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Public Service Announcement

Washington Post: "Americans can again order free rapid coronavirus tests by mail, the Biden administration announced Thursday. People can request four free at-home tests per household through covidtests.gov. They will begin shipping Monday. The move comes ahead of an expected winter wave of coronavirus cases. The September revival of the free testing program is in line with the Biden administration’s strategy to respond to the coronavirus as part of a broader public health campaign to protect Americans from respiratory viruses, including influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), that surge every fall and winter. But free tests were not mailed during the summer wave, which wastewater surveillance data shows is now receding."

Washington Post: “Comedy news outlet the Onion — reinvigorated by new ownership over this year — is bringing back its once-popular video parodies of cable news. But this time, there’s someone with real news anchor experience in the chair. When the first episodes appear online Monday, former WAMU and MSNBC host Joshua Johnson will be the face of the resurrected 'Onion News Network.' Playing an ONN anchor character named Dwight Richmond, Johnson says he’s bringing a real anchor’s sense of clarity — and self-importance — to the job. 'If ONN is anything, it’s a news organization that is so unaware of its own ridiculousness that it has the confidence of a serial killer,' says Johnson, 44.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I'll be darned if I can figured out how to watch ONN. If anybody knows, do tell. Thanks.

Washington Post: “First came the surprising discovery that Earth’s atmosphere is leaking. But for roughly 60 years, the reason remained a mystery. Since the late 1960s, satellites over the poles detected an extremely fast flow of particles escaping into space — at speeds of 20 kilometers per second. Scientists suspected that gravity and the magnetic field alone could not fully explain the stream. There had to be another source creating this leaky faucet. It turns out the mysterious force is a previously undiscovered global electric field, a recent study found. The field is only about the strength of a watch battery — but it’s enough to thrust lighter ions from our atmosphere into space. It’s also generated unlike other electric fields on Earth. This newly discovered aspect of our planet provides clues about the evolution of our atmosphere, perhaps explaining why Earth is habitable. The electric field is 'an agent of chaos,' said Glyn Collinson, a NASA rocket scientist and lead author of the study. 'It undoes gravity.... Without it, Earth would be very different.'”

The New York Times lists Emmy winners. The AP has an overview story here.

New York Times: “Hvaldimir, a beluga whale who had captured the public’s imagination since 2019 after he was spotted wearing a harness seemingly designed for a camera, was found dead on Saturday in Norway, according to a nonprofit that worked to protect the whale.... [Hvaldimir] was wearing a harness that identified it as “equipment” from St. Petersburg. There also appeared to be a camera mount. Some wondered if the whale was on a Russian reconnaissance mission. Russia has never claimed ownership of the whale. If Hvaldimir was a spy, he was an exceptionally friendly one. The whale showed signs of domestication, and was comfortable around people. He remained in busier waters than are typical for belugas....” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Oh, Lord, do not let Bobby Kennedy, Jr., near that carcass. ~~~

     ~~~ AP Update: “There’s no evidence that a well-known beluga whale that lived off Norway’s coast and whose harness ignited speculation it was a Russian spy was shot to death last month as claimed by animal rights groups, Norwegian police said Monday.... Police said that the Norwegian Veterinary Institute conducted a preliminary autopsy on the animal, which was become known as 'Hvaldimir,' combining the Norwegian word for whale — hval — and the first name of Russian President Vladimir Putin. 'There are no findings from the autopsy that indicate that Hvaldimir has been shot,' police said in a statement.”

New York Times: Botswana's “President Mokgweetsi Masisi grinned as he lifted the diamond, a 2,492-carat stone that is the biggest diamond unearthed in more than a century and the second-largest ever found, according to the Vancouver-based mining operator Lucara, which owns the mine where it was found. This exceptional discovery could bring back the luster of the natural diamond mining industry, mining companies and experts say. The diamond was discovered in the same relatively small mine in northeastern Botswana that has produced several of the largest such stones in living memory. Such gemstones typically surface as a result of volcanic activity.... The diamond will likely sell in the range of tens of millions of dollars....”

Click on photo to enlarge.

~~~ Guardian: "On a distant reef 16,000km from Paris, surfer Gabriel Medina has given Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true. The Brazilian took off a thundering wave at Teahupo’o in Tahiti on Monday, emerging from a barrelling section before soaring into the air and appearing to settle on a Pacific cloud, pointing to the sky with biblical serenity, his movements mirrored precisely by his surfboard. The shot was taken by Agence France-Presse photographer Jérôme Brouillet, who said “the conditions were perfect, the waves were taller than we expected”. He took the photo while aboard a boat nearby, capturing the surreal image with such accuracy that at first some suspected Photoshop or AI." 

Washington Post: “'Mary Cassatt at Work' is a large and mostly satisfying exhibition devoted to the career of the great American artist beloved for her sensitive and often sentimental views of family life. The 'at work' in the title of the Philadelphia Museum of Art show references the curators’ interest in Cassatt’s pioneering effort to establish herself as a professional artist within a male-dominated field. Throughout the show, which includes some 130 paintings, pastels, prints and drawings, the wall text and the art on view stresses Cassatt’s fixation on art as a career rather than a pastime.... Mary Cassatt at Work is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through Sept. 8. philamuseum.org”

New York Times: “Bob Newhart, who died on Thursday at the age of 94, has been such a beloved giant of popular culture for so long that it’s easy to forget how unlikely it was that he became one of the founding fathers of stand-up comedy. Before basically inventing the hit stand-up special, with the 1960 Grammy-winning album 'The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart' — that doesn’t even count his pay-per-view event broadcast on Canadian television that some cite as the first filmed special — he was a soft-spoken accountant who had never done a set in a nightclub. That he made a classic with so little preparation is one of the great miracles in the history of comedy.... Bob Newhart holds up. In fact, it’s hard to think of a stand-up from that era who is a better argument against the commonplace idea that comedy does not age well.”

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Tuesday
Feb252014

The Commentariat -- Feb. 26, 2014

Internal links removed.

Ashley Parker of the New York Times: "The Republican plan to overhaul and simplify the nation's tax code is expected to call for a cut in the top corporate income rate to 25 percent from 35 percent, and a reduction of the seven individual tax brackets to two -- at 10 percent and 25 percent -- according to aides familiar with the proposal. The proposal, which is set to be released Wednesday after nearly three years of behind-the-scenes work, is the brainchild of Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee...." ...

     ... Uh-Oh. New Lede: "The proposal by the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee to overhaul and simplify the nation's tax code is already coming under scrutiny from fellow Republicans, with at least one party leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, saying the plan has no chance." ...

     ... CW: Democrats' criticism of the ways & means of Dave Camp -- which are near the bottom of the story -- are worth reading. It is pretty clear that Camp doesn't want the legislation to pass. It's just a campaign ploy.

Billy House of the National Journal: "Several governors are trying to thwart attempts to reduce food-stamp payments to their states, in a move that could affect portions of the recently passed farm bill aimed at saving $8.6 billion over the next 10 years.... What the governors have in mind amounts to an end run around a new set of requirements that governs how recipients receive food-stamp assistance in the states." CW: The only governors House mentions are Democrats: Dannel Malloy of Connecticut & Deval Patrick of Massachusetts.

President Obama spoke about manufacturing innovation yesterday:

Reid Abelson of Politico: "Touting the latest White House Obamacare benchmark, President Barack Obama told his political base not to be discouraged by partisan attacks.... 'We're going to make a big push these last few weeks,' Obama told OFA volunteers and officials. 'I can talk, my team can talk here in Washington, but it's not going to make as much of a difference as if you are out there making the case. The work you're doing is God's work. It is hard work.' ... He devoted the bulk of his time to health care but also called on supporters to back his effort to raise the minimum wage and touched on his push to expand broadband Internet access to schools."

Jonathan Easley of the Hill: "Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on Tuesday accused GOP governors of 'playing with people's lives' by refusing to expand Medicaid in their states under ObamaCare. The criticism from Sebelius is the latest example of an effort by Democrats and the White House to take the offense on the issue of healthcare." CW: Um, also, Sebelius is right. Dead right. But never mind about that: when Democrats tell the truth, it's a campaign tactic. ...

... One Republican "Good Idea" to "Fix" ObamaCare. Sahil Kapur of TPM: "A Republican-led bill designed to 'save American workers' would cause 1 million workers to lose their health care coverage and increase the deficit by $74 billion, according to [the Congressional Budget Office]. The legislation, offered by Rep. Todd Young (R-IN) and 208 co-sponsors as a tweak to Obamacare, would change the definition of a full-time work week under the health care law from 30 hours per week to 40 hours.... The bill was touted by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) as part of the GOP's winter 2014 agenda."

Tom Edsall of the New York Times: The real reason Darrell Issa & other Congressional Republicans won't stop their phony investigations of the phony IRS "scandal": the investigations have paralyzed the Exempt Organization Division of the IRS which now devotes most of its time to preparing for & responding to these witch hunts, thus leaving the division no time to investigate the labyrinth of fake "social welfare organizations" backed by Karl Rove, the Koch brothers, et al. ...

     ... CW: In other words, the real scandal is the partisan investigation of the IRS, from Bush hack IG Russell George's initial flawed report (in which he accidentally forgot to note that the IRS was "targeting" possible fake social welfare groups with liberal-sounding names, too) through all the subsequent Congressional hoohah. Couple that with Citizens United, decided by Dubya appointees to the Court, the post-regnum staying power of Rove -- "Bush's Brain" -- & other Bush operatives, and you realize that our disgraced former president, while hiding out at the ranch, still manages to cast a long shadow. ...

... AND, Right on Cue. Bernie Becker of the Hill: "House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is hauling Lois Lerner back to Congress. Issa told Lerner's attorney in a Tuesday letter that he expected the retired IRS official to appear before his committee on March 5."

Hayes Brown of Think Progress: "Former Vice President Dick Cheney took to Fox News on Monday night to lambaste the Obama administration's proposed cuts to the military budget.... 'And I think the whole thing is not driven by any change in world circumstances, it's driven by budget considerations. He'd much rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops.' [Emphasis original] ... A Defense Department review released last year showed that military families were more reliant on food stamps in 2013 than in any previous year, with over $100 million in food stamp spending at military grocery stores.... 'Nationwide, in any given month, a total of 900,000 veterans nationwide lived in households that relied on SNAP to provide food for their families in 2011,' the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote in a recent analysis.

Zeke Miller of Time: "Efforts in several states to toughen voter identification requirements are driven by 'hatred,' Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday ... at an evening reception for African-American History Month at the Naval Observatory.... In 1982, when President Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond backed reauthorization, Biden told the crown he 'thought it was done -- finally, finally done,' pounding the podium with his fist. But Biden angrily spoke out against the Supreme Court's decision last year to overturn parts of the law, and legislation in North Carolina, Alabama and Texas that toughens voting requirements. 'These guys never go away. Hatred never, never goes away,' Biden [said]. He added: 'The zealotry of those who wish to limit the franchise cannot be smothered by reason.'"

Jad Mouaward of the New York Times: "Federal regulators on Tuesday ordered shippers to properly test and classify crude oil from the productive Bakken region before loading it onto freight trains, a move meant to tighten regulatory standards after a spate of derailments and explosions that highlighted the hazards of carrying crude oil on rails. The announcement from the office of secretary of transportation, Anthony Foxx, was the fourth emergency order or safety advisory issued in the last seven months related to the booming oil-by-rail trade.... The order effectively limits the shipping of oil to the most commonly used type of tank cars.... Even those cars, however, are known to break up too easily in a crash. Regulators are also working on new, tougher tank car standards."

Mike Lillis & Rebecca Shabad of the Hill: "A K Street lobbying giant joined a brewing battle over gay and lesbian rights Tuesday when it disowned a former employee who is hawking legislation to bar gays from the National Football League (NFL). In an unusual public rebuke, Holland & Knight denounced the efforts of Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman, a former associate who says he's lining up congressional support for his NFL player ban."

Henry Farrell in the Washington Post: "Bitcoin is like Tinkerbell: If people stop clapping, it's going to die." See yesterday's Ledes.

Congressional Races

Paul Kane & Sean Sullivan of the Washington Post: "Democrat Debbie Dingell plans to run for the seat being vacated by her husband, Rep. John D. Dingell (D-Mich.), two senior Democratic strategists on Capitol Hill familiar with her plans told Post Politics. She will begin her campaign as the clear front-runner to succeed her husband. Debbie Dingell is an experienced Democratic strategist who currently serves as chair of the Wayne State University Board of Governors. John Dingell has praised her as his closest confidant."

Joseph Gerth of the Louisville Courier-Journal: "Former President Bill Clinton packed a crowd of more than 1,200 people into a Galt House ballroom on Tuesday to raise money and boost Alison Lundergan Grimes' Senate campaign. During a 25-minute speech, he alternately praised Grimes, the daughter of his longtime friend Jerry Lundergan, and took shots at U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who she hopes to beat in the November election." ...

... Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The former president's presence on the stage also underscored a larger truth of the 2014 midterm campaign: Mr. Clinton is embraced in states, mainly in the South and the West, where Mr. Obama is all but unwelcome." CW: Just can't figure out why that is. Martin doesn't tell us.

New Jersey News

Ginger Otis of the New York Daily News: "Embattled Port Authority Chairman David Samson lacks the moral authority to be in charge, Gov. Cuomo's top appointee to the bistate agency told the Daily News on Monday. Executive director Patrick Foye made the blunt assessment during a wide-ranging discussion with the Editorial Board that touched on everything from Bridgegate to pay for airport workers." ...

... New York Daily News Editors: "The shockwaves touched off by Bridgegate have made clear that Samson perverted the PA into a toll-financed dispensary of favors and punishments for Christie allies and enemies -- as well as a benefactor of clients of Samson's law firm.... Samson must go in order for the Port Authority to get back on track."

An anonymous blogger at Daily Kos has produced a preliminary lists of lies in which the media or others have caught Chris Christie. They go waaay back. Most of these are baldfaced, CYA lies, not liberal "interpretations" of facts. Thanks to Barbarossa for the link.

Elsewhere in the Nation

Jeremy Duda of Arizona Capitol Times: "Corporate tech giant Apple has asked Gov. Jan Brewer to veto the controversial religious freedom bill SB1062, the company and the Governor's Office confirmed.... The chorus of anti-SB1062 businesses kept getting louder on Monday as 83 companies, trade organizations and other business groups signed onto a letter, originally sent on Friday by the Arizona Technology Council, urging the governor to veto the bill. The additional signees included several major hotel chains, tourism groups, corporate giants like AT&T and other technology companies." ...

James Hohmann & Burgess Everett of Politico on prominent Republicans -- including both of Arizona's U.S. senators -- who see the Arizona bill as an election-year loser. CW: My favote is Sen. John Thune (S.D.), who urges Republicans to "stay focussed on ObamaCare." So the GOP's "principled stand" is -- better to make sure fewer people have health insurance than to make sure gay people can't eat at Bud's BBQ. Pretty impressive.

... Jim Small of the Capitol Times: "In the automated poll of 802 Republicans by Coleman Dahm, a Republican political consulting firm in Phoenix, 57.1 percent of respondents who were asked about the bill said they would like Brewer to veto it. Only 27.6 percent said they want her to sign SB1062. The remaining 15.3 percent had no opinion. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points." ...

... Mary Jo Pitzl of the Arizona Republic: "Brewer has said that before taking action she wants time to meet with interested parties and review the bill, which would offer a legal shield for businesses that cite religious convictions as a reason to not serve or cooperate with certain customers." ...

... MacKenzie Weinger of Politico: "Right talk radio is turning its focus this week to Arizona's controversial bill that would allow business owners to deny service to gay and lesbian customers, and Rush Limbaugh is leading with the charge that Gov. Jan Brewer is being 'bullied' into vetoing the measure 'in order to advance the gay agenda.' Media Matters has audio of the Limbaugh segment here. ...

... Dana Liebelson of Mother Jones: "A bill moving swiftly through the Georgia House of Representatives would allow business owners who believe homosexuality is a sin to openly discriminate against gay Americans by denying them employment or banning them from restaurants and hotels.... The Georgia House bill's text is largely identical to controversial legislation that passed in Arizona last week.... Legal experts ... warn that Georgia and Arizona's religious-freedom bills are so sweeping that they open the door for discrimination against not only gay people, but other groups as well." The Georgia bill has Democratic as well as Republican sponsors.

Presidential Election 2016

Josh Kraushaar of the National Journal: "Rand Paul Is the GOP's Early Presidential Front-Runner. While the establishment hopes for a governor to emerge, he is quietly putting together a formidable operation."

Right Wing World

Religious Freedom? Not in Right Wing World. Dan Merica of CNN: "Organizers for the 2014 Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] will not allow American Atheists to have an exhibition booth at the conservative conference, the group's spokeswoman said Tuesday. The decision comes just hours after American Atheists, the outspoken organization that advocates for atheists nationwide, announced that it would have a booth at the event. David Silverman, president of American Atheists, tells CNN that a groundswell of opposition from high-ranking members of CPAC compelled the group to pull the invite."

News Lede

Canadian Press: "Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered massive exercises involving most of its military units in western Russia amid tensions in Ukraine.... A senior Russian lawmaker on Tuesday told pro-Russia activists in Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula where Russia has a major naval base that Moscow will protect them if their lives are in danger."

Comments Off

Reader Comments (8)

Guns, Nugent, and stuff.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bateman-nra-gun-accidents-022514

February 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterJames Singer

" CW: Just can't figure out why that is. Martin doesn't tell us." That is the response to where 'Bill Clinton is embraced and Barry O is rejected'. Why? Bill C is a white male stud who can and should sow his seeds far and wide; wink, wink. Barry, even at half white, is black; we don't want them sowing their seeds far and wide. Powerful black men are the boogie man of the Western, male psyche. There is so much fear in the Republican/Authoritarian-loving/Southern sphere of thought you can't just add an addendum to an NYTimes article without sounding like a pedantic embracer of complexity and nuance. And that, of course, would be bad because you might actually have to apply yourself to learning something that might challenge your conventions.

Do you think Michelle Obama would stick around if Barack was embarrassing her with barely, disguised trollops? The Clintons keep their eyes on their prize(s) and that too is one of the crosses Hillary has to bear. And yet, she is the 500 pound gorilla the Republicans fear. Don't you just love that a 65+ year old woman scares the party of Dicky Cheney and Jimmy Demint the war-mongers so much? What kind of macho shit do they teach Republicans when they fear an old woman? And in her case, I mean no disrespect by the use of the word "old". She'll eat their lunch.

February 25, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterCitizen625

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/02/23/1279743/-The-Manifold-Lies-of-Chris-Christie?detail=email

Interesting post on Daily Kos by middlegirl. She documents many lies Christie has told. Either he doesn't think before opening his mouth or he's a pathological liar. I go for the latter.

February 26, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

@Re: refusing to serve gays: how you gonna tell if a person is gay? By mannerisms, dress, speech? An effeminate man or masculine woman? Not a very good indicator is it? It would seem a straight person wrongly accused of being gay could sue. This whole idea is ludicrous.

Now I see the knuckle draggers in Georgia want to do the same thing. Is we becoming another Uganda?

February 26, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterBarbarossa

Alison Lundergan Grimes is an impressive candidate. Why, I thought, does her father's name sound so familiar? Then it hit me––in the film Fargo––Jerry Lundergaard, the poor sap that went a tad too far to reap the goodies. We don't have to go to the movies to see that happening in REAL life and times. Tickets are free.

February 26, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPD Pepe

@Barbarossa wrote, "how you gonna tell if a person is gay? By mannerisms, dress, speech?"

I wondered that, too, but I expect that under this bill/law, a proprietor could put up a sign in his window, "No gays/Mexicans/women/whoever served here." (Reminds me of "Specialty of the House," embedded above, wherein, I note, no women are served.)

I think a sign like that would be great, because it would put the owner out of business.

The real problem of the law, as I see it, is not that a gay couple can't get a wedding cake, but that police, medical & other professionals whose jobs it is to serve can discriminate against anyone they perceive belongs to some group that is or does something to which these professionals claim religious objection. As the ACLU has pointed out,"... a cop could refuse to intervene in a domestic dispute if his religion allows for husbands beating their wives...."

I don't think there's any question that this & copycat bills are unconstitutional, so I see them as short-term problems, but if they become law & are allowed to stand for a period of time, people could be hurt, not just inconvenienced & offended, by the "religious liberty" they appear to give to bigots. They incentivize discrimination of all kinds. Already too many people need little or no incentive to express &/or act on bigoted views.

Marie

February 26, 2014 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

@Citizen625: The same applies to women as to blacks. As the Virginia legislator who called pregnant women mere "hosts" (as opposed to "mothers") proved the other day, & as Fox "News"'s anchor Britt Hume proved when he complained about "the feminized atmosphere in which we exist today" the white male establishment straight Republican despises anyone who isn't a white male establishment straight Republican.

They should actually have loved Bill Clinton because he misused women in the "traditional way," but Clinton also supported legal equality for women & he was married to a feminist & a professional who decided not to "stay home and bake cookies," so that made him a traitor to "traditional family values." In fact, I think Bill Clinton's popularity today among rank-and-file Southern Democrats is probably due to the pass so many are willing to give him for his very traditional "sins" against women & the way he fake-atoned for them by seeking religious guidance or whatever the hell that was.

Marie

P.S. Don't take my snark too seriously. I know perfectly well why Southern Democrats prefer Clinton to Obama. I just wish reporters would quit pretending otherwise. Martin sort of goes out of his way to think up "other reasons" for Clinton's popularity.

February 26, 2014 | Registered CommenterMarie Burns

I read the proposed Arizona law, which is an edit of an existing AZ law. The bigotry (or defense of religious feeling, depending on your point of view) already exists in the current law. What is truly strange is that the edits (proposed new, improved, law) go to great lengths to ensure that (a) things that are not human beings, nor churches or religious organizations, are deemed able to hold religious views; and (b) none of the potential "things" acting on their religious views need be a member of or in any way affiliated with any actual religion. A "person" (which includes businesses, organizations, etc.) just needs to claim that its freedom of religion is burdened, but never actually has to declare any religious beliefs.

This will be a great boon to Pastafarians in AZ, who will be able to tie up the courts there for years without having to go to the trouble of actually developing any, you know, beliefs and stuff.

February 26, 2014 | Unregistered CommenterPatrick
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