 'whether the individuals orchestrating this trip misled anyone with false promises or have violated any criminal laws, including kidnapping.'"
~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 into law on Saturday, ending for now the threat of economic calamity from a default on the nation's debt and putting limits on spending for two years. The White House issued a statement saying that Mr. Biden had signed the legislation, days after it was passed by the House and the Senate following weeks of sometimes bitter negotiations with Republicans. Mr. Biden's signature came just two days before the so-called X-date, when Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, had said the government would run out of cash to pay its debts. Economists had predicted that if it did so, the resulting collapse in faith in America's financial promises would cause economic instability around the world." (Also linked yesterday.) The AP's report is here.
Evan Perez & Jamie Gangel of CNN: "The US Secret Service implemented tougher disciplinary measures after preliminary findings from an internal investigation found agents missed an intruder at national security adviser Jake Sullivan's home in part because they were using their personal phones, people briefed on the matter said. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle in recent days ordered increased penalties for employees who violate policies on duty, including the use of personal devices while on the job."
Zoe Richards of NBC News: "A New Hampshire man has been charged with threatening to kill a senator, allegedly telling investigators he was upset after seeing news reports of a lawmaker 'blocking military promotions.' Federal prosecutors announced Friday that Brian Landry, 66, was charged with threatening to assault, kidnap or murder a U.S. official in connection with the official's performance of official duties in connection with a voicemail he left last month for the unidentified senator.... About 200 defense-related promotions have been stalled in the Senate over Sen. Tommy Tuberville's opposition to a Pentagon policy that provides paid time off and travel expenses for service members and dependents seeking abortions." MB: I have such lovely neighbors. And let us just stipulate that Tommy Tuberville thinks it's a good idea to arm this guy, who describes himself as "a veteran sniper."
Laura Jarrett, et al., of NBC News: "The federal grand jury that has been hearing evidence in the Justice Department's investigation of ... Donald Trump's handling of classified documents is expected to meet again this coming week in Washington, according to multiple people familiar with the investigation. Prosecutors working for Special Counsel Jack Smith have been presenting the grand jury with evidence and witness testimony for months, but activity appeared to have slowed in recent weeks based on observations at the courthouse and sources. It's unclear whether prosecutors are prepared to seek an indictment at this point."
Presidential Race 2024. Jonathan Weisman of the New York Times: "... politicians and Republican Party officials tossed out the red meat on Saturday at an event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.... The event, called 'Roast and Ride' -- an annual motorcycle and barbecue-infused political rally sponsored by Iowa's junior Republican senator, Joni Ernst -- laid bare divisions in the party, with some attendees focusing on pocketbook issues and tone and others looking for a candidate who will take on Democrats on a social and cultural front. Saturday's gathering featured eight presidential hopefuls, prominent and obscure, declared and undeclared.... For the presidential hopefuls, winning over Iowa Republicans -- with their strong religious bent and tradition of political engagement -- is the imperative first step toward wresting the G.O.P. from the front-runner for the nomination, Donald J. Trump, the one major candidate who did not make the trip on Saturday."
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Suppose if I told you that while the dear leader of the state was far, far away warning Iowa farmers of the dangers of child-bearing women, Black & brown people, gays, teachers, and mask-wearing germophobes (ai-yee, what about a mixed-race, pregnant, masked lesbian teacher!), giant blobs of flesh-eating beasties were attacking a state with the most coastline in the Continental U.S.A. You might call me a partisan, conspiracy-theorizing, science-fiction-spewing nutcase hack. But then suppose you found out I was telling the truth? ~~~
~~~ Make America Florida! Richard Luscombe of the Guardian: "... giant clumps of [a] 13m-ton..., 5,000-mile wide blob of murky seaweed ... labeled the Great Atlantic sargassum belt are washing up on Florida's beaches, [and] scientists are warning of a real-life threat from the piles of decomposing algae, namely high levels of the flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria lurking in the vegetation. The alarming discovery by marine biologists at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) lends a dangerous new aspect to the brown seaweed onslaught, which is already threatening to spoil the state's busy summer tourism season as coatings of decaying goop exude a pungent aroma akin to that of rotting eggs. Even more worrying, the researchers say, is the role of ocean pollution in the proliferation of the bacteria, which can cause disease and death if a person gets infected.... The seaweed belt stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the African coast provided the perfect breeding ground for 'omnivorous' strains of the bacteria that target both plant and animal life...."
Tennessee. Caroline Anders of the Washington Post: "A federal judge has struck down a Tennessee law that banned drag shows in public or where children could watch them, writing that the unconstitutional measure was passed 'for the impermissible purpose of chilling constitutionally-protected speech.' In his ruling issued Friday, U.S. District Judge Thomas Parker wrote that the law violates First Amendment freedom of speech protections and was 'unconstitutionally vague and substantially overbroad.'... Parker, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee by ... Donald Trump, had issued a preliminary injunction at the end of March to block the law from taking effect." (Also linked yesterday.)
Texas. Jacey Fortin of the New York Times: "Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, signed a bill on Friday to ban hormone and puberty blocking treatments, as well as surgeries, for transgender minors. Set to go into effect on Sept. 1, the measure would make Texas the largest state to ban transition medical care for people under 18. The bill would prohibit a doctor from performing mastectomies or surgeries that would sterilize a minor or remove otherwise healthy tissue or body parts, and from prescribing drugs that would induce transient or permanent infertility.... There is a debate among medical professionals about the age at which adolescents should have access to these treatments. But leading medical groups in the United States, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, say this care should be available to minors and oppose legislative bans.... The law reflects an effort in Texas and in much of the country by Republican elected leaders to restrict transgender rights." MB: I'm grateful the Times had the fortitude to describe the law as Republicans restricting human rights & didn't try to couch it in some both-siderism light.
Way Beyond
Ukraine, et al. The Washington Post's live briefing of developments Sunday in Russia's war on Ukraine is here: "A Russian attack in the Dnipro area of central-eastern Ukraine has killed a toddler and left at least 20 people injured, including five children, according to the regional governor. Rescuers searched overnight for survivors in the rubble of what was a two-story residential building.... Ukrainian air defenses successfully repelled a series of missiles aimed at Kyiv overnight, the head of the capital's military administration said on Telegram.... Ukraine is ready to launch its highly anticipated counteroffensive, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.... Air-raid shelters in Kyiv are being audited after residents were unable to enter some sites during overnight attacks on the capital last week. Nearly a quarter of the 4,800 shelters inspected Saturday were unusable or closed, the Ukrainian National Police Telegram page said, citing Internal Affairs Minister Ihor Klymenko.... Protests are planned in Russia and around the world Sunday in support of detained Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, marking his 47th birthday. Here's the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Sunday are here. The Guardian's summary report is here.
News Lede
Washington Post: "Thomas Buergenthal, an international law jurist and human rights defender who witnessed the horrors of Nazi concentration camps as a boy, and oversaw cases that included restoring assets to Holocaust survivors and probing atrocities in Central America by U.S.-backed governments, died May 29 at his home in Miami. He was 89."
Share Article
Comments for this entry have been disabled. Additional comments may not be added to this entry at this time.
Reader Comments (8)
Sunday Sermon:
"The latest manufactured debt crisis tells us little that is new.
Republicans like the military, don’t like taxes, and assume the poor are lazy. While the deal is projected to reduce the debt by $1.5 trillion over the next decade, Biden’s proposed budget, which would have rescinded the Trump tax cuts and imposed a minimum tax on billionaires, would have decreased the deficit by $3 trillion in that same period (pgpf.org).
Since the 2000 election of George W. Bush by one Supreme Court vote, Republicans have repeatedly proved they have no genuine interest in the nation’s long-term fiscal health. Debt balloons in Republican administrations with nary a Republican objection, but when a Democrat is in the White House), they scream disaster is imminent.
One would have to have Rip Van Winkel-ed (Woke’s opposite?) for twenty years to have missed so much hypocrisy.
The agreement adds more work requirements for some food stamp recipients, while granting eligibility to other groups at a cost of $2.1 billion over ten years (axios.com). Overall spending increases will be capped at one percent for everything but the military and Veterans’ services, and up to $21 billion will be taken from the IRS over the next two years, fulfilling Republicans' wish to make the IRS friendlier to tax cheats, resulting in an estimated $40.4 billion in lost revenue, and adding $19 billion to the deficit (apnews.com; budget.senate.gov).
So we got a deal and some headlines. What we didn’t get from Republicans is a serious discussion of who caused our debt, how and why, how it compares to that of other countries, the debt as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product, tax revenues as a share of GDP, or any realistic solutions to the problems it poses.
Maybe it’s not the poor who need to work harder."
Book Review (as you can tell, I liked it):
https://www.populist.com/29.11.Winkes.html
Something optimistic here and we grab onto it like a life raft in a stormy sea. Connecticut's governor, Ted Lamont. will sign state's most sweeping gun law measures since post Sandy Hook law. And thanks to Chris Murphy for his dogged determination to get this passed.
And again we see the wide berth between what Democrats try to implement and Republicans try to squash as Ken points out in his Sunday sermon.
"Democratic-led states have enacted new laws to restrict semiautomatic weapons and expand background checks and waiting periods to buy guns. Republican-controlled states have backed the right to carry concealed guns without permits or for trained staffers to bring guns to school.
In Connecticut, Republican lawmakers have complained that majority Democrats are punishing law-abiding gun owners, not targeting criminals who commit gun violence."
And in the end there is that scent on the "Right" of green backs and power and being a party loyalist––-even a man like Tim Scott can't give a straight answer to abortion questions.
Praise Jesus!!!
@Ken Winkes: The book may be good, but the review definitely is. I wonder how a huckster like Donald Trump, who reputedly doesn't read anything, has learned so much from the hucksters of days gone by (but, as you note, are in fact still with us in some form). Thanks for sharing.
Suckers, "‘sugrophobia’, which would translate to something like a ‘fear of sucking’. once you start to look for it, it becomes clear that sugrophobia is not only real, it is a veritable epidemic. Its influence extends from the choices we make as individuals to the society-wide narratives that sow distrust and discrimination.
Deployed at scale, sucker tropes help to perpetuate group stereotypes – about who can be trusted and who should be policed – and reinforce traditional class, race and gender hierarchies in ways that we scarcely appreciate.
What Trump seemed to understand is that sucker rhetoric taps into a deep status anxiety. If I can be fooled by a peer, or even by someone whom I thought had a weaker position than mine, that takes me down a peg. The fear of that social demotion helps explain a common tendency that people have to guard against exploitation by outsiders and strivers more vigilantly than exploitation by those with the power to do real harm.
One way to keep a group of people subordinated is to tell stories about their scheming intentions, to leverage the fear of duplicity to play on the status anxiety of those who have power. The pitch, whether it’s subtle or overt, is: if you let ‘them’ have what they want (eg, status, money, citizenship, equality), you’ll make a fool of yourself."
@RAS: Way back in the 1970s, when equal employment opportunity first became a real thing in companies that were somehow beholden to the federal government, I was working for ABC TV. I applied for a job that would have been a significant promotion for me. As it happened, I was well-qualified for the job. After several interviews & signs I had a good chance of getting the job, the hiring person/boss called me to tell me that he had wanted to hire me, that I was the best-qualified and the closest fit, blah-blah. But he had to give the job to a minority woman because of equal opportunity requirements.
For about one second, I resented being passed over because I didn't fit into some ethnic box. Then it dawned on me -- even before I said thanks and hung up the phone, I think -- that the purpose of the boss's telling me about the "Asian woman" he had to hire was to make me resent minority hires. For all I know, he said the same thing to half-a-dozen other applicants. I don't know if racial (and gender) resentment was the overall aim of ABC's suits, but I know that's what individual bosses -- usually white men! -- were telling applicants.
Racial resentment is taught not just at the bigot's knee, but by all kinds of people who touch our lives. Sometimes a person will smack you in the face with it; sometimes it's more subtle. But every one of us has to watch out for it all the time. Unfortunately, a lot of dimwits never catch on. A lot of them these days are called MAGA Republicans.
I confess to some disappointment that no one said publicly that the senator that the crazy person in New Hampshire wanted to kill was the infamously stupid Potatohead. I am TRYING to not be disppointed that something hasn't put Potatohead in either the hospital or a retirement home, and that is by way of thinking I don't really care whether the military types get their promotions or not, although of course the families suffer if they don't know where or when they are moving house...But if anything needs to be stated, it's that we need to cull the herd, getting rid of the flotsam. It's almost like there is virtually none of the terrible people that fear for their jobs. That is nuts. I don't want them dead but I so want them GONE...We need an infusion of smarter nonracists in the congress. Is that too much to ask?
@Jeanne: The DOJ didn't name Sen. Potato Head, but most stories, like the NBC News story linked above noted that Tuberville did exactly what the crazy New Hampshire guy objected to. So I think that pretty much allows everyone to draw the conclusion that the self-described sharpshooter had his sight set, so to speak, on Sen. Potato Head.