;)
October 14, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Jacqueline Alemany & Tom Hamburger of the Washington Post: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol announced on Thursday that it will move to hold Stephen K. Bannon in criminal contempt for not complying with its subpoena as it seeks to force former Trump administration officials to cooperate with its inquiry. Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) said the panel will meet Tuesday when the House returns to Washington to vote to adopt a contempt report.... The panel has opted to give other former Trump officials more time to comply with its subpoenas. Mark Meadows and Kash Patel were both scheduled to appear before the committee by the end of this week for closed-door interviews and are now expected to be provided an extension or continuance, according to three people familiar with the matter...." A CNN report is here.
Carolyn Johnson & Yasmeen Abutaleb of the Washington Post: "An independent advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday unanimously recommended a booster dose of the Moderna coronavirus vaccine for people 65 and older and adults who are at high risk of severe illness or are exposed at work. The recommendation mirrors the eligibility criteria for the Pfizer-BioNTech booster, which was authorized in September. Nearly 70 million Americans have received both doses of the Moderna vaccine. The vote comes after a full-day examination of data on the safety and effectiveness of a booster, and the recommendation will now be considered by FDA officials, who are expected to reach a decision on the Moderna booster within days. An advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that makes recommendations on how vaccines should be used is scheduled to meet Wednesday."
South Carolina. Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs of the New York Times: "Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina lawyer who has endured a dramatic downfall since his wife and son were shot in an unsolved killing in June, was arrested on Thursday and charged with swindling millions of dollars from the sons of his former housekeeper. Mr. Murdaugh, 53, was taken into custody at a drug detox center in Orlando, Fla., and charged with two counts of obtaining property by false pretenses, a felony with a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. He was booked into a jail in Orlando. The charges stem from a settlement that Mr. Murdaugh and his insurers reached with the sons of the housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in 2018 after falling on the front steps of the Murdaugh family's rural home in Islandton, S.C. After her death, Mr. Murdaugh referred her two sons to a lawyer he promised would help them, the sons claimed in a recent lawsuit, but he did not disclose that the lawyer, Cory Fleming, was a close friend and former college roommate."
Virginia Republicans Pledge Allegiance to January 6 Flag. John Amato of Crooks & Liars: "During a rally for Republican Virginia Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin..., an American flag was brought out onto the stage and the host said praised the flag thusly, 'That was carried at the peaceful rally with Donald Trump on January 6.'... Someone named Mark Lloyd then led the crowd with the Pledge of Allegiance.... Rolling Stone writes, 'Youngkin was not present at the 'Take Back Virginia' rally, but it was headlined by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who cited the close race between Youngkin and his Democratic opponent, Terry McAufflife, to argue that the state's 2020 election results were illegitimate."
Amy Wang & Chico Harlan of the Washington Post: "President Biden will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican on Oct. 29 during a trip to Europe for two high-profile global summits, the White House announced Thursday. Biden and Francis will discuss 'working together on efforts grounded in respect for fundamental human dignity, including ending the COVID-19 pandemic, tackling the climate crisis, and caring for the poor,' White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement. Biden, the United States' second Catholic president, has been at the center of a debate within the Catholic Church about whether he should be able to receive Communion because of his support for abortion rights.... . Francis said that abortion is 'murder' but also that the decision to grant Communion should be a pastoral, not political, one. First lady Jill Biden will join her husband in meeting Francis."
Paul Duggan of the Washington Post: "A Texas woman who was charged in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol and boasted on social media, 'Hell yes, I'm proud of my actions,' pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. Jenny Cudd, a 36-year-old florist and former mayoral candidate in the western Texas city of Midland, is one of more than 600 people charged so far in what federal authorities have called the largest investigation in U.S. history. She is among more than 70 defendants who have pleaded guilty in deals with the U.S. attorney's office in the District."
** Sen Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in Salon: "Justice Samuel Alito wants desperately for us to believe that everything is just fine at the Supreme Court. Indeed, in his view the court is a victim.... [But] Americans' perception that the court lacks independence, and the court's related drop in approval, doesn't flow from some left-wing conspiracy. It's a recognition that the evidence shows a pattern whenever certain interests come before the court.... During Chief Justice John Roberts' tenure, the Court has issued more than 80 partisan decisions, by either a 5-4 or 6-3 vote, involving big interests important to Republican Party major donors. Republican-appointed justices have handed wins to the donor interests in every single case.... [The complex, multi-faceted mechanisms put in place to engineer the Court's capture] required boatloads of anonymous money; what people who study this clandestine activity call 'dark money.'... Perhaps Justice Alito is so touchy because his fingerprints are all over this pattern of Republican judicial activism." Worth reading the whole post.
** Ariane de Vogue of CNN: "Justice Sonia Sotomayor told an audience Wednesday that recent changes in the format of oral arguments were instituted in part after studies emerged showing that female justices on the court were interrupted more by male justices and advocates. Sotomayor said the studies, including one by researchers Tonja Jacoby and Dylan Schweers in 2017, have had an 'enormous impact' and led to Chief Justice John Roberts being 'much more sensitive' to ensuring that people were not interrupted or at least that he would play referee if needed. She also said that it is a dynamic that exists not only on the court but in society as well. 'Most of the time women say things and they are not heard in the same way as men who might say the identical thing,' she said." MB: If you're an adult women, you figured this out long ago.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here.
Alaska. How Could This Have Happened? Derek Hawkins & Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "An Alaska GOP lawmaker banned from flying on the state's leading airline for refusing to wear a mask, and therefore unable to travel to and from the state capital, has now tested positive for the coronavirus, she said. State Sen. Lora Reinbold, a Republican representing an Anchorage suburb, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday night that it was her 'turn to battle Covid head on.... Game on! Who do you think is going to win?' Reinbold wrote of her infection. 'When I defeat it, I will tell you my recipe.' Another Republican state senator, David Wilson of Wasilla also tested positive this week and is quarantining at home."
Arizona U.S. Senate Race. Kevin Robillard of the Huffington Post: "Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is deeply unpopular with Democratic primary voters in her home state and would be vulnerable against a number of intra-party challengers, according to a new poll from a progressive group. The poll, from Data for Progress, comes with heavy caveats. The 2022 midterms aren't even here yet, never mind the 2024 election. And Arizona's primaries are open to independent voters ― meaning the exact makeup of the electorate is hard to nail down even in the weeks leading up to an election, let alone three years in advance. But the numbers for Sinema ... are grim. They show widespread discontent with her performance, making her vulnerable to nearly any Democratic challenger."
Oregon Gubernatorial Race. Marc Tracy of the New York Times: "After 37 years at The New York Times as a reporter, high-level editor and opinion columnist, Nicholas Kristof is leaving the newspaper as he considers running for governor of Oregon, a top Times editor said in a note to the staff on Thursday. Mr. Kristof, 62, has been on leave from The Times since June, when he told company executives that he was weighing a run for governor in the state where he grew up. On Tuesday, he filed to organize a candidate committee with Oregon's secretary of state as a Democrat, signaling that his interest was serious." ~~~
~~~ Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "Friends and allies of Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema are mystified by her maneuvering around President Joe Biden's legislative agenda, according to people speaking to The Daily Beast.... 'A lot of people who have considered her a friend, or confidant, or someone she'd go to for donor support or political support, she won't talk to those people anymore,' said Matt Grodsky, a former communications director for the Democratic Party of Arizona. 'She had a big network of people who liked her -- establishment Democrats, progressives -- everyone marveled at her ability to win in Arizona,' said one Arizona Democratic strategist. 'A lot of her longtime friends and confidants are no longer there. No one knows, to be honest, where she's at.'"
Wisconsin. GOP, the Party of Incompetence. Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "The glaring errors became clear soon after ... former Wisconsin judge [Michael Gableman] issued subpoenas earlier this month in a Republican review of the state's 2020 presidential election. Some of the requests referred to the wrong city. At least one was sent to an official who doesn't oversee elections. A Latin phrase included in the demands for records and testimony was misspelled.... Gableman ... admitted days later that he does not have 'a comprehensive understanding or even any understanding of how elections work..' He then backed off some of his subpoena demands before reversing course again, telling a local radio host that officials would still be required to testify. The latest round of reversals and blunders is intensifying calls to end the probe, one of several recent efforts around the country to revisit Joe Biden's win in states where ... Donald Trump and his supporters have leveled baseless accusations of voter fraud. Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) this week called the subpoenas unlawful and 'dramatically overbroad,' and he urged Republicans to 'shut this fake investigation down.'"
~~~~~~~~~~
David Lynch & Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, President Biden moved to address costly traffic jams in the nation's freight-moving system, convening a virtual industry roundtable and speaking at the White House. He announced that the Port of Los Angeles would 'begin operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week' in a bid to clear bottlenecks.... Rising prices, product shortages and labor market tumult are making for a surprisingly rocky economic recovery, testing the political skills of the Biden White House.... Administration officials are confronting an unfamiliar economic landscape of strong growth and rising wages, even as the highest inflation in 13 years and persistent problems moving goods from overseas factories to American doorsteps spark public unease."
News You Can Use. Madeleine Ngo of the New York Times: "Benefits from Social Security ... will increase by 5.9 percent in 2022, the Social Security Administration said on Wednesday. It is the biggest boost in 40 years as prices for food, cars and rent keep climbing. The increase, known as a cost of living adjustment, is the largest since 1982, when the adjustment was 7.4 percent, according to data from the administration. The average benefit -- 70 million Americans receive them -- would climb to $1,657 a month, up $92 from this year. The adjustment is a response to consumer prices in the United States that have jumped at their fastest pace in years. It is tied to the Labor Department's Consumer Price Index, which rose 5.4 percent in September from a year earlier." A CNBC report is here.
Coral Davenport of the New York Times: "The Biden administration announced on Wednesday a plan to develop large-scale wind farms along nearly the entire coastline of the United States, the first long-term strategy from the government to produce electricity from offshore turbines. Speaking at a wind power industry conference in Boston, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said that her agency will begin to identify, demarcate and hope to eventually lease federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of Maine and off the coasts of the Mid-Atlantic States, North Carolina and South Carolina, California and Oregon, to wind power developers by 2025. The announcement came months after the Biden administration approved the nation's first major commercial offshore wind farm off the coast of Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts and began reviewing a dozen other potential offshore wind projects along the East Coast. On the West Coast, the administration has approved opening up two areas off the shores of Central and Northern California for commercial wind power development." A CNN story is here.
Katie Benner of the New York Times: "The Justice Department said on Wednesday that it was investigating juvenile correctional facilities in Texas over allegations of physical violence, sexual abuse and other mistreatment of children held there. The investigation, which will also examine the state's use of isolation and chemicals like pepper spray, is part of a broader effort to overhaul the criminal justice system and address conditions in prisons, a goal that in recent years has had bipartisan support and was pursued by the Obama and Trump administrations before President Biden took office. And it follows other recent Justice Department investigations into adult correctional facilities in states including Georgia and New Jersey." The Guardian's story is here.
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot issued a subpoena on Wednesday to Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official under ... Donald J. Trump who was involved in Mr. Trump's frenzied efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. The subpoena seeks testimony and records from Mr. Clark, a little-known official who repeatedly pushed his colleagues at the Justice Department to help Mr. Trump undo his loss. The panel's focus on him indicates that it is deepening its scrutiny of the root causes of the attack, which disrupted a congressional session called to count the electoral votes formalizing President Biden's victory.... The Senate Judiciary Committee said last week that there was credible evidence that Mr. Clark was involved in efforts to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power, citing his proposal to deliver a letter to state legislators in Georgia and others encouraging them to delay certification of election results." The AP's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to Rachel Maddow, Jeremy Clark has been unceremoniously "disappeared" from the Website of the crazy right-wing "think" tank (or whatever it is), which proudly announced his employment earlier this year.
Betsy Swan of Politico: "Jeff Rosen, the acting attorney general during the final days of the Trump administration, sat for an interview with the Jan. 6 select committee on Wednesday, according to two sources familiar with the matter."
Kaitlin Collins of CNN: "The White House formally rejected the request by ... Donald Trump to assert executive privilege to shield from lawmakers a subset of documents that has been requested by the House committee investigating January 6, and set an aggressive timeline for their release. The latest letter came after the Biden administration informed the National Archives on Friday that it would not assert executive privilege over a tranche of documents related to January 6 from the Trump White House."
Andrew Feinberg of the (U.K.) Independent, republished in Yahoo! News: "... Donald Trump on Wednesday predicted that Republican voters will sit out the 2022 and 2024 elections if the GOP doesn't somehow manage to reverse the results of the election he lost in 2020.... 'If we don't solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in '22 or '24,' the former president wrote. 'It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do'." MB: Not sure if that's a prediction, a directive or a threat from the Dear Leader.
While Dangling the Fate of the Nation on Her Little Finger, Krysten Goes on a European Jaunt. Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: "Senator Kyrsten Sinema ... [is] in Europe on a fund-raising trip.... The chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, is also in Europe this week and headlined a dinner on Wednesday in London, with contribution levels as much as $36,500, according to a copy of an invitation. Ms. Sinema's name does not appear on that invitation.... Ms. Sinema's office declined to say how long she would be abroad, what countries she was visiting, how the trip was being paid for and whether she was doing any additional fund-raising for her own campaign." The Hill's summary report is here. MB: Sinema is not merely an unserious person; she's a nut.
Connecticut, Beware of Brazilian Terrorists Carrying Gucci Bags! Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, an outspoken critic of President Biden's immigration policies, said affluent Brazilians were illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and heading to Connecticut 'wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags.'... The senator, who recently visited the border in Arizona, [told Fox 'News' personality Sean Hannity on Tuesday]: 'We had 40,000 Brazilians come through the Yuma Sector alone headed for Connecticut wearing designer clothes and Gucci bags. This is not economic migration anymore.... People see an open America,' he continued. 'They're taking advantage of us. And it won't be long before a terrorist gets in this crowd.'"
Robert Barnes of the Washington Post: "The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed prepared to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, despite aggressive questioning from the court's liberals about whether crucial evidence was kept from jurors who decided not to spare his life. The court was reviewing a decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit. In July, the panel agreed with Tsarnaev's lawyers that the judge overseeing his 2015 trial did not adequately question potential jurors for bias in the case, which received massive publicity. In overturning Tsarnaev's death sentence, the panel also said some evidence was improperly withheld that might have indicated his older brother, Tamerlan, was more culpable for the bombing. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed as police closed in on the brothers days after the April 2013 attack." CNN's story is here.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The Washington Post's live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here. The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Wednesday are here.
News You Can Use. Carolyn Johnson of the Washington Post: "Recipients of the Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine may need a booster shot -- and while they could benefit from a second dose of the original vaccine, they may derive even greater protection if the boost comes from a different vaccine technology, according to data that emerged Wednesday. The documents include an FDA review of Johnson & Johnson's tests of a second dose of its own vaccine and a separate preprint study that tested mixing booster doses from different companies. The data could provide a road map for the 15 million people who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States, many of whom have felt left out because the vast majority of U.S. vaccine recipients received messenger RNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna." An NPR story is here.
Beyond the Beltway
California. Alexander Nieves of Politico: "Los Angeles City Councilmember Mark Ridley-Thomas was indicted on federal charges Wednesday for his role in an alleged bribery scheme that landed his son a professorship at USC. Federal prosecutors alleged in a 20-count indictment that Ridley-Thomas helped direct funding and contracts to USC's school of social work while serving on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In exchange, his son, former state lawmaker Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, was guaranteed graduate school admission and a paid teaching position by the school's then-dean, Marilyn Louise Flynn. Mark Ridley-Thomas also moved $100,000 from a campaign committee through USC and eventually into the account of a nonprofit that employed his son, the indictment alleges.... Flynn, who has since retired from USC, was also named in the indictment."
Colorado. Emma Brown of the Washington Post: "A Colorado judge on Wednesday prohibited a local official who has embraced conspiracy theories from overseeing November's election, finding she breached and neglected her duties and was 'untruthful' when she brought in someone who was not a county employee to copy the hard drives of Dominion Voting Systems machines. The effort by Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters (R) to ferret out supposedly hidden evidence of fraud amounted to an escalation in the attacks on the nation's voting systems, according to experts.... Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) filed a lawsuit in August seeking to formally strip Peters of her election duties after passwords for Mesa County's voting machines were posted online and copies of the hard drives were presented at a symposium hosted by MyPillow executive Mike Lindell.... Judge Valerie J. Robison found Peters and her deputy, Belinda Knisley..., are both 'unable or unwilling to appropriately perform the duties' of the county's chief elections official." Colorado Public Radio's report is here.
Georgia. Mariana Alfaro of the Washington Post: "A fundraiser for Republican Herschel Walker, a [Trump-backed] U.S. Senate candidate in Georgia, was canceled Wednesday after its host was criticized for featuring an image that used a swastika made out of syringes on her Twitter profile. Bettina Sofia Viviano-Langlais, a Republican donor, was set to host a fundraiser for Walker this weekend in Parker, Tex., according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which first noted Wednesday morning that her Twitter profile picture resembled the symbol. That specific rendering of the vaccine-needle swastika has been co-opted by activists nationwide who oppose coronavirus vaccine mandates and compare them to Nazi treatment of the Jews. Within hours of the Journal-Constitution's report, the account's profile picture had been changed and Walker had called off the event despite initially standing by Viviano-Langlais." A Huffington Post report is here.
News Ledes
New York Times: “A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted a former top pilot for Boeing, Mark Forkner, in connection with statements he and the company made about its troubled 737 Max jet, the culmination of a long investigation. Mr. Forkner is accused of deceiving the Federal Aviation Administration and of 'scheming to defraud Boeing's U.S.‑based airline customers to obtain tens of millions of dollars for Boeing,' the Justice Department said in a statement. Prosecutors contend that Mr. Forkner provided the aviation agency with 'materially false, inaccurate and incomplete information' about flight control software implicated in two crashes in 2018 and 2019 in which 346 people were killed. That software, known as MCAS (for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) was designed to push down the plane's nose in certain situations."
New York Times: "Nearly four decades after his wife's abrupt disappearance cast a cloud of suspicion that would make his case one of the most notorious in the country, Robert A. Durst was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison for the execution-style killing in 2000 of a close confidante. The 78-year-old Mr. Durst, whose life story inspired a Hollywood movie and an HBO documentary, will not be eligible for parole. The jury that
AP: "A Danish man who is in custody in Norway suspected of a bow-and-arrow attack on a small town that killed five people and wounded two others is a Muslim convert who had previously been flagged as having being radicalized, police said Thursday. The man is suspected of having shot at people in a number of locations in the town of Kongsberg on Wednesday evening. Several of the victims were in a supermarket, police said.... The victims were four women and one man between the ages of 50 and 70, Saeverud said. Officials believe that the man didn't start killing people until police arrived on the scene." ~~~
~~~ Update. The New York Times story is here.
Share Article
Reader Comments (8)
Trumpy treasoneer Jeffrey Clark works (should that be in quotes?) for a right wing think tank? Is that like a Mafia benevolent society? A corrupt ethics department? What do they think about? Tanking democracy? How best to destroy the country? I guess they hired the right guy.
@Actually, it's worse than I let on. I listened to the first few minutes of Maddow's show again at midnight (only because I was in the other room & MSNBC was where the proverbial dial was set). According to both Rachel & the wikipedias, "Clark currently works as the Chief of Litigation and Director of Strategy for the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA), which describes itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit civil rights organization whose goal is "to protect constitutional freedoms from violations by the Administrative State." The NCLA is mainly funded by the Charles Koch Foundation. The organization's current focus is opposition to vaccine mandates and other Covid-19-related regulations and orders."
So it's more of a shit tank than a think tank. Clark is/was getting paid by a Koch brother to make American sick. IOW, everything about him is contemptible. I'll bet he wears dirty underwear & jerks off to child porn at lunchtime.
Can't wait for all those Fox News and other right wingers to weigh
in on the Hunter Biden art. I'm not an artist but I saw one on the TV,
just like they probably did.
Personally I don't like his style but there are lots of others who do, and
would buy it even without his name on it.
It would have been interesting if he had used a pseudonym, like Marie
did when replying to Akhilleus above.
Yowza! MB done gone full Monty on us––dirty underwear and jerking off to child porn? Well, I never, as my mother would say in her day. But by the looks of Jeffrey, MB probably coined it correctly.
Here's an interesting tidbit: Katie Couric edited out controversial comments by RBG in her new book. Was this the right decision? The fact that Ruth herself reneged on those statements afterwords was a good thing, but if the little foxes get a hold of this they gonna milk it to death––––Them Libbies protect their own!!!! See????
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/katie-couric-book-ruth-bader-ginsburg-kneeling-protests_n_616755e8e4b065a5496f7184
Love all those wind turbines–-no more Gone with the Wind but Get with the Wind although Fatty will once again tell us about the birds because he probably doesn't know those turbines have been redesigned to ward off those flying creatures and if corrected he will, as usual, say to his sycophants––IT'S A BIG LIE ! and they will believe him.
Sad
Why journalism matters: https://flatheadbeacon.com/2021/10/13/farewell-flathead/ & https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/10/09/png-palm-oil-undercover-sting/. I beg to disagree: "The Hill's summary report is here. MB: Sinema is not merely an unserious person; she's a nut." She is focussed like a laser beam on the money. She grew up LDS; she tried playing by the rules and didn't make any money; and she's smart enough to get an MSW, a JD, and a PhD. To call her a nut is to underestimate her and to marginalize her sort of like calling someone a gadfly. She's the best the Democrats could do in Arizona; let's discuss that.
citizen: I will certainly agree with the fact that because Sinema managed to get all those degrees and was once playing by the rules shows she has brains and was once veering toward a democratic stance, but something or someone persuaded her to veer off in cuckoo land. There have been many brilliant minds that have gone off the rails for many different reasons; this gal with her pink hair and flowered frocks is parading in a different band than she started out in and my guess is $$$ plays a big part. You say she's the best Democrats can do in Arizona––-why do you think so. And calling her a nut may be marginalizing her but NUT fits pretty well in my book.
Discuss among yourselves as the coffee clutch circle once said.
Sinema Poised to Lose Primary:
https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/10/14/kyrsten-sinema-poised-to-lose-democratic-primary-in-2024
@citzen625 & @PD Pepe: Yeah, and
MikeMark Kelly (D-Az.) is doing fine. I think he's to the right of me on a number of issues, but he's doing his Senate work & he's going along with the Biden agenda. That's what a good Senator does. S/he may not like all of the party's program, but s/he goes along with the big stuff.Thanks to a reader for the correction.