;)
May 12, 2022
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Luke Broadwater & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol issued subpoenas on Thursday to five Republican members of Congress, including Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, who had refused to meet with the panel voluntarily. The committee's leaders had been reluctant to issue subpoenas to their fellow lawmakers. That is an extraordinarily rare step for most congressional panels to take, though the House Ethics Committee, which is responsible for investigating allegations of misconduct by members, is known to do so.
~~~ "The panel said it was demanding testimony from Mr. McCarthy, of California, who engaged in a heated phone call with ... Donald J. Trump during the Capitol violence; Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who coordinated a plan to try to replace the acting attorney general after he resisted Mr. Trump's false claims of widespread fraud; Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who was deeply involved in the effort to fight the election results; Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona, the former leader of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus; and Representative Mo Brooks of Alabama, who has said Mr. Trump has continued to seek an unlawful reinstatement to office for more than a year. All five have refused requests for voluntary interviews about the roles they played in the buildup to the attack...." An AP report is here.
Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "Federal prosecutors have begun a grand jury investigation into whether classified White House documents that ended up at ... Donald J. Trump's Florida home were mishandled, according to two people briefed on the matter. The intensifying inquiry suggests that the Justice Department is examining the role of Mr. Trump and other officials in his White House in their handling of sensitive materials during the final stages of his administration. In recent days, the Justice Department has taken a series of steps showing that its investigation has progressed beyond the preliminary stages. Prosecutors issued a subpoena to the National Archives and Records Administration to obtain the boxes of classified documents, according to the two people familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.... ~~~
~~~ "Despite Mr. Trump's role in helping incite the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and his other efforts to disrupt the counting and certification of the election, there has been no indication to date that the Justice Department has begun examining any criminal culpability he might have in those matters."
Jeanna Smialek & Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, was confirmed to a second four-year term at the head of the central bank on Thursday -- keeping him in one of the most consequential jobs in the United States and world economy at a moment of rapid inflation and deep uncertainty. Mr. Powell, who was first chosen as a Fed governor by former President Barack Obama and then elevated to chair by ... Donald J. Trump, was renominated by President Biden late last year. The Senate approved Mr. Powell by a 80-19 vote. Several Republicans and Democrats voted against the nomination." An AP report is here.
Sheryl Stolberg of the New York Times: "President Biden, anticipating the milestone of one million American lives lost to Covid-19, said in a formal statement on Thursday that the United States must stay committed to fighting a virus that has 'forever changed' the country.... The statement came hours before Mr. Biden convened his second Covid-19 summit, aimed at injecting new urgency into the global coronavirus response. At the summit, both Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who was representing the United States in the opening session with world leaders, used the gathering to mark the coming milestone. Mr. Biden also issued a proclamation on Thursday ordering flags at the White House and all federal buildings to be flown at half-staff until next Monday to mark the one million deaths." An ABC News story is here.
America would not exist without the heroism of the young adults who fought and died in our revolutionary army. -- Judge Ryan Nelson, Ninth Circuit Trump appointee
Thank the Lord those young revolutionary soldiers had semiautomatic weapons instead of those pesky single-shot muskets. -- Marie ~~~
~~~ California. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times: "An appeals court panel ruled on Wednesday that California's ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under the age of 21 violated the right to bear arms found in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. Judge Ryan Nelson, writing for a two-to-one majority in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, struck down a ruling by a federal judge in San Diego that upheld what Judge Nelson called an 'almost total ban on semiautomatic' rifles for young adults." MB: Meant to link this earlier. Thanks to P.D. Pepe for the reminder.
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Alice Ollstein & Marianne Levine of Politico: "The Senate once again failed to advance abortion rights legislation Wednesday, in a largely symbolic effort Democrats mounted in response to the Supreme Court's draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade. In a 49-51 vote, the Senate rejected the Democratic legislation, with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and all Republicans voting against the measure. While the outcome was no surprise and mirrored a similar vote on abortion protections the Senate took in February, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested the court's draft opinion, published by Politico last week, had raised the stakes.... Both Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who support abortion rights, opposed the Democratic bill. They see that legislation as too expansive and are instead pushing a narrower alternative that would codify the Roe and Casey decisions the Supreme Court is expected to overturn." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Annie Karni of the New York Times: "... Democrats' failure to advance the bill capped a calculated and yearslong Republican effort, across all levels of government, to chip away at abortion rights, by electing lawmakers who oppose them, installing judges at the state and federal levels who are hostile to them and pressing forward with legislation in states around the nation to strictly limit them and test the boundaries of Roe. Democrats, by contrast, appeared to have little in the way of a plan for what would come next now that their legislative path to preserve abortion rights is effectively closed off, except to frame the stakes for voters who they hoped would be moved to punish Republicans."
~~~ Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out that senators representing about 30 percent of the population defeated a bill which senators representing 70 percent of the people voted for. Marie: When you consider that the bill was necessitated by the anti-woman opinions of four so-called justices (and a fifth who still may vote with them) who were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote, we need to get over the idea that we live in a functioning democracy. This is a country run by a minority consisting of recidivist rubes and radical reactionaries. ~~~
~~~ The Ultimate in Mansplaining: Women Are Like Sea Turtles. María Paúl of the Washington Post: "Standing [on the Senate floor] by a poster showing turtle hatchlings next to babies, Sen. Steve Daines (R) on Tuesday argued that under a bill proposed by Democrats, the eggs of sea turtles and eagles would have more protections than human fetuses.... The senator's analogy sparked outrage on social media.... 'When sea turtles are attacked something is actually done and people are held criminally responsible,' California Democratic congressional candidate Eric Garcia wrote. 'Women on the other hand are called liars and get their Human Rights taken away.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
In a way, leaking a confidential document is a perfect metaphor for the court's disregard for privacy. -- Prof. Sherry Colb ~~~
~~~ ** The Supreme Sieve. Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "The disclosure of a draft opinion that would overrule Roe v. Wade, along with related reports of the court's internal workings, has transformed a decorous and guarded institution into one riven by politics.... In addition to posting the draft opinion, which was dated Feb. 10, Politico reported that five members of the court -- Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch -- had voted to overturn Roe shortly after the challenge to it was argued in December. 'That lineup remains unchanged as of this week,' Politico reported last week. On Wednesday, it provided an update: 'None of the conservative justices who initially sided with Alito have to date switched their votes.' Politico added that Justice Alito has not circulated a revised version of his draft and that no other justice has circulated a concurring or dissenting opinion."
Michael Isikoff of Yahoo! News: Josh Gerstein, "one of the two Politico reporters who obtained the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, questions whether Chief Justice John Roberts has the legal authority to order his fellow justices and their clerks to cooperate in an internal investigation into who leaked the document.... Roberts denounced the leak ... [and ordered] the marshal of the court to conduct an investigation to identify the leaker.... But as Gerstein pointed out, the 98-page draft opinion published by Politico was not a classified document and did not contain sensitive personal information like Social Security numbers that would make it illegal to publish. The journalist did allow that a 'very broad' interpretation of laws prohibiting the 'theft of government property' could be invoked by the Justice Department.... But he expressed doubt that Roberts or the Justice Department would go that route.... Attorney General Merrick Garland is already on record saying it is 'flatly wrong for the Justice Department to be involved in subpoenaing reporters directly or even coming after reporters for their phone records, email records or otherwise.'"
Shawn Hubler of the New York Times: "Underscoring the nation's widening divide as the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to overturn the constitutional right to abortion, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California on Wednesday proposed a series of tax incentives explicitly aimed at recruiting employers from states that restrict reproductive and L.G.B.T.Q. rights. The governor's announcement -- which came as Senate Democrats failed to pass legislation that would have codified abortion rights across the country -- was an overt challenge to the Republican governors of Florida and Texas, where recent laws have limited classroom speech on gay rights and access to abortions. It also served as an invitation to Disney, which has said it will relocate some 2,000 California positions to a new Florida campus."
The New York Times' live updates of developments Thursday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here. A summary of developments Wednesday, by Mark Landler, is here. ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live updates for Thursday are here: "Finland's leaders announced Thursday that they would seek NATO membership..., a potential tectonic shift to the military alliance and Europe's security order.... The Finnish leaders said membership -- which would double NATO's land border with Russia -- would bolster Finland's security and the defense alliance.... Ukraine said its troops were pushing back Russian forces around the second-largest city of Kharkiv, as airstrikes hit the Chernihiv region further north. With the conflict disrupting European crop exports and driving up food costs around the globe, President Biden has unveiled new policies to ramp up U.S. agricultural production.... Many Ukrainian refugees who have fled the fighting into Russia are reportedly being forced to submit to strip searches and interrogations, put through 'filtration camps' or stripped of their documents. Moscow has dismissed the allegations. Ukraine's prosecutor general said the country will try a Russian soldier who is in custody. The 21-year-old would be the first to stand trial on a war crimes charge in the conflict." ~~~
~~~ The Guardian's live updates for Thursday are here: Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement, "Finland joining Nato is a radical change in the country's foreign policy. Russia will be forced to take retaliatory steps, both of a military-technical and other nature, in order to stop threats to its national security arising."
Jon Henley of the Guardian: "Finland must apply to join Nato without delay in the wake of Russia's attack on Ukraine, its president and prime minister have said, confirming a historic change in the Nordic country's security policy after decades of military non-alignment. Sauli Niinistö and Sanna Marin made the call in a joint statement, adding: 'We hope that the national steps still needed to make this decision will be taken rapidly within the next few days.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Another of myriad reasons to be glad Donald Trump isn't still president*. He probably would oppose Finland's NATO application as retaliation against Finns making fun of him for his claim that President Niinistö told him Finns raked the forest floors to prevent fires.
Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "While inflation remains painfully high, the pace of higher prices showed some signs of easing in April, as prices rose 8.3 percent compared with a year ago and 0.3 percent compared to the month before, the slowest increase since last summer. Data released Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics may give policymakers some nascent hope that soaring inflation may be starting to slow down, even as households continue to feel the pain. For example, March prices rose at a sharper pace, 8.5 percent compared to previous year.... The cost of shelter, food, airfare and new cars were the largest contributors to the April data." CNBC's report is here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Myah Ward of Politico: "The president traveled the country on Wednesday, sharpening his lines of attack against the Republican Party as primary season kicks into full gear. Throughout the day, he laid into the GOP and baited ... Donald Trump, even testing a new nickname for his predecessor: the great MAGA king.... [President] Biden is moving into full-fledged campaign mode.... At a DNC fundraiser later Wednesday, the president called his 2020 victory against Trump a 'low bar,' and dug into his favorite phrase of late, 'MAGA Republicans,' twice calling these politicians 'petty,' 'mean-spirited' and 'extreme.'"
Anna Phillips of the Washington Post: "The Interior Department confirmed Wednesday that it will not hold three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska that had been scheduled to take place, taking millions of acres off the auction block. The decision, which comes as U.S. gas prices have reached record highs, effectively ends the possibility of the federal government holding a lease sale in coastal waters this year. The Biden administration is poised to let the nationwide offshore drilling program expire next month without a new plan in place.... Interior spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz cited a lack of interest from oil companies, as well as legal obstacles and a time crunch, as reasons for nixing the planned auctions." A CBS News story is here.~~~
~~~ Marie: According to the WashPo report, "A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute found that a lapse in the program would cost tens of thousands of jobs and billions in lost state and local revenue." First, a study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute is suspect on its face. Second, I've heard O&G companies are not drilling on land they've already leased. So if the new leaseholders are going to just sit on their leases, the failure to lease the areas won't cost any jobs or state revenues. BTW, if you think the government should have let the the areas in question because gas prices are so high, selling these leaseholds today would not lower gas prices for a decade.
Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "President Biden has authorized the National Archives and Records Administration to hand over an eighth tranche of presidential records from the Trump White House to the House committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. In a letter released Wednesday by the National Archives, Biden again declined to assert executive privilege over the records -- the latest batch sought by the committee after the Supreme Court rejected ... Donald Trump's bid to block such releases."
Kyle Cheney of Politico: "Attorney John Eastman urged Republican legislators in Pennsylvania to retabulate the state's popular vote -- and throw out tens of thousands of absentee ballots -- in order to show Donald Trump with a lead, according to newly unearthed emails sent in December 2020, as Trump pressured GOP lawmakers to subvert his defeat. This recalculation, he posited in an exchange with one GOP state lawmaker, 'would help provide some cover' for Republicans to replace Joe Biden's electors from the state with a slate of pro-Trump electors, part of a last-ditch bid to overturn the election results.... The exchange was part of a batch of emails obtained from the University of Colorado, where Eastman worked as a visiting professor at the time he was helping Trump strategize ways to remain in power. The emails were obtained via public records requests by the Colorado Ethics Institute, which sent them along to the Jan. 6 select committee last month.... The Denver Post first reported on the existence of the emails." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: Eastman's plan is a bit complicated, but it all flows from this: just throw out the type of ballots that favored Biden. I don't know that it's against the law to plan an illegal act that is never executed, but for a lawyer to advise another person to break the law should at least cost him his license to practice. ~~~
~~~ Luke Broadwater & Alan Feuer of the New York Times: "The emails were the latest evidence of just how far Mr. Trump and his allies were willing to go in the weeks after Election Day to keep him in power -- complete with anti-democratic plans to install fake pro-Trump electors and reject the votes of Biden supporters." ~~~
~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Note that Eastman says, almost as an aside, that state legislators have the 'authority' to appoint new electors even if the popular vote totals don't justify it. 'Eastman's view is that the legislature has absolute power in terms of picking presidential electors,' elections expert Richard L. Hasen told me, even if that means 'ignoring the will of the voters' or 'the legislature's prior rules on how to pick those electors.'... 'This shows the country one more strategic booby trap that was improvised by Trump's team that can sit there for use by bad-faith actors in future elections,' [Rep. Jamie] Raskin [D-Md.] told me." (Also linked yesterday.)
Martin Pengelly of the Guardian: "Democrat Joe Biden is 'the best person' to lead the US, the Republican senator and fervent Donald Trump supporter Lindsey Graham said in tapes released on Monday [on CNN] by the authors of a bestselling political book. The South Carolina senator was speaking on and shortly after 6 January 2021 to Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns.... A spokesperson for Graham told CNN: 'The Joe Biden we see as president is not the one we saw in the Senate. He's pursued a far-left agenda as president.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Dan Lamothe of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump wanted to court-martial two prominent retired military officers for their perceived slights and disloyalty, his former defense secretary Mark T. Esper alleges in a new book.... Trump, Esper recounts in 'A Sacred Oath,' had developed a disdain for Stanley McChrystal and William H. McRaven, popular and influential leaders who, in retirement, criticized the president." MB: There are two reasons Trump considers any efforts to hold him accountable are "witch hunts": (1) he believes he can do no wrong; (2) he assumes others are as scheming & retaliatory as he is. So a double helping of paranoid narcissism with a side dish of projection. (Also linked yesterday.)
Jonah Bromwich & Ben Protess of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump was released from a judicial order holding him in contempt of court on Wednesday, ending an embarrassing two-week period for the former president.... A New York State judge, Arthur F. Engoron, held Mr. Trump in contempt late last month after finding that he had failed to comply with the terms of a December subpoena sent by the attorney general, Letitia James, requesting documents from his personal files. The judge ordered Mr. Trump to pay $10,000 a day until he complied, leading to a $110,000 penalty. On Wednesday, Justice Engoron withdrew the contempt order, but set a few conditions, including requiring Mr. Trump to pay the fine. The judge ruled that if Mr. Trump and his company did not meet the conditions by May 20, he would reinstate the contempt order and retroactively apply the $10,000-a-day fine." (Also linked yesterday.)
Eric Lipton of the New York Times: "The Trump International Hotel in Washington is now officially out of business after the Trump family on Wednesday completed its sale to a Miami investor group, which plans to reopen it as a Waldorf Astoria.... The deal with the investor group, CGI Merchant Group, for a reported price of $375 million covers only the operation of the hotel, which is housed in a building leased from the federal government."
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. (Also linked yesterday.)
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Andrew Pantazi of the Jacksonville Tributary: "A 2nd Judicial Circuit Court judge struck down Jacksonville's congressional districts in a ruling against Florida's redistricting process. Circuit Judge Layne Smith said, 'I am finding the enacted map is unconstitutional because it diminishes African Americans' ability to elect candidates of their choice.' He ordered the state to adopt a map that maintains an east-to-west version of Jacksonville's 5th Congressional District, stretching from Duval to Gadsden counties. The ruling came after a Wednesday hearing that saw plaintiffs argue that Gov. Ron DeSantis' congressional map, which eliminated Jacksonville's current Black ability-to-elect district, violated the state constitution. The governor's office said it will appeal the ruling." MB: Since the suit will likely end up in the Florida Supreme Court, which is dominated by wingers, it seems to me DeSantis will still win his voter-suppression game. (Also linked yesterday.) CNN's story, which is here, notes that DeSantis appointed Judge Smith to the bench.
Florida. Dana Goldstein & Stephanie Saul of the New York Times (May 9): "To help explain its puzzling rejection of dozens of math textbooks, the state of Florida released nearly 6,000 pages of reviewer comments this week and revealed an often confusing, contradictory and divisive process. A conservative activist turned textbook reviewer was on the lookout for mentions of race. Another reviewer ... flagged a word problem comparing salaries for male and female soccer players. As part of the official review process, the state assigned educators, parents and other residents to review textbooks, in part to determine whether they adhered to Florida's teaching standards for math.... Reviewers were asked to flag 'critical race theory,' 'culturally responsive teaching,' 'social justice as it relates to CRT' and 'social-emotional learning,' according to the documents.... The various reviewers seldom agreed on whether those concepts were present -- and, if they were, whether the books should be accepted or rejected for including them." ~~~
~~~ Marie: IOW, the DeSantis gang brought in a bunch of amateurs & challenged them to hunt for whatever they thought was "woke." Naturally, the amateurs wanted to come up with some work product, so they rejected books for specious reasons. A+ and a gold star for each of them.
Florida. Patricia Mazzei & Livia Albeck-Ripka of the New York Times: "Families of the victims of the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Fla., that killed 98 people last year have reached a $997 million settlement to compensate them for their staggering losses of life. The settlement, revealed at a court hearing on Wednesday and still pending final approval, includes insurance companies, developers of an adjacent building and other defendants in the extensive civil case. It comes six weeks before the first anniversary of the tragedy on June 24."
Florida. Julian Mark of the Washington Post: A man who said he had no idea how to fly landed a Cessna at Palm Beach International Airport after the plane's pilot became ill & "incoherent." The man had help from air traffic controllers, one of whom was a flight instructor. MB: First thing to know: how to operate the radio.
Texas. Tracy Jan of the Washington Post: "... the state of Texas allocated none of the $1 billion in federal funds it received to protect communities from future disasters to neighborhoods in Houston that flood regularly, according to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD has now found the exclusion of those majority Black and Hispanic urban communities to be discriminatory. The state 'shifted money away from the areas and people that needed it the most,' disproportionately benefiting White residents living in smaller towns, the agency concluded.... Even after HUD's finding of discrimination, the agency said it does not have the power at this time to suspend the rest of the $4.3 billion in disaster mitigation money awarded to the state under criteria approved by the Trump administration."
Texas. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "A Texas woman whose five-year prison sentence for illegally casting a provisional ballot in the 2016 election prompted outrage among voting-rights activists will have her case reconsidered by an appeals court, the state's highest criminal court ruled on Wednesday. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found that a lower appeals court had incorrectly upheld parts of the conviction of the woman, Crystal Mason, who had voted in the general election in 2016, when she was a felon on probation, and filled out a provisional ballot that was never officially counted or tallied. Ms. Mason has insisted that at the time, she did not know she was ineligible to vote and had been advised by a poll worker to submit her provisional ballot. The Second Court of Appeals in Tarrant County had said in 2020 that Ms. Mason's unawareness 'was irrelevant to her prosecution.' But the Court of Criminal Appeals disagreed, opening a channel for the conviction to be overturned." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Apparently those brilliant judges on the Second Court of Appeals have never heard to criminal intent, even though Mason's lawyers say "that Texas's election laws stipulate that a person must knowingly vote illegally to be guilty of a crime."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Eleven people died and 31 others were rescued on Thursday after a boat carrying migrants capsized about 10 miles north of Desecheo Island, [Puerto Rico], the U.S. Coast Guard said. The agency said that the crew of a Customs and Border Protection aircraft sighted a capsized vessel shortly before noon. The crew reported people in the water who did not appear to be wearing life jackets, the Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard said the vessel was 'suspected of taking part in an illegal voyage.' Most of the people on the boat were from Haiti, but two of the survivors were from the Dominican Republic, said Jeffrey Quiñones, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The boat set off from the Dominican Republic and was en route through the treacherous Mona Passage to the western side of Puerto Rico, he said."
New York Times: "The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the licenses of two pilots who attempted to swap planes in midair over the Arizona desert last month, calling their actions in the stunt, in which one plane crashed, 'reckless' and 'egregious.'... The F.A.A. also fined Luke Aikins, whom the agency called the lead pilot, $4,932 for abandoning his pilot seat and operating his plane in a 'careless and reckless' manner, after an investigation announced shortly after the April 24 stunt. Mr. Aikins and Andy Farrington, a fellow sky diver and pilot, planned to send their single-engine Cessna 182 planes into synchronized nosedives at 14,000 feet and then jump out to swap cockpits midair. But when they attempted the switch as they flew over the desert in Eloy, Ariz., Mr. Farrington couldn't enter the plane Mr. Aikins had jumped from, according to an F.A.A. emergency revocation order. The plane spun out of control and crashed nearby, midway between Phoenix and Tucson. No spectators were present and no one was injured in the stunt, which was livestreamed by Hulu.... Red Bull, the energy-drink company, called the event 'Plane Swap' and advertised it as a 'first-of-its-kind jump.'"
New York Times: "When Naomi Judd, the Grammy-winning country music singer, died last month, her daughter Ashley Judd said that she had lost her mother to the 'disease of mental illness.' On Thursday, Ms. Judd was more candid, saying in a television interview that her mother had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at her home in Tennessee, and encouraging people who are distressed to seek help." CNN's story is here.
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Reader Comments (9)
Confederates are never shy about naming their enemies. We’ve been deluged by flyers and fancy, slick election crap in the mail every day for the last month or so, all of which have two names highlighted: Trump, as in, “I’m just like Trump, y’all!” and Biden, as in “Worst person in the world, who is also to blame for Covid, forced vaccinations, gas prices, inflation, teaching ‘our kids’ to be gay and indoctrinating them about CRT, AND is personally responsible for supply chain problems, which is why that doohickey you ordered from Amazon won’t be available until 2055, or whenever a Republican takes back control of the White House”.
You see, no matter what the problem, the millisecond a Republican is in charge, it’s not a problem anymore. Oh, that doesn’t mean the problem is fixed. No. In fact, invariably, the problems become far worse because Republicans don’t actually do anything, except blame others.
This blaming others thing is part of confederate DNA, so much so that I’m ready to vomit on the spot the next time I hear one of these people pontificate about how the supply chain problems are all Joe Biden’s fault and if Trump hadn’t had the election stolen from him, those problems would disappear.
Oh god. I long ago gave up trying to use facts and logic with these people. They are immune. But…the fact is, that a large part of our economic downturn is directly attributable to the Fat Fascist pretending that Covid didn’t exist, for the better part of a year.
Now supply chain issues are more complicated, having to do with producers and delivery systems all around the world, also affected by the Trump virus. So first, these problems cannot be hung on Joe Biden. Second, were Fatty to re-steal the White House, he would be spectacularly impotent to magically fix these problems instantly, as so many wingers insist.
It used to be that Hillary was confederate public enemy No. 1. Then it was Pelosi. Now it’s Biden.
The simple answer is, they always need someone to hate. Someone to blame for Republican incompetence and legislative stupidity.
Anyone but Trump, who actually IS to blame for so many problems.
Next, I expect to hear that that Chinese hurricane gun was actually invented by Biden, in the basement of that pizza place where Hillary hides the kids she intends to sell as sex slaves, then secretly sent to Beijing so’s the Chinese could use it to make us believe global warming is really a thing.
Gail Collins, in her column today, tells us that when she was attending a Catholic High School in Cincinnati the religion class covered the abortion issue in approximately 45 seconds.
"Abortion is murder,” said the priest who was giving the lesson, before moving on to more controversial topics, like necking and heavy petting. I still have a vivid memory of being marched into the auditorium for a lecture from a visiting cleric who assured us that when Jesus was dying on the cross, he was tortured by a vision of the sins of mankind — notably adolescent girls “making out with boys in the back seat of a car.”
Amazing grace that Jesus envisioned cars as vehicles for petting. But, hey, these priests. many of them heavy into back seat rumblings themselves, knew of what they spoke. The point Collins makes is that this abortion issue is all about women and sex. However––there was a time when conservatives weren't–-even Evangelicals like Jerry Falwell ignored it but then it became a wedge issue for Republicans in due time and they pumped it up to such an extent that a dummkopf congress critter used a "Show and Tell" using turtle eggs for comparison.
Yesterday's vote was not surprising––no one, I would think, expected it to pass––it appears it was more like a "show me" operation, once again revealing the divide between the two parties (with the exception of the two democrats whose affiliation needs to be recalibrated). Susie and Lisa say they are going to present their own bill––-let's get excited over that, shall we? Perhaps the senator from Maine will write it out on a chalk board and set it up on the senate floor.
I despair!!!!
CALIFORNIA DREAMING:
A panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected a judge's argument that those under 21 were historically 'believed unfit' for responsible firearm possess & use.' Given that many of our shootings were done by these "young guns" wouldn't this ban be prudent and necessary? Naw, says Judge Nelson and Judge Lee who both were appointed by––-yup--you guessed it–-the Trmpster himself. Sidney H. Stein, the dissenting judge was appointed by Clinton.
I find this appalling!
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/us/california-semiautomatic-guns-court-ruling.html
https://time.com/6175400/oil-company-profits/
Those on-again off-again oil leases may make the administration seem like it doesn't know what it's doing, and it may not, but the petroleum supply and pricing issue is complicated. There's the uncertainty of exploration's success, then the time lag between success, the placement of infrastructure, then production, preparation and transportation of product.
More fundamental to our current situation is the contradictory nature of the petroleum industry. Because petroleum use is so integral to transportation, the industry serves in part as a public utility. It is at the same time a private profit-making enterprise often dependent on extracting a resource from public land that it will use to serve itself instead of the public.
What a tangle. And considering the wealth they control, in a very real sense, privately held oil companies are too big for our government to control...
To me, that means there really are people somewhere in the mix somewhere pulling the strings to increase profit.
As far as I know "world market price" is not determined by a computer algorithm or the ghost of Adam Smith. People are still setting oil prices and their pricing rule is still "all the traffic will bear."
And as recent months again demonstrate, when gas prices go up, oil companies do "better." The public be damned.
@P.D. Pepe: Pretty funny about Jesus worrying on the cross about girls in cars. When I was in junior high school, we girls had to take home ec. In the cooking part of the class, we were arranged in groups of five or six, and each group had a little kitchen. There was one Catholic girl in our group, and every Friday the group spent as much time as possible dreaming up minor "sins" she could confess to the priest so she wouldn't have to tell him her "real" sins, which I suspect had something to do with “making out with boys in the back seat of a car.”
Some people seem to realize from the git-go that the leaders of their own religion are conmen, and the young people learn to get along within the confines of that con by running little cons of their own. So the priest cons the teenagers and some of the teens con the priest. It all works out. And when that girl in my home ec class got pregnant a few years later (as I imagine she did; there was an epidemic of pregnancies in my high school class), I suspect she had a lovely wedding in the church.
Marie: enjoyed your story about cooking, necking, and covert cons. Rather than in High School we had these kinds of classes in eighth grade where girls took Home Ec: (cooking and sewing) and boys took "woodworking"––-never mind that some boys preferred cooking and a few girls wanted woodworking––there were NO exceptions. This fact alone shows the division of sexes back then.
And something that still amazes me is that with all the heavy petting and whatnot in the back seat of cars there wasn't, at least in my group, any penetration, hence no pregnancies. But I'm older than you are so maybe then–-early-middle fifties–- it was simply verboten in that Wisconsin dairy land. And yet we could spend hours in bars situated in small bergs and drink the night away. And we did.
A common thread?
Aside from its abysmal ignorance of history and hence their foreclosure of any possibility of learning anything from it, the Right's incessant appeals to freedom seem always to translate into the freedom to do harm to others.
Freedom from masks and vaccinations.
This morning's report that P.D. contributed on Trump appointed judges' California dreamin' about gun rights.
The freedom to say all the ugly and untrue things the Right could not live without.
The freedom to profit from the sale of shoddy or dangerous products and to harm workers in the production of any- and everything.
The freedom to profit regardless of social cost.
Above all, the freedom to control or eliminate anything they don't like...
Counter examples are welcome.
Just a sarcastic thought on big oil. Gasoline for the internal combustion engine has ruled the transportation roost for over a century, With the rise of electric and hydrogen power maybe they feel this might be their last big chance before they have to switch over to an alternative. Like plastics maybe?
Young people and guns: it is a video game, a movie, a story. Most have no idea it is all real. People get killed, and it isn’t a game or acting—. It is really death. I think immaturity causes driving while drunk, and shooting other people. The brain is not finished until mid-20s, or it never finishes. To me it makes sense to deprive young people of guns, alcohol, drugs, tobacco and cars. But of course I hate freedumbs…