The Commentariat -- February 1, 2021
Late Morning Update:
Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "Claims that conservative voices are being censored online by social media platforms are not backed by evidence and are themselves a disinformation narrative, according to a report released Monday. The NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights' report concluded that anti-conservative bias claims, boosted by some top Republican lawmakers including former President Trump, are not based on any tangible evidence. 'The claim of anti-conservative animus is itself a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it. No trustworthy large-scale studies have determined that conservative content is being removed for ideological reasons or that searches are being manipulated to favor liberal interests,' the report stated.... Despite the repeated accusations by Republicans, the report found that by 'many measures, conservative voices -- including that of the ex-president, until he was banished from Twitter and Facebook -- often are dominant in online political debates.'" MB: You knew this already, of course, but an independent study won't cause any wingers to quit whining; they will simply discount any study coming out of a New York City (the Village yet!) university.
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Erica Werner & Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Ten Republican senators announced plans Sunday to release an approximately $600 billion covid relief package that could serve as a bipartisan alternative to President Biden's $1.9 trillion plan, and requested a meeting with the president to discuss it. The senators, led by Susan Collins (R-Maine), said they would release additional details of the package on Monday. In a letter to Biden they said they were offering their proposal in recognition of the president's 'calls for unity.'... Their move comes as Democrats prepare to move forward on Monday to set up a partisan path forward for Biden's relief bill, which Republicans have dismissed as overly costly.... The GOP proposal is expected to jettison certain elements that have drawn Republican opposition, such as increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. It would also significantly narrow eligibility for a new round of $1,400 stimulus checks Biden wants to send to individual Americans. Biden's plan would cap eligibility for the checks at individuals making $75,000 a year and couples making $150,000. A $600 billion plan that is a fraction of the size of Biden's proposal is unlikely to draw much if any Democratic support." Politico's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Brett Samuels of the Hill: "President Biden on Sunday invited a group of Republican senators to meet with him at the White House early this week after they proposed a more targeted economic relief package, but the administration gave no indication it is ready to budge from its original $1.9 trillion proposal."
Justine Coleman of the Hill: "President Biden on Sunday sent a letter to congressional leaders reversing former President Trump's last-minute attempt to freeze $27.4 billion in government programs. Trump had moved, with less than a week left in his term, to freeze the billions in federal funding using a budget maneuver called rescission. 'I am withdrawing 73 proposed rescissions previously transmitted to the Congress,' Biden said in the letter. The 73 budget reductions that Trump had called for were spread across almost every Cabinet-level agency and mostly lined up with his proposed cuts to domestic program spending in the 2021 federal budget that were rejected by Congress."
E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post: Senate "Democrats are faced with a choice. Protect the filibuster or protect democracy.... They will never get 10 votes [to break a filibuster] from a GOP that can't even find a way to exile white-supremacist extremists from its ranks.... There is genuine urgency because Republican legislators throughout the country have been moving rapidly to rig the 2022 elections by throwing new obstacles in the way of voters. When it passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965 -- with the support and leadership of many Republicans -- Congress recognized that defending democracy requires national action. The proposed For the People Act lives squarely in that tradition. Congressional leaders underscored its significance by designating it H.R. 1 and S. 1. The bill takes direct aim at voter suppression by giving all Americans easy access to postage-free mail voting under a set of clear national rules, requiring drop boxes to make casting ballots easier and guaranteeing at least 15 days of early voting. It allows for Election-Day registration and constrains voter purges that often throw legitimate voters off the rolls." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Dionne makes an irrefutable case. But Manchin, Sinema.
Amy Wang of the Washington Post: "The Lincoln Project is condemning co-founder John Weaver in the wake of allegations that the longtime GOP strategist made unsolicited sexual overtures to several young men, including one who was 14 years old at the time he received sexual messages from Weaver.... The Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans who opposed ... Donald Trump, rose to prominence last year as they campaigned against Trump and others who supported him. Weaver, 61, helped co-found the group. Weaver previously worked on the presidential campaigns for John McCain and John Kasich. The New York Times published a report Sunday morning based on interviews with 21 men who alleged that Weaver sent them unwanted provocative messages or solicited them for sex, often in exchange for the promise of professional help."
Remembering the Kaiser, Ctd.
** "77 Days: Trump’s Campaign to Subvert the Election." Jim Rutenberg, et al., of the New York Times: "Thursday the 12th [of November] was the day Mr. Trump's flimsy, long-shot legal effort to reverse his loss turned into something else entirely -- an extralegal campaign to subvert the election, rooted in a lie so convincing to some of his most devoted followers that it made the deadly Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol almost inevitable.... A New York Times examination of the 77 democracy-bending days between election and inauguration shows how, with conspiratorial belief rife in a country ravaged by pandemic, a lie that Mr. Trump had been grooming for years finally overwhelmed the Republican Party and, as brake after brake fell away, was propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers, political organizers, financiers and the surround-sound right-wing media. In the aftermath of that broken afternoon at the Capitol, a picture has emerged of entropic forces coming together on Trump's behalf in an ad hoc, yet calamitous, crash of rage and denial.... Throughout, [Trump] was enabled by influential Republicans motivated by ambition, fear or a misplaced belief that he would not go too far." ~~~
~~~ Matthew Rosenberg & Jim Rutenberg of the Times has a "key takeaways" report here, summarizing the larger report linked above.
Shane Goldmacher & Rachel Shorey of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party entered this year having stockpiled more than $175 million from fund-raising in November and December based on his false claims of voter fraud, spending only a tiny fraction on lawyers and bills for his effort to overturn the presidential election, according to new campaign finance reports filed on Sunday night. The picture that emerges in the new Federal Election Commission reports is of Mr. Trump mounting a furious public relations effort to spread the lie and keep generating money from it, rather than making a sustained legal push to try to support his conspiracy theories.... All told, Mr. Trump's campaign spent only $10 million on legal costs -- about one-fifth of what it spent on advertising and fund-raising, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission filings from Nov. 4 through the end of the year." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This follow-the-money report is more evidence for the argument that Trump is not as delusional as he pretends to be: all of his I-wuz-robbed complaints are P.R. He plans to use even his impeachment trial to make the I-wuz-robbed case, but that doesn't mean he believes it. Not that it matters. Whether he's crazy-nuts or crazy-cunning (like Vincent Gigante, the NYC mob boss who walked the streets of the Village mumbling incoherently), Trump was and is a danger to the nation. IOW, Trump's main plan was to retain the presidency by extra-legal means; that is, violently, by popular demand.
Jim Acosta, et al., of CNN: "... Donald Trump's office announced that David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor, Jr. will now head the legal team for his second impeachment trial, a day after CNN first reported that five members of his defense left and his team effectively collapsed. One point of friction with his previous team was Trump wanted the attorneys to focus on his election fraud claims rather than the constitutionality of convicting a former president. Trump has struggled to find lawyers willing to take his case as he refuses to budge from his false claims. Trump's advisers have been talking to him about his legal strategy and he keeps bringing up election fraud for his defense, while they have repeatedly tried to steer him away from that, according to a source familiar with those discussions. It's unclear whether Schoen and Castor will go along with what Trump wants.... Schoen was on the team of lawyers representing Roger Stone in the appeal of his conviction related to issues the former Trump adviser took with the jury.... Castor, meanwhile, is a well-known attorney in Pennsylvania who previously served as Montgomery County district attorney. While in that position in 2005, Castor declined to prosecute Bill Cosby after a woman reported the actor had touched her inappropriately at his home in Montgomery County, according to a news release from his office at the time. Cosby was later tried and convicted in 2018 for drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home in 2004." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Schoen & Castor make the perfect Trump legal team. One is famous for representing a life-long subversive, lying dirty-trickster & convicted criminal, and the other is best-known for letting a serial sex-abuser off the hook. They should changes their names to Crooks & Cox and start a new firm. ~~~
~~~ Josh Dawsey, et al., of the Washington Post: "Two people familiar with the discussions preceding the departure of the original legal team said that Trump wanted them to make the case during the trial that he actually won the election. To do so would require citing his false claims of election fraud -- even as his allies and attorneys have said that he should instead focus on arguing that impeaching a president who has already left office is unconstitutional.... It is also unclear whether Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), who will preside at the trial, will permit the president's team to introduce claims of alleged voter fraud.... But Trump ... has continued to insist that he actually won the election...." ~~~
~~~ Kevin Drum of Mother Jones: Trump's tossing his legal team "shows that Trump understands what [Butch] Bowers didn't: this isn't a trial, it's a TV show. Trump knows that his control over the Republican Party is still strong enough that he faces no chance of conviction, which means that legal arguments are unnecessary. Instead, he wants this to be a nationally televised opportunity for him to persuade the public that the 2020 election was teeming with Democratic fraud that cheated him out of reelection. He will, of course, be aided in this via coverage from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and all the rest of the right-wing media empire. I predict high ratings." MB: To Trump, his entire presidency* was a TV show, in which he was both star & producer, with the ability to hire & fire those in the cast & crew who didn't do enough to make him look great. And he could drop a few nuclear bombs if things got boring.
Zach Montellaro & Elena Schneider of Politico: "... Donald Trump amassed $31.2 million in his new political operation by the end of 2020, giving him a powerful tool to keep the Republican Party in his grip as he left office. Save America, a leadership PAC created in the aftermath of the 2020 election, is set to play a key role in Trump's plans to keep a strong hand in party politics -- both to boost loyalists and also to seek retribution against Republicans he believes have wronged him, such as the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in mid-January. Trump cannot spend the PAC funds directly on any future campaign of his own, but he can use it to wield influence in campaigns in the midterm elections, pay his political advisers and travel the country."
Zachary Petrizzo of Mediaite: "The Lincoln Project's legal counsel sent a scorching letter to& Rudy Giuliani after he falsely accused the group of helping plan the January 6th Capitol riot, demanding that Giuliani retract his statement and publicly apologize by February 3. Giuliani made the comments in an appearance on Steve Bannon's 'War Room' podcast, accusing 'antifa' and 'some right-wing groups that operate for the Lincoln Project or have been working with the Lincoln Project at various times' of being responsible for instigating the riot." MB: Wait, wait. Steve Bannon is running a show called the "War Room" & Rudy goes on it to blame the opposition for planning the "war"? (Also linked yesterday.)
Martyn McLaughlin of the Scotsman: Members of the Scottish Parliament "will be asked to vote this week on whether the Scottish Government should pursue an Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO) to investigate the source of financing for Donald Trump;s Scottish resorts.... A vote by MSPs calling on ministers to seek an UWO would not be binding, but it would substantially increase pressure on First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to act in line with Holyrood;s will.... The Scotsman revealed last month how Aidan O;Neill QC, one of Scotland;s leading advocates, said Scottish ministers alone had responsibility for pursuing one of the so-called 'McMafia' orders, a legal mechanism designed to target suspected corrupt foreign officials who have potentially laundered stolen money through the UK."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
** Nicholas Florko of STAT News: "Top Trump officials actively lobbied Congress to deny state governments any extra funding for the Covid-19 vaccine rollout last fall -- despite frantic warnings from state officials that they didn't have the money they needed to ramp up a massive vaccination operation. The push, described to STAT by congressional aides in both parties and openly acknowledged by one of the Trump officials, came from multiple high-ranking Trump health officials in repeated meetings with legislators. Without the extra money, states spent last October and November rationing the small pot of federal dollars they had been given. And when vaccines began shipping in December, states seemed woefully underprepared." (Also linked yesterday.)
New York. David Goodman, et al., of the New York Times: "Even as the pandemic continues to rage and New York struggles to vaccinate a large and anxious population, [Gov. Andrews] Cuomo [D] has all but declared war on his own public health bureaucracy. The departures [of top officials] have underscored the extent to which pandemic policy has been set by the governor, who with his aides crafted a vaccination program beset by early delays. The troubled rollout came after Mr. Cuomo declined to use the longstanding vaccination plans that the State Department of Health had developed in recent years in coordination with local health departments. Mr. Cuomo instead adopted an approach that relied on large hospital systems to coordinate vaccinations not only of their own staffs, but also of much of the population. In recent weeks, the governor has repeatedly made it clear that he believed he had no choice but to seize more control over pandemic policy from state and local public health officials, who he said had no understanding of how to conduct a real-world, large-scale operation like vaccinations. After early problems, in which relatively few doses were being administered, the pace of vaccinations has picked up and New York is now roughly 20th in the nation in percentage of residents who have received at least one vaccine dose."
Way Beyond the Beltway
Myanmar. AP: "Myanmar military television said Monday that the military was taking control of the country for one year, while reports said many of the country's senior politicians including Aung San Suu Kyi had been detained. A presenter on military-owned Myawaddy TV announced the takeover and cited a section of the military-drafted constitution that allows the military to take control in times of national emergency. He said the reason for takeover was in part due to the government's failure to act on the military's claims of voter fraud in last November's election and its failure to postpone the election because of the coronavirus crisis. The announcement follows days of concern about the threat of a military coup -- and military denials that it would stage one -- and came on the morning the country's new Parliament session was to begin." the New York Times story is here.
News Lede
Weather Channel: "Winter Storm Orlena will snarl travel in the Northeast into Monday night as it brings heavy snow and strong winds from parts of New England to the northern mid-Atlantic, including parts of the Boston, New York City and Philadelphia metro areas. Orlena is producing snowfall this morning from portions of southern New England to the New York Tri-state area southward into Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Tennessee." MSNBC reported that one-third of the country's population is either under snow-storm warning or watch -- and based on reports -- in it.
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Reader Comments (11)
Buried up to our tuckus in snow drifts this morning the one bright, shining sentence in all these juicy news' reports is this:
" ~~~ Marie: Schoen & Castor make the perfect Trump legal team. One is famous for representing a life-long subversive, lying dirty-trickster & convicted criminal, and the other is best-known for letting a serial sex-abuser off the hook. They should changes their names to Crooks & Cox and start a new firm. ~~~"
Makes for dealing with the day a tad easier. It just reminds us once again the multitude of cronies and corrupt scam artists that are posing as upright sane individuals.
CASE IN POINT:
Republican State Legislatures are radicalizing against Democracy.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-state-legislatures-pennsylvania-trump_n_60146d71c5b6aa4bad33f207
So often hard to figure what the Pretender's administration was up to. Nastiness most often, yes, but many of its actions appeared to be uncoordinated, even random, as various functionaries reacted to whimsical orders raining down on them from on high or simply followed their own limited perceptions of and experience with government's operations and purposes, most often based on limited information or on their in-built, mostly anti-government ideologies.
The STAT News report above would seem to be a case in point. I doubt the Pretender had a hand in this one. He was otherwise occupied.
Here it would seem those making the decisions to withhold vaccination money from the states were not coordinating their actions with any larger plan (because there wasn't one), and they didn't have the requisite data about how much states had already spent and why because they were not particularly interested in getting it.
In the absence of a plan, it's so much easier to jump on your fiscal conservative hobby horse and ride it til its brittle legs fall off.
Nastiness and just plain boob-ery.
Even though the Pretender will not go entirely away, at least the days of rank nastiness and incompetence are over.
@Ken Winkes: Of course it's hard to know what Trump knew because he's such an irresponsible, stupid ditz & doesn't care about anything but himself anyway. Still, among those insisting the states didn't need another dime to administer the vaccinations was Russ Vought, the head of the White House budget office. He is a Trumpy thru-and-thru, and I'm sure he had direct contact with Trump. Also, according to the STAT report, it sounds like there was an argument within the White House about the money. So if Trump had given a flying fuck, he would have known because the issue would have been brought to his attention.
So the not-enough-money-to-administer-vaccines problem can be attributed directly to the fake president*, IMO. Whether he knew about it or not, a halfway responsible executive would have known that right under his nose there was an argument among top staff about what was supposed to be one of his pet projects.
New math: What's the difference between 1.9 trillion and
600 billion? Turns out, it's only 10 (R-senators).
And if that had happened to be a 1.9 trillion tax cut for the wealthy donor class they would be all over it like flies on a dead _________(fill in the blank).
Yeah, Marie, I do think Vought, who had already proved himself a faithful lapdog, likely thought he was doing the Pretender's bidding whether they talked directly about it or not.
I was just taken by what I saw to be anoter instance of the frequently disorganized, contradictory thinking behind the administration's actions. Spend like crazy one minute, then the next squeeze some budgets til they squeal, sometimes for ideological reasons, sometimes just out of personal Pretender pique.
I bet there is video of every single Republican in Congress undermining the integrity of our elections over the last decade or more. If the trial is already rigged why not give the people a show of how the GOP laid the groundwork for Trump's big lie. Help the country unify, against the traitors.
I think that Trump has a hardcore case of confirmation bias. That would be one explaination for why is so fixated on still arguing his election "fraud" case in front of the Senate. There have been tons of ridiculous stories and Trump knows them better than he knows his kids' names at this point. He has surrounded himself with yes people most of his life, so it's no surprise that he believes any wild story that lines up with what he wants to be true.
Here's some positive data on the vaccines
I'm all for power to the workers, or I thought I was.
Here we have an asylum (interesting word that, in ICE context) with the inmates given charge.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/01/us/politics/cuccinelli-biden-ice.html?
Read as much of the HuffPo story about PA and other states, and the quest for more power in the lege(s). I think it is something we all have to keep up with...there are numerous stories and some on WITF (NPR) radio in H-burg about the new crap they are up to. They already pitched a fit about "election integrity" (as if they would know what that was, actually--)so they are on to bigger things: denigrate and remove the vote-by-mail thing; seek to gerrymander judge districts-- right now they are voted-for statewide, but hell's bells people-- you know what THAT means: judges are from "urban" areas, not the hinterlands, or Alabama...AND they will then be sure the PA supremes vote the right way for the next election. Also they want to make sure no one is allowed to judge how things are going and make any changes necessary as they go along. They were permitted to count ballots after election day, for gods' sake... Anyhow, we are well aware that some of these things won't see the light of day, but what about if a Dem loses the governor's office?? And of course, there will probably be another "voter ID" scuffle. The writer is correct: these people have no qualms about taking whatever they think they are entitled to...mostly it means, Democrats are illegitimate. Period.