;)
The Commentariat -- December 28, 2020
Afternoon Update:
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here.
Sarah Burris of the Raw Story: Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted an attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci, accusing Fauci of lying about the efficacy of masks & distorting information about herd immunity. "As usual, the real answer is a little more nuanced than Rubio seems capable of understanding or he's the one who's outright lying to Americans about the facts to score political points. As for the 'elites' Rubio [accuses of tricking the American people], is one of the 'elites' who has already received the vaccine." Burris includes tweeted criticisms of Rubio.
Clare Foran, et al., of CNN: "The House of Representatives will vote on Monday on a measure to increase stimulus checks for Americans under a certain income level to $2,000 after President Trump signed a sweeping coronavirus relief bill into law Sunday evening."
Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House is primed to vote Monday evening to reject President Trump's veto of a $741 billion defense authorization bill, setting up the first congressional override of his presidency just days before he exits office. Trump made good on repeated threats to veto the legislation last week, when he sent the bill back to Congress with a laundry list of objections. Among the president's complaints were that it ordered the Pentagon to change the names of military installations commemorating Confederate generals; restricted his ability to pull U.S. troops out of Germany, South Korea and Afghanistan; and did not repeal an unrelated law giving certain liability protections to technology companies. His veto led some of his stalwart supporters, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), to announce that they would not cross the president's veto, even though they had voted for the defense bill. But despite those gestures of solidarity, the president has never had the numbers to sustain a veto, according to congressional officials." The AP has a related story here.
Stupid Crazy People Have Another Stupid Crazy Plan. Justin Rohrlich of the Daily Beast: "A group of Republicans including Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas and Kelli Ward of Arizona is suing Vice President Mike Pence in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The Electoral College is scheduled to certify the win on Jan. 6, a procedural task overseen by the sitting vice president.... In the lawsuit, details of which reporter John Kruzel of The Hill posted on Twitter, Gohmert, Ward, and 10 other plaintiffs such as Students for Trump COO Tyler Bowyer, Arizona Republican Party Executive Director Greg Safsten and Maricopa County Republicans Second Vice Chair Nancy Cottle, are asking federal Judge Jeremy Kernodle, a Trump appointee, to declare Pence legally authorized to pick pro-Trump electors on Jan. 6." Here's Kruzel's story in the Hill.
Tennessee. Rick Rojas, et al., of the New York Times: "Anthony Warner had a solitary job as an information technology specialist.... He was 63. He was not married. His neighbors barely knew him. He sent an email to one of his clients three weeks ago to say he was retiring. He started shedding possessions: He told his ex-girlfriend that he had cancer and gave her his car. Records show that he signed away his home on the day before Thanksgiving. But he made sure to hold on to ... his R.V., a Thor Motor Coach Chateau that he kept in his back yard. He parked the vehicle around 1:22 a.m. Christmas morning on Second Avenue North in downtown Nashville, in the heart of a district of honky-tonks, restaurants and boot shops that would often be packed but was quiet in the small hours of a holiday morning. The R.V. had been rigged with explosives and a speaker set to play a warning and a song: 'Downtown' by Petula Clark, a hit released in 1964 celebrating the bright lights and bustle of a vibrant city.... Just before dawn, the R.V. exploded, its concussion reverberating for blocks."
~~~~~~~~~~
President-elect Joe Biden & Dr. Jill Biden spent Sunday being normal people, going about their lives preparing to move to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue & doing ordinary things. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE ~~~
Kate Bennett, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump has signed the massive $2.3 trillion dollar coronavirus relief and government funding bill into law Sunday night, according to multiple sources, averting a government shutdown that was set to begin on Tuesday, and extending billions of dollars in coronavirus aid to millions. Aides had prepared for the President to sign the bill as early as Christmas Eve, when it arrived at Mar-a-Lago for his signature. But the plan was scrapped at the last minute, two sources with knowledge of the circumstances told CNN.... In anticipation of the [planned December 24] signing, the smaller of Mar-a-Lago's two ballrooms was prepped for a 7 p.m. ceremony, complete with a desk and chair for Trump to sit, and his customary pens at the ready, according to the source. However, as the hour approached, aides were informed the President would not be signing the relief bill that evening. One source told CNN that Trump had 'changed his mind.' The country, Congress and many of Trump's closest aides and advisers had remained in the dark as to what he intended to do." ~~~
~~~ Self-described "Dealmaker" Drops Big Bluff without Getting Demanded Concessions. Burgess Everett, et al., of Politico: "... on Sunday evening after days of being lobbied by allies, Trump decided to sign the bill and not leave office amid a maelstrom of expired benefits and a government shutdown. He said he will insist on reductions in spending in parts of the bill, though Congress does not have to go along. 'I will sign the omnibus and Covid package with a strong message that makes clear to Congress that wasteful items need to be removed. I will send back to Congress a redlined version, item by item, accompanied by the formal rescission request to Congress insisting that those funds be removed from the bill,' Trump said on Sunday night. The president also said the Senate would soon begin work on ending legal protections for tech companies, examining voter fraud and boosting the check size for direct payments. The current Congress ends in six days." ~~~
While it's a huge relief that the bill is being signed, Donald Trump's tantrum has created unnecessary hardship and stress for millions of families. -- Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon ~~~
~~~ Emily Cochrane, et al., of the New York Times: "The enactment ... came after two critical unemployment programs lapsed, guaranteeing a delay in benefits for millions of unemployed Americans.... The delay also jeopardized the time frame for distributing the $600 direct payments to most American adults, which Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, had initially promised could be distributed as early as this week.... Even as he acquiesced to bipartisan pleas to sign the legislation, the president issued a series of demands for congressional action, though lawmakers showed little immediate eagerness to embrace them with just six days left in the session." ~~~
~~~ Seung Min Kim, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Trump unexpectedly capitulated Sunday night and signed the stimulus bill into law, releasing $900 billion in emergency relief funds into the economy and averting a Tuesday government shutdown.... Trump signed the bill while vacationing in Florida and on a weekend when he had allowed unemployment benefits for 14 million Americans to expire.... White House officials didn't explain why the president decided to suddenly back down and sign into law a bill he had held up for nearly a week and had referred to as a 'disgrace' just days earlier." MB: The real disgrace is Trump, who is crueler than Scrooge & more self-centered that Scarlett O'Hara. This is an update of a story linked Sunday evening.
Jill Lawrence of USA Today: "It should never be shrugged off when a president flies to his luxury Florida golf club to hit the links after single-handedly upending months of painful negotiations for COVID-19 relief. Marie Antoinette had nothing on Trump.... It should never be shrugged off when a commander in chief offers pardons and clemency to convicted war criminals and white-collar criminals, cronies and allies and crooks with friends in high places.... It should never be shrugged off when the leader of a great nation abandons his people in a pandemic, leaving them to disease and death and turning his brilliant, wealthy country into a global role model for failure.... It should never be shrugged off when an entire political party betrays an entire country. Republicans elected and then kept in office a president they knew from the start was incapable of handling an emergency, protecting the general welfare of his fellow citizens, using his vast powers judiciously and nobly, or simply meeting a bare minimum standard of ethical behavior." ~~~
~~~ Fintan O'Toole of The Irish Times: "It is not just that Trump really was not interested in governing. It is that he was deeply interested in misgovernment. He left important leadership positions in government departments unfilled on a permanent basis, or filled them with scandalously unqualified cronies.... [T]here was a duller but often more meaningful agenda: taking a blowtorch to regulation, especially, but by no means exclusively, in relation to the environment. This right-wing anarchism extended, of course, to global governance.... [T]he replacement of political institutions by personal rule was precisely the point.... In this nexus, the madder the better. Power is proven, not when the sycophants have to obey reasonable commands, but when they have to follow and justify the craziest orders.... Trump's wild swings of position were all about this delight in the command performance of utter obedience.... This is his legacy: he has successfully led a vast number of voters along the path from hatred of government to contempt for rational deliberation to the inevitable endpoint: disdain for the electoral process itself." Read the whole post. --s
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. Ken Meyer of Mediaite: "CNN's Jake Tapper said he won't interview certain pro-Donald Trump people because they've established themselves as liars for the president with 'no value' being aired on TV. Tapper joined Brian Stelter for 2020's final episode of Reliable Sources, which was a look-back on Trump's war with the media throughout his presidency.... Stelter noted that he used to speak with Trump boosters like Kellyanne Conway on the network, but he felt like those conversations grew less valuable and substantial with every interview.... 'Well, there are some people that are so mendacious, I just wouldn't put them on air,' Tapper [said]. 'Kayleigh McEnany, I never booked her. Jason Miller from the Trump campaign, I would never book him. These are just people who tell lies the way that most people breathe. There was no value in that.'"
Pennsylvania. Marie Albiges & Tom Lisi for Spotlight PA: "Since the passage of Act 77, the 2019 law that made sweeping changes to voting in Pennsylvania, at least 21 election directors and deputy directors from more than a dozen of the state's 67 counties have left or will soon leave their posts.... 'Mail-in voting has become like a second election that we have to run, that we never had to run before,' Lycoming County Elections Director Forrest Lehman said. 'It has almost doubled the workload, and you know, nobody's salaries have doubled at the same time.'... Despite these challenges, Election Day went smoothly.... Still, the people tasked with running elections are drained from dealing with regular verbal attacks from angry voters, confused or suspicious of the process this year.... There is no formal training for the high-stakes, complex work of elections administration.... Most directors assume the role after learning from their predecessor, making the departure of so many at once a major loss of institutional knowledge." --s ~~~
~~~ Marc Levy of NBC News Philadelphia: "Republicans who control the [Pennsylvania] state Legislature could use the first weeks of 2021 to fast-track a constitutional amendment that would remake the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court after Republicans and President Donald Trump accused the court of acting illegally or, baselessly, conspiring to steal the election..., stoking fears of an expensive public campaign fueled by dark money for control of the battleground state's highest court. As early as May 18's primary election, Pennsylvania voters could be asked to overhaul how they elect state Supreme Court justices and appellate court judges.... Such a change almost assuredly would cut short the high court's 5-2 Democratic majority that might otherwise last well beyond 2030.... It is a Republican power grab that smacks of payback, some opponents say, and a takeover of one independent branch of government by another." --s
The Trumpidemic, Ctd.
The New Yorker dedicates most of the magazine's issue this week to a long article by Lawrence Wright titled, "The Plague Year." To give you an idea of the length of the essay, the audio of the story runs for more than 3-1/2 hours. It will not, of course, take that long to read unless, like Donald Trump, you must read with your lips moving & your finger pointing to each word of the text.
Lauren Wolfe & Andrea Kannapell of the New York Times: "... a significant number of Americans traveled, and uncounted gatherings took place [over the Christmas holiday], as they will over the New Year holiday. And that, according to ... Anthony S. Fauci, could mean new spikes in cases, on top of the existing surge. 'We very well might see a post-seasonal -- in the sense of Christmas, New Year's -- surge,' Dr. Fauci said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'... U.S. case numbers are about as high as they have ever been. Total infections surpassed 19 million on Saturday, meaning that at least 1 in 17 people have contracted the virus over the course of the pandemic. And the virus has killed more than 332,000 people -- one in every thousand in the country."
** Peter Maass of The Intercept: "As COVID-19 tore through the United States in the spring, a senior official in the Trump administration quietly reinforced a set of guidelines that prevented journalists from getting inside all but a handful of hospitals at the front line of the pandemic.... The onerous guidelines were issued on May 5 by Roger Severino, who worked at the conservative Heritage Foundation before Donald Trump appointed him to direct the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS. The guidelines made it extremely difficult for hospitals to give photographers the opportunity to collect visual evidence of the pandemic's severity. By tightening the circulation of disturbing images, the guidelines fulfilled, intentionally or not, a key Trump administration goal: keeping public attention away from the death toll, which has surpassed 300,000 souls.... Severino's guidance, little known outside the health care industry, may help solve one of the mysteries of the pandemic: Why have Americans seen relatively little imagery of people suffering from Covid-19?" --
Kerry Picket of the (right-wing) Washington Examiner: "Now in his waning days as a House member, [Rep. Steve] King [R-IowaCrazy] says he plans to leave Washington. But without any resentment. King's first step is the publication of his book, Walking Through the Fire, the departing lawmaker told the Washington Examiner." ~~~
~~~ No Resentment, Steve? Amber Mohmand of The Des Moines Register: "U.S. Rep. Steve King filed an ethics complaint against House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday, objecting to the manner in which he was stripped of all of his House committee assignments last year.... The nine-term congressman from Kiron was removed from the House Judiciary and Agriculture committees shortly after an interview with the New York Times in Jan. 2019, in which he told a reporter, 'White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization -- how did that language become offensive?'" --s
Beyond the Beltway
Nashville. Christina Maxouris, et al., of CNN: "Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake named Anthony Quinn Warner, 63, of Antioch, Tennessee, as a key person in the investigation into the explosion of a recreational vehicle in Nashville early Christmas morning. 'That is a person of interest -- still there could be several more,' Drake said. Authorities believe Warner's remains were found at the blast site, according to several law enforcement officials with direct knowledge of the investigation, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity." (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs & Giulia Nieto del Rio of the New York Times: "Federal agents said on Saturday that they did not yet know who carried out the Christmas Day explosion that ripped through the city's downtown, mangling storefronts, injuring three people and leaving the city mystified as to the motive. Investigators were tracking down more than 500 leads, working to piece together what happened before an R.V. -- apparently rigged with explosives and parked on a street in the tourist district -- detonated in the early hours of Christmas. The blast devastated the neighborhood, which regularly draws thousands of people each night, and officials said the city was lucky no one was killed. Douglas Korneski, the F.B.I. special agent in charge of the Memphis office, said at a news conference that more than 250 F.B.I. employees were working the case, but that they still had many unanswered questions.... Mr. Korneski and other officials indicated at the news conference that it was still unclear how many people were involved in the crime." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ The story has been updated several times. Newest Lede: (as of 8 pm ET Saturday) "DNA tests conducted on human remains found in the wreckage of the Christmas Day bombing in Nashville match a 63-year-old man who had been identified as a person of interest in the investigation, law enforcement officials said on Sunday. Officials said that the man, identified as Anthony Quinn Warner, died in the explosion."
Way Beyond
** Russia. Ivan Sascha Sheehan of Yahoo!: "In November, Russia gained a slice of somebody else's country.... Fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh preceded the annexation.... Two months later came a peace deal, with Russia the winner: It mediated a ceasefire that placed the Kremlin's ostensibly peacekeeping boots on the ground. America watched idly as this happened. As Armenia's traditional protector, Russia held the only leverage to convince Armenia to sign this ceasefire.... In return for securing for its ally a marginally smaller humiliation, Moscow gained a present and a presence. In reality -- unless America is prepared to engage fully in the peace process -- Nagorno-Karabakh is now Russia's indefinitely. The Kremlin ostensibly controls the territory for five years, with an automatic rollover for an additional five should none of the three parties to the ceasefire object six months before the end of the mandate." --s
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Reader Comments (10)
Is it too late for another infrastructure week? What about peace in the Middle East? Better, cheaper healthcare? That “big beautiful” thousand mile wall, which Mexico was going to pay for? Will the swamp be drained soon? And all the winning; when does that start? And what about having no time to play golf? Finally, are we “great again”?
@Akhilleus: Mostly taken care of.
Next week, Trump will sign an executive order creating a federal Interstate between Mar-a-Lago and his golf club in West Palm Beach. It will be a toll road, with all proceeds going to TrumPersonalPAC.
Jared is already in the Middle East, drumming up deals for TrumpTower Bethlehem, TrumpTower UAR, etc. & Kushner Luxury Apartments West Bank.
You forgot about the TrumpWall PAC. For a large enough contribution, you get your name in small letters, right below Trump's name in huge letters on a section of TrumpWall. If you're a Mexican contributor, you get a little image of a Mexican man napping under his sombrero next to your name.
Trump began draining the swamp a while back by pardoning all his criminal friends, turning them into bona fide non-criminal citizens.
Trump won re-election "by a LOT."
Trump does not play golf, despite the Photoshopped pictures you may have seen in the fake media. He spends all his time participating in "many calls & meetings."
As long as Trump is president* -- a state of affairs that may change in about 23 days -- we are "great again." After that, alas, we descend into "Democrat rule," which will be profoundly boring.
But donoldovitch is draining the swamp if we consider prisons to be swamps and prisoners swamp creatures.
And the only infrastructure he's interested in would be that tower he wants in Moscow. Are golf courses considered infrastructure?
The winning will start Jan 20th, depending on what happens Jan 6th. He's still working on that.
Sorry, but Marie best me to it and with a much better plan.
I am in awe of Fintan O'Toole, one of the English world's great explainers. Thanks for the link.
I like explainers because the world needs a lot of explaining. The small issue I have with O' Toole's summary of the Pretender's four years of mayhem is that by explaining it so well, he made it make a little too much sense.
For once we get beyond O' Toole's accurate portrayal of the Pretender's impulse to define reality the way he likes it and to contort it into impossible and unsustainable shapes, there was nothing sensible about what I hope will turn out to be the Pretender interregnum.
It was nuts from beginning to end.
While it possible (I'll have to think more about it) that nuts is government's antonym, I don't think Pretender supporters really want no government. What they want is their government, one that will do their bidding, no matter how hazily their own unthinking impulses could define what that might be. Certainly, though, whatever that government will be, it will be a white one.
As O' Toole says, the Pretender didn't create this uneasy relationship with both the idea and practice of governance. It was already there, in our lives becoming even more uneasy since the 1960's for all the demographic and economic reasons we already know.
And I'd venture that we all feel it, not just the Trumpbots that drool at his rallies. I can't begin to describe how uneasy I've felt most of the time since 2016. The dis-ease and the skepticism with government exists everywhere on the political spectrum, but, except for true anarchists, it is not government that causes it.
The Pretender may have a deep seated desire to eliminate all government that does not serve his own immediate needs. He has certainly acted that way.
But his adherents don't have any fundamental problem with government itself, only with democratic government. Whether we want more or less of it is the central question on which the nation will pivot over the next decade.
Do we want either the people as a whole, or just that segment of the population we feel most comfortable with running things?
Let me put it this way:
The Electoral College, voter suppression and gerrymandering make me uneasy. The bother me a lot.
The Squad and all they represent, those cities, those black voters, scare the hell out of Trumpbots.
@Ken: I second you on O'Toole, (by the way, you pronounce his first name FIN-tin, told to me by an old Irishman) he is one of my favorite writers––does a bang up job on religion: the piece he did after the Kavenaugh hearings on Catholic victimization was stellar.
And yes––"As O' Toole says, the Pretender didn't create this uneasy relationship with both the idea and practice of governance. It was already there, in our lives becoming even more uneasy since the 1960's for all the demographic and economic reasons we already know."
We are so similar to our animal brethren –-( I think of how lions pounce on their prey and bring them down whenever I watch football which isn't often) the needs for security, power, love, dominance, etc. but we humans have a leg up with our brain function ( some more than others) which complicates these basic animal needs. We have always had massive problems and will continue to have them. Our salvation will be to put decent human beings in charge who are working for the greater good yet even then the "good" will be divided in its assessment. Therefore we stumble on––one foot forward, another back. One lesson that should be heeded in our time is the danger of electing someone like Trump––yet –––give us another decade and we might just do it again.
Ken: It is a dilemma.
When I was growing up, the answer was clear to me -- the people as a whole should vote on who they want to run things.
But then the people proved not only that they were pretty ignorant as a whole (Bush2) but perversely untrustworthy as well (DiJiT).
A great deal of the problem seems to arise from the parties' loss of control of the nominating process, at least at the national office level. The fear of extremists (who like to vote!) eliminating one in the primaries drives polarization and extremism, and stupid is evolved to crazy. Obviously this is more dramatic with RWNJs, but sooner or later lefties will do it their way more and more (splinter groups water down the D vote, to the advantage of R's).
Maybe if we focused on having professionals in the parties choose candidates (control by the informed and interested few) but open the vote to as many as possible, we could have parties actually compete on policies rather than our current personality-driven campaigns. You could call it, say, the "Harding Method."
Then when that fails we can go back to rock 'em, sock 'em primaries and do this cr@p all over again.
And, as a long-time gummint guy, I can tell you what people want from gummint:
1. Leave me alone.
2. Fix me when I break.
3. Bill someone else.
And because we are still treading water re: our healthcare in this country––now especially during this pandemic, here's something from the good old days––the ones Fatty always says he wanted to make great AGAIN.
I was reading about Dr. Sara Josephine Baker who, during the early twentieth century, revolutionized health care, especially for mothers and babies living in the squalid tenements in New York City. Her efforts were so successful that in 1910 she and other reformers drafted a bill to create a nationwide network of home visiting programs and maternal and child health clinics. BUT the AMA, backed
by powerful REPUBLICANS averse to spending money on social welfare and claimed the program was tantamount to Bolshevism. Here is the transcript of the AMA's position cited by a New England doctor before a congressional committee:
"We oppose this bill because if you are going to save the lives of all these women and children at public expense what inducement will there be for young MEN [Italics mine] to study medicine?"
Senator Sheppard, the chairman, stiffened and leaned forward: "Perhaps I didn't understand you correctly," he said. "You surely don't mean that you want women and children to die unnecessarily or live in constant danger of sickness so there will be something for young doctors to do?"
"Why not? said the New England doctor, who did at least have the courage to admit the issue: "That's the will of God, isn't it?" [courage? more like asininity with a dash of stupidity]
Along these same lines in 1971 a civil rights group drafted the
Comprehensive Child Care and Development Act which would have created a nationwide system of high quality day care, preschool and home visitingprograms. It passed both houses of Congress BUT RIGHT WING Republicans using language similar to that used in the AMA argument above, pressured Nixon to veto it. He did.
Patrick,
You three point summary offers a better explanation of our situation with fewer words than most.
I have long translated fly over country as don't bother me territory, which sounds a lot like leave me alone.
The problem, of course, is that things change and no matter where one lives, one can't keep history at bay. Maybe for a time, but not forever, which leaves many who don't like the changes affecting their lives relying on denial or just wishing it--anything from climate change to demographic and economic shifts--would just go away.
Maybe that's the essence of what we call conservatism.
And when the bonds between those wishes and ineluctable reality snap, that's what we call nuts.
@Ken: I just learned a new word: ineluctable. Thanks!