September 27, 2022

Afternoon Update:

The January 6 committee hearing, originally scheduled for Wednesday, has been postponed because of Hurricane Ian, MSNBC is reporting. Time & date, TBD.

Collin Binkley of the AP: "A libertarian group in California filed a legal challenge to President Joe Biden's plan for student debt cancellation on Tuesday, calling it an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven. The lawsuit, believed to be the first targeting Biden&'s plan, was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento legal advocacy group. It was filed in federal court in Indiana, one of several states that plan to tax any student debt canceled by Biden's plan." The Washington Post's story is here.

Julia Ainsley of NBC News: "Senior leadership at the Secret Service confiscated the cellphones of 24 agents involved in the agency's response to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and handed them over to the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general, according to two sources with knowledge of the action. The agency handed over the phones 'shortly after' a July 19 letter was sent by Inspector General Joseph Cuffari's office around the time he launched a criminal probe into the Secret Service's missing text messages from Jan. 6, the sources said.... The revelation that Cuffari's office has had access to the phones since late July or August raises new questions about the progress of his criminal investigation into the missing text messages and what, if anything, the public may be able to learn about communications between agents on Jan. 6, 2021.... Some members of Congress and, most recently, some of Cuffari's employees have called his leadership into question."

Ryan Reilly of NBC News: "A Donald Trump fan who brought his teenage son along as he assaulted then-D.C. police officer Mike Fanone and another officer at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was sentenced to more than seven years in prison on Tuesday. Kyle Young, a 38-year-old HVAC worker from Iowa whose lawyer said was he 'injected' with lies about the 2020 election and who had asked his Facebook followers to join him at the "stop the steel [sic]" rally, pleaded guilty in May to a felony count of assaulting, resisting, or impeding officers.... As discovered by online sleuths, the government argued that Young handed a taser to Danny Rodriguez, a MAGA fanatic who used it to electroshock Fanone in the neck on Jan. 6. Young, trailed by his 16-year-old son, was right nearby as Rodriguez electroshocked Fanone, extensive video evidence shows." Prosecutors had previously said Young stole Fanone's badge & buried it in his back yard.

Michael Scherer, et al., of the Washington Post: "Top allies of Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, worked this spring to deny [Rep. Madison] Cawthorn [R-S.C.] a second term in office, after the Donald Trump-endorsed lawmaker made controversial comments about cocaine use and sex parties in Washington that led McCarthy to announce he had 'lost my trust,' according to multiple Republicans briefed on the effort, which has not been previously reported.... Targeting Cawthorn was part of a larger behind-the-scenes effort by top GOP donors and senior strategists to purge the influence of Republican factions that seek disruption and grandstanding, often at the expense of their GOP colleagues.... The allies close to McCarthy have sometimes taken steps to conceal their efforts, as they did in the Cawthorn case.... The Bakersfield, Calif., Republican[, i.e., McCarthy,] has recently embraced some of the most far-right members of his caucus, including Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), whose committee assignments he plans to restore if Republicans win the House."

Arkansas. Only English-Speakers Need Vote Here. Antoinette Grajeda of the Arkansas Advocate: "Language poses a big challenge for voters with limited English proficiency in Arkansas, where ballots are only printed in English.... Federal law requires counties or cities where more than 10,000 or over 5% of voting-age citizens who are non-English-speaking to provide ballots in a limited number of languages -- Spanish, Asian and Native American languages. The Census Bureau determines which jurisdictions are subject to the law's requirement for translated ballots. Advocates for non-English-speaking groups and voting rights 'contend the federal threshold is too high and does not cover enough languages, leaving voters in many immigrant communities unable to fully understand election materials,' according to a May article in Stateline, a publication of the Pew Charitable Trusts.... No political subdivision in Arkansas is required to provide translated materials under that section of the Voting Rights Act."

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Race. Allan Smith of NBC News: "State Sen. Doug Mastriano, the Republican nominee for governor in Pennsylvania, said in 2019 that women should be charged with murder if they violated his proposed abortion ban. In an interview with Pennsylvania radio station WITF, Mastriano was pressed about a bill he sponsored that would generally bar abortions when a fetal heartbeat could first be detected, usually around six weeks..., before many women know they are pregnant.... ... At last week's Pennsylvania March for Life, Mastriano called the battle over abortion rights 'the single most important issue, I think, in our lifetime.'" ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: You may comfort yourself thinking Mastriano is just one crazy misogynist, but punishing women for obtaining abortions is a natural development in the devolution of healthcare law regarding American women. Trump himself, in 2016 -- before he got "schooled" in then-popular anti-woman language -- said "there has to be some form of punishment" for women who have abortions should abortions become illegal.

~~~~~~~~~~

Katie Rogers & Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "President Biden's plan to erase significant amounts of student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans could cost about $400 billion, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report Monday, making it one of the costliest programs in the president's agenda. The C.B.O. said the price tag might rise even higher because of Mr. Biden's decision to extend a pause on federal student loan repayments through the end of the year, which could end up costing some $20 billion. The report gauged the cost over a period of 30 years, though the bulk of the effects to the economy would be felt over the next decade." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: As usual, the news media, and now also the CBO, are looking at this while wearing blinders. This is not an extra cost to American taxpayers; rather, this is shifting the cost of college education from the states -- which used to heavily subsidize in-state tuition -- to the federal government, which is now paying some of the costs of higher education.

Patricia Cohen of the New York Times: "The Federal Reserve's determination to crush inflation at home by raising interest rates is inflicting profound pain in other countries -- pushing up prices, ballooning the size of debt payments and increasing the risk of a deep recession. Those interest rate increases are pumping up the value of the dollar -- the go-to currency for much of the world's trade and transactions -- and causing economic turmoil in both rich and poor nations. In Britain and across much of the European continent, the dollar's acceleration is helping feed stinging inflation. On Monday, the British pound touched a record low against the dollar as investors balked at a government tax cut and spending plan. And China, which tightly controls its currency, fixed the renminbi at its lowest level in two years while taking steps to manage its decline."

Isabella Simonetti of the New York Times: "Markets around the world trembled on Monday, extending a losing streak that has been fueled by mounting panic that the global economy is going to take a hit. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell to a new low for the year, dropping more than 1 percent on Monday and taking its decline for the year to more than 23 percent. Most benchmarks in Asia and Europe also dropped. While there are many unanswered questions about the potential for a recession -- including when it might start and how severe it might be -- investors have come to fear that it is an increasingly likely outcome."

David Sanger of the New York Times: "The last time waves of protests swept Iran, after the killing of a young woman who was standing on the sidelines of an anti-government rally in 2009, Barack Obama hesitated to back the anti-government movement publicly for fear that Tehran would claim the C.I.A. was secretly sparking the unrest. Thirteen years later, under remarkably similar circumstances, President Biden has taken a dramatically different approach. He publicly sided with the protesters in his speech to the United Nations last week. The United States moved quickly last week to impose sanctions on the country's morality police. And the administration has permitted the activation of satellite links and other internet services in hopes of restoring communications among the protesters, despite attempts by Iranian officials to keep them in the dark. Now the race is on to get the communications equipment into the hands of the protesters...."

Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Top lawmakers proposed a stopgap funding package on Monday night that would avert a government shutdown at the end of the week and set aside a major new round of emergency aid to Ukraine to defend itself against Russia. With funding set to run out when a new fiscal year begins on Saturday, lawmakers are aiming to quickly move the legislation through both chambers in the coming days to keep the government funded through Dec. 16. But even as the final details of the package came together, it faced an increasing likelihood that it could not pass in its current form."

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post: "Pay no attention to the House Republicans' substance-free 'Commitment to America.' The actual GOP plan, if the party takes control of the lower chamber in January, is a campaign of performative revenge. Ginned-up investigations, cruel attacks on the marginalized, even a concocted impeachment of President Biden -- that's what the nation has to look forward to if Republicans win the House. Those are the only things the party agrees on, except fealty to Donald Trump and an all-consuming desire for power."

Stephen Fowler of NPR: "Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is set to testify Tuesday before a grand jury in Fulton County regarding efforts to try to overturn the state's 2020 election." Audio story.

Zachary Cohen of CNN: "... Mark Meadows & election conspiracy theorist Phil Waldron texted each other in late December 2020 about gaining access to voting machines in Arizona & Texas. "The messages, which have not been previously reported, shed new light on how Waldron's reach extended into the highest levels of the White House and the extent to which Meadows was kept abreast of plans for accessing voting machines, a topic sources tell CNN, and court documents suggest, is of particular interest to state and federal prosecutors probing efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The messages also provide an early window into how an effort to gain access to voting machines through the courts and state legislatures morphed into a more clandestine endeavor that is now the subject of multiple criminal investigations." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Mystery Solved. Ryan Reilly & Ben Collins of NBC News: "A high-ranking member of the far-right Oath Keepers organization who has been charged in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol exchanged messages in November 2020 with former Trump White House aide Andrew Giuliani about election issues. That same Oath Keeper member, Kellye SoRelle, also tried to text a WhiteHouse number on Dec. 20, according to a new book from Denver Riggleman, a former Republican congressman from Virginia, and journalist Hunter Walker. That text message went to a White House switchboard line, so it could not be delivered.... Riggleman told NBC News that he had divulged details of the text messages in his book so that 'reporters would follow up on some of the crucial evidence that had not been made public.' NBC News has seen a copy of the book, which will be published Tuesday.... Andrew Giuliani ... was on leave from the White House to work on elections issues in late 2020...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Dalton Bennett, et al., of the Washington Post: "The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob intends to show at its hearing this week video footage of Roger Stone recorded by Danish filmmakers during the weeks before the violence, according to people familiar with the matter. The committee is considering including video clips in which Stone, a longtime friend and adviser to ... Donald Trump, predicted violent clashes with left-wing activists and forecast months before the 2020 vote that the president would use armed guards and loyal judges to stay in power...." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ The hearing will begin Wednesday afternoon at 1:00 pm ET.

Michelle Goldberg of the New York Times: "The title of the Reddit post this month seemed almost too shocking to be true: 'My Qdad snapped and killed my family this morning.' The post -- by Rebecca Lanis, a 21-year-old from Michigan -- was on a forum dedicated to people who've lost loved ones to QAnon, the sprawling conspiracy cult that imagines that Donald Trump is waging a secret war against blood-drinking pedophiles who run Hollywood and the Democratic Party.... The killings weren't the first to be linked to QAnon radicalization.... Which is why Trump's embrace of the movement is not just dangerous, but cruel.... [As to why Trump is encouraging QAnon,] my own guess is that he's deepening his connection with his most fanatical fans to more easily whip up a vigilante mob if he's indicted on any of the many charges he appears to be facing. What's clear, though, is how little he thinks of those fans, whom he is blithely encouraging down a ruinous path."

Beyond the Beltway

Mississippi. Khristopher Brooks of CBS News: "Two of Brett Favre's weekly shows have reportedly been suspended due to the former quarterback's alleged entanglement in a welfare fraud case unfolding in Mississippi. ESPN paused 'The Brett Favre Show' podcast last week, the network confirmed with CBS MoneyWatch, and SiriusXM did the same for Favre's weekly radio show, The Athletic tweeted Sunday.... An auditor found state officials redirected more than $70 million in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families welfare funds last year to Favre and other individuals instead of giving the money to low-income families. State officials, more specifically, used a nonprofit organization to funnel $1.1 million to Favre as a stipend to perform speeches that he never gave, Mississippi auditor Shad White found.... The Mississippi Department of Human Services has filed a lawsuit against Favre, three former pro wrestlers and several other people and businesses to try to recover millions in welfare dollars."

Pennsylvania Gubernatorial Race. Reid Epstein of the New York Times: Doug “Mastriano, an insurgent state senator who in the spring cruised to the Republican nomination, is learning this fall that while it is one thing to win a crowded G.O.P. primary on the back of online fame and Donald J. Trump's endorsement, it is quite another to prevail in a general election in a battleground state of nearly 13 million people. He is being heavily outspent by his Democratic rival [Josh Shapiro], has had no television ads on the air since May, has chosen not to interact with the state's news media in ways that would push his agenda, and trails by double digits in reputable public polling and most private surveys.... Republicans elsewhere [-- Arizona, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan --] who, with Mr. Trump's endorsement, won primaries against the wishes of their local political establishments are facing similar disparities in TV advertising in the final weeks of the midterm campaigns." (Also linked yesterday.)

Texas. Eleanor Klibanoff of the Texas Tribune: "Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton fled his home in a truck driven by his wife, state Sen. Angela Paxton, to avoid being served a subpoena Monday, according to an affidavit filed in federal court. Ernesto Martin Herrera, a process server, was attempting to serve the state's top attorney with a subpoena for a federal court hearing Tuesday in a lawsuit from nonprofits that want to help Texans pay for abortions out of state...." The affidavit says Paxton "RAN" away, twice, to avoid Herrera. "On Twitter, the attorney general said his sudden departure was motivated by concerns for his family's safety." MB: Uh, the subpoena might have given his wife a paper cut?

Way Beyond

Ukraine, et al.

The New York Times' live updates of developments Tuesday in Russia's war on Ukraine are here.

Mary Ilyushina of the Washington Post: "A young man shot and wounded the chief recruitment officer at a military enlistment station in Russia's Irkutsk region on Monday, local authorities said, as thousands of fighting-age men continued to flee the country to escape being summoned to duty in ... Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)&

Alan Yuhas Liptak of the New York Times: "President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday granted Russian citizenship to Edward J. Snowden, the former U.S. intelligence contractor who became one of the world's most high-profile fugitives after he disclosed mass surveillance techniques to news organizations. Mr. Snowden said in 2020 that he was applying for Russian citizenship, describing the decision as a practical measure to give his family greater freedom crossing borders. His request was granted by Mr. Putin in a decree dated Monday and published by the Kremlin. Mr. Snowden, 39, was among dozens of foreigners granted citizenship in the decree." The AP's report is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Well, that's nice. Now when is Putin going to grant Russian citizenship to the other person famous for playing fast & loose with U.S. government secrets? There may yet be a Trump Tower Moscow. Better yet, a Trump Tower Omsk.

Cuba. Eduardo Medina of the New York Times: "Cubans overwhelmingly approved a sweeping referendum that will allow same-sex couples to marry and adopt children, the national election commission said on Monday, a resounding victory for advocates of L.G.B.T.Q. rights in a country that once sent gay men to labor camps. About 67 percent of voters, nearly 4 million, voted in favor, according to the Cuban government. About 33 percent, or 2 million people, opposed the measure. President Miguel Díaz-Canel, the first non-Castro to lead the nation since its 1959 revolution, celebrated the passage of the 100-page referendum, saying in a statement that 'love is now the law.'"

Way, Way Beyond

     ~~~ Joel Achenbach of the Washington Post: "NASA managed Monday to crash a small spacecraft directly into an asteroid, a 14,000-mile-per-hour collision designed to test whether such a technology could someday be deployed to protect Earth from a potentially catastrophic impact. The violent end of the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft thrilled scientists and engineers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., which operated the mission under a NASA contract. The asteroid, Dimorphos, is the size of a stadium -- or the Great Pyramid of Giza, as one scientist put it Monday -- and is about 7 million miles from Earth at the moment. It orbits a larger asteroid named Didymos. Neither poses a threat to our planet now or anytime in the foreseeable future."

     ~~~ Marie: I watched this Monday night in real time. Monday was the centenary of my mother's birth. My mother was not an astrophysicist, but she was a chemist and pretty much the only scientist in our family. So crashing into an asteroid was a fairly spectacular birthday present for her.

Christian Davenport of the Washington Post: "On Monday, NASA said it would once again delay the launch of its Artemis I, the first in a series of steps that would eventually return astronauts to the moon, this time because Hurricane Ian was barreling toward the Florida coast. This latest delay means NASA will not be able to attempt another launch for at least another three weeks. Previous attempts were marred because of technical issues -- a bad sensor, a troublesome hydrogen leak. In recent days NASA said it had fixed those problems and was ready to go."

News Ledes

The New York Times is live-updating Hurricane Ian developments. ~~~

~~~ Washington Post: "Hurricane Ian made landfall over western Cuba early Tuesday as a Category 3 storm -- bringing with it 'significant wind and storm surge impacts' as it continued to make its way toward Florida. Residents of coastal communities around the Tampa Bay region have been ordered to evacuate and urged to go even short distances to avoid the worst of the storm. Ian is expected to move -- its strength relatively unchanged -- over western Cuba in the next few hours before strengthening as it emerges southeast of the Gulf of Mexico in the late morning, the National Hurricane Center said in its most recent advisory. It is expected to move west of the Florida Keys later today and head for the west coast of Florida as a major hurricane by Wednesday night."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Far-right extremist, misogynist AG Kan Paxton has taken a tip from Josh Hee-Hawley: when the going gets tough…run away, run away! Responsibility is for the other party. If Paxton was so sure of his stance on abortion, why is he afraid to stand his ground and fight for it? Because it’s far easier to issue proclamations and hand down draconian laws based purely on religion from afar than it is to face anyone who has a different and entirely responsible and reasonable point of view. Besides, that won’t let him look tough and manly on Fox. So…run away!

[Forrest Morris]

https://youtu.be/gclatsiRj4Y

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg points out the obvious:
Republicans like DeSantis know the problems but would rather
just point out the problems with inhumane stunts. That is easier
for them than helping to solve the problems and gets them lots of
air time in Fox News.
Hopefully lots of voters will remember that face come midterm
elections, but personally I wouldn't bet on it.

[Akhilleus]

Arty, Schmarty

The always engaging Amanda Marcotte takes a look at what passes for art in Right-Wing World, and it’s not good.

Just a quick thought experiment: picture art, say paintings or murals or plays or music produced by right-wing, fascist cultures. See what I mean? Horrible stuff, right?

A while back we considered the topic of right-wing humor. And I don’t mean schoolyard taunts and nasty insults. Oh, wait. That IS right-wing humor. Rush Limbaugh shouting at a black caller to “take the bone out of your nose” or Trump sniffing that some women are ugly and he wouldn’t bother trying to rape them cuz they’re not his type (he has rape type!). That’s what passes for humor on the right.

Why aren’t they funny? Because propaganda isn’t funny. Political humor makes fun of people at the top. Confederates would never make fun of Trump the way more left leaning comics used to joke about Clinton back in the day. Wingers need The Stern Father to always be right. Instead, they make fun (if you can call it that) of those at the bottom, the poor, the wretched. Cuz it’s easy and they like it.

I looked up a list of top ten movies for conservatives (really, there are no actual conservatives anymore, a fact we dealt with some time ago, but never mind). Every single one involves violence, murder, mayhem. Some of them are actually good movies, Terence Malick’s “Tbin Red Line”, for instance. But the list is full of stuff like “Rambo” and “Dirty Harry”, and the ultra-violent, macho heavy “Starship Troopers”. “Magnificent Ambersons” couldn’t make the list? What about “Singing in the Rain”, or “La Grande Illusion”? Okay, never mind.

But seriously, why all the violence? And this isn’t to say that movies containing violence can’t be good. “Battle of Algiers” is a great movie, so too the first two “Godfather” films. But these movies are also about other stuff. “Thin Red Line” is as well, but it’s still a war movie, even if a pretty unconventional one (I mean, Terence Malick, right?). The Rambo movies are about revenge, a big deal for too many wingers. We'll show those weak sister liberals how manly men do it!

But Marcotte also mentions movies by Ben Shapiro (we won’t even get into the absolute dreck produced by propagandists like Dinesh D’Souza). I didn’t even know Shapiro wrote novels. I only know him as the slow talking, soporific guy who comes out with snide remarks now and then. I’m guessing “soporific” applies to his filmic attempts.

She also brings up a song by a guy named Tim Pool, a YouTuber apparently beloved by white supremacists, and a supporter of Alex Jones. The song is called “Only Ever Wanted”. So I listened to it. Sort of. After two minutes into a pop song and you don’t know what it’s about and can’t find a discernible tune or interesting chord change or lyrics that make sense, with heavily processed, auto-tuned vocals, sorry, that’s a huge fail. “Only Never Wanted”.

I’ve been a musician all my life, played in working bands, rock, blues, jazz, even sang in the chorus of an opera once (that was a blast). But I’ve never been any good at writing songs. In fact, I suck. My stuff is too derivative. And this Tim Pool guy doesn’t even come up to “derivative”. This song makes “Wild Thing” by the Troggs seem like a masterpiece of Western music. (It’s actually a pretty great pop song.)

So why do wingers listen to it, in droves, apparently (it’s supposed to be some kind of hit)?

To own the libs. Plus the Nazis and Proud Boys (aren’t they the same thing?) apparently have driven it to the top of some charts by multiple listens because this Tim Pool character presents himself as a former liberal pansy who saw the light and turned to the dark side.

But is that a reason for supporting art? Or “art” even? I dunno ‘bout youse guys, but whenever I listen to Tony Bennett and Bill Evans perform “Some Other Time”, or I stand in front of a Frieda Kahlo painting, I think “Fuck yeah! This’ll show Roger Stone! Take that, Bill O’Reilly!”

The problem is that art is supposed to be about truth. If your belief system rules that out, whatcha got then?

Well, I’m gonna cue up “Wild Thing” and revel in the truth about young love. “But I wanna know for sure! C’mon…hold me tight!”

Pure genius.

https://www.salon.com/2022/09/23/the-right-loves-to-say-politics-is-downstream-from-culture-but-on-the-right-the-opposite-is-true/

[`PD Pepe]

Forest: Could we then say DeSantis will soon be awash in waters up to his neck when Fiona hits his home sweet home?

And speaking of females causing hurricanes: Iranian women are finally surging forth and throwing off their ties that bind and in Italy another woman has surged forward and thinks she can rule like Orban but will find HER hands tied and here we heard Ms Sin--a--Ma spout her stuff which was pure applesauce ––-rotten to the core. One could conclude women are finally fighting furiously ( re: the abortion issue) for good or ill––-no more the silent majority who had to sit in the back row and be handled.