;)
The Commentariat -- February 17, 2021
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
The Washington Post's front-page tally of the number of Americans vaccinated against Covid-19 stands at 40 million this morning.
Heather Long of the Washington Post: "Millions of jobs that have been shortchanged or wiped out entirely by the coronavirus pandemic are unlikely to come back, economists warn, setting up a massive need for career changes and retraining in the United States. The coronavirus pandemic has triggered permanent shifts in how and where people work. Businesses are planning for a future where more people are working from home, traveling less for business, or replacing workers with robots. All of these modifications mean many workers will not be able to do the same job they did before the pandemic, even after much of the U.S. population gets vaccinated against the deadly virus. Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates raised eyebrows in November when he predicted that half of business travel and 30 percent of 'days in the office' would go away forever. That forecast no longer seems far-fetched."
The Pentagon Worked Around Misogynist-in-Chief. Eric Schmitt & Helene Cooper of the New York Times: "Last fall, the Pentagon's most senior leaders agreed that two top generals should be promoted to elite, four-star commands. For then-Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the tricky part was that both of the accomplished officers were women.... The two Pentagon leaders feared that any candidates other than white men for jobs mostly held by white men might run into turmoil once their nominations got to the White House. Mr. Esper and General Milley worried that if they even raised their names..., the Trump White House would replace them with their own candidates before leaving office. So the Pentagon officials ... held back their recommendations until after the November elections.... In the next few weeks, Mr. Esper's successor, Lloyd J. Austin III, and General Milley are expected to send the delayed recommendations to the White House, where officials are expected to endorse the nominations and formally submit them to the Senate for approval."
Kate Shepherd of the Washington Post: "As millions of people across Texas struggled to stay warm Tuesday amid massive cold-weather power outages, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) directed his ire at ... frozen wind turbines. 'This shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America,' Abbott said to host Sean Hannity on Tuesday. 'Our wind and our solar got shut down, and they were collectively more than 10 percent of our power grid, and that thrust Texas into a situation where it was lacking power on a statewide basis. ... It just shows that fossil fuel is necessary.' The governor's arguments were contradicted by his own energy department, which outlined how most of Texas's energy losses came from failures to winterize the power-generating systems, including fossil fuel pipelines, The Washington Post's Will Englund reported [linked below]. But Abbott's debunked claims were echoed by other conservatives this week who have repeatedly blamed clean energy sources for the outages crippling the southern U.S." ~~~
~~~ Antonia Farzan of the Washington Post: "Residents [of Coloradio City, Texas,] turned to a community Facebook group to ask whether the small town planned to open warming shelters, while others wondered if firefighters could do their job without water. But when Colorado City's mayor chimed in, it was to deliver a less-than-comforting message: The local government had no responsibility to help out its citizens, and only the tough would survive. 'No one owes you [or] your family anything,' Tim Boyd wrote on Tuesday in a now-deleted Facebook post, according to KTXS and KTAB/KRBC. 'I'm sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!'... 'Only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish],' he wrote.... Boyd's tirade, which also demanded that 'lazy' residents find their own ways of procuring water and electricity, immediately drew backlash. Later on Tuesday, Boyd announced his resignation and admitted that he could have 'used better wording.'" MB: Chances Boyd is NOT a Trumpublican: zero.
Ben Makuch of Vice: "The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) confirmed it once employed an American neo-Nazi terror leader now based in Russia after he posted what he said were letters of appreciation DHS and the Pentagon sent him thanking him for his service. Earlier this month, Rinaldo Nazzaro, 47, founder and leader of the Base, one of the most violent American domestic terror groups in years, posted three undated letters from U.S. agencies lauding him for his service. One was from DHS -- an agency tasked with thwarting terrorism in the U.S. -- and two were on Marine Corps letterhead. All spoke glowingly of Nazzaro. Since late 2019, nine members of the Base, the group he founded, have been arrested in the U.S. for alleged crimes as wide-ranging as an assassination plot, ghost-gun making, plans for train derailments, and a mass shooting. The Canadian government has designated it as a terrorist group.... 'I can confirm that Rinaldo Nazzaro worked at DHS from 2004 to 2006,' said a DHS spokesperson."
~~~~~~~~~~
Matt Viser of the Washington Post: "President Biden arrived in Milwaukee on Tuesday for his first major trip since taking office, kicking off a new phase of his presidency that attempts to move past the impeachment of his predecessor and toward a more aggressive selling of his coronavirus relief plan. Speaking at a CNN town hall, Biden pledged that any American who wants a vaccine will have access to one by the end of July. He said he wanted many elementary and middle schools to be open five days a week by the end of April. And he said that 'by next Christmas, I think we'll be in a very different circumstance.' Still, the timeline in many ways remains unclear, with Biden hedging on some commitments and openly stating uncertainty about some goals." ~~~
~~~ Annie Karni of the New York Times: "In his first official trip away from Washington since taking office, President Biden on Tuesday offered reassurance to Americans about the availability of the coronavirus vaccines and optimism that his $1.9 trillion relief bill was the kind of ambitious plan that could restore the American economy.... The town hall's question-and-answer format gave the president an opportunity to practice what has been his signature brand of personal politics for decades.... Continuing his practice throughout impeachment, Mr. Biden appeared eager to avoid mention of his most recent predecessor. At one point, he referred to Mr. Trump as 'the former guy.'... At one point, however, he could not resist a veiled dig, telling [moderator Anderson] Cooper that all but one living former president had reached out to him by phone, making it clear that it was only Mr. Trump who had not." ~~~
~~~ Felicia Sonmez, et al., of the Washington Post: "President Biden said Tuesday that every American who wants a coronavirus vaccine will have access to one by the end of July as he fielded questions at his first televised town hall since taking office. The CNN event in Milwaukee focused heavily on the pandemic and a $1.9 trillion relief bill the president is pushing Congress to pass.... 'For four years, all that's been in the news is Trump. The next four years, I want to make sure all that's in the news is the American people. I'm tired of talking about Trump,' Biden said." This is the top of a live-blog that includes remarks by Biden & other developments Tuesday. ~~~
~~~ CNN has a liveblog of President Joe Biden 's Tuesday night townhall meeting. Includes videos.
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "Weeks into his presidency, Mr. Biden's identity as a creature of the Senate and a deft navigator of its clubby idiosyncrasies has become a defining feature of his governing approach. He has leveraged his relationships with Republicans like [Sen. Susan] Collins [R-Maine] to create space and pressure for bipartisan compromises, even if none have yet materialized. And he has taken a hands-on approach to rallying Democratic lawmakers around his agenda, in the process ensuring that his party has a singular message and unified front against the many obstacles standing in his way. To be sure, Mr. Biden is encountering a deeply polarized Senate that at times bears little resemblance to the one in which he served more than a decade ago.... Still, the president is personally working Capitol Hill in a way that his recent predecessors could not, leveraging decades-old relationships and experience in Congress that they did not have."
Tracy Jan of the Washington Post: "The Department of Housing and Urban Development has for years neglected to enforce its own environmental regulations, resulting in lead poisoning of children in at least one public housing development and potentially jeopardizing residents' health in thousands of other federally subsidized apartments near contaminated sites, according to an inspector general report obtained by The Washington Post. The agency's watchdog reviewed HUD's efforts to identify and mitigate health risks to residents of public housing near toxic waste dumps after the East Chicago, Ind., apartment complex, where tenants had been living with lead contamination for more than four decades, was deemed uninhabitable in 2016. The West Calumet Housing Complex was declared a Superfund site in 2009 and demolished in 2019, its 1,100 mostly Black and Hispanic residents relocated."
Michael Tarn of the AP: "Executioners who put 13 inmates to death in the last months of the Trump administration likened the process of dying by lethal injection to falling asleep and called gurneys 'beds' and final breaths 'snores.' But those tranquil accounts are at odds with reports by The Associated Press and other media witnesses of how prisoners' stomachs rolled, shook and shuddered as the pentobarbital took effect inside the U.S. penitentiary death chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana. The AP witnessed every execution. The sworn accounts by executioners, which government filings cited as evidence the lethal injections were going smoothly, raise questions about whether officials misled courts to ensure the executions scheduled from July to mid-January were done before death penalty opponent Joe Biden became president. Secrecy surrounded all aspects of the executions. Courts relied on those carrying them out to volunteer information about glitches. None of the executioners mentioned any."
Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "The Senate will hold its first public inquiry next week into the security failures that led to the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol by a mob of ... Donald J. Trump's supporters seeking to disrupt certification of President Biden's election victory. Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, along with Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, the top Republican on the committee, announced on Tuesday that the hearing is set for Feb. 23 at 10 a.m.... The senators said they had invited four witnesses to testify: Robert J. Contee, the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department; Michael C. Stenger, the former sergeant-at-arms and doorkeeper of the Senate; Paul D. Irving, the former House sergeant-at-arms; and Steven Sund, the former Capitol Police chief."
NAACP Sues Trump, Citing KKK Law. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "The N.A.A.C.P. on Tuesday morning filed a federal lawsuit against ... Donald J. Trump and his personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani, claiming that they violated a 19th century statute when they tried to prevent the certification of the election on Jan. 6. The civil rights organization brought the suit on behalf of Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi. Other Democrats in Congress -- including Representatives Hank Johnson of Georgia and Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey -- are expected to join as plaintiffs in the coming weeks, according to the N.A.A.C.P. The lawsuit contends that Mr. Trump and Mr. Giuliani violated the Ku Klux Klan Act, an 1871 statute that includes protections against violent conspiracies that interfered with Congress's constitutional duties; the suit also names the Proud Boys, the far-right nationalist group, and the Oath Keepers militia group. The legal action accuses Mr. Trump, Mr. Giuliani and the two groups of conspiring to incite a violent riot at the Capitol, with the goal of preventing Congress from certifying the election." ~~~
~~~ Trump Dumps Rudy. Jim Acosta & Paul LeBlanc of CNN: "... Donald Trump's longtime personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, is 'not currently representing President Trump in any legal matters,' senior Trump adviser Jason Miller told CNN on Tuesday.... Miller said in a tweet that Giuliani remained an 'ally and a friend' and is not representing Trump only because there are no pending cases in which he's involved. Trump had signaled frustration with Giuliani last month.... He told his staff to stop paying Giuliani's legal fees, a person familiar with the matter previously told CNN, though aides were not clear if Trump was serious about his instructions." ~~~
~~~ Trump Dumps on Mitch. Caroline Kelly & Brian Rokus of CNN: "... Donald Trump went after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday.... 'Mitch is a dour, sullen, and unsmiling political hack, and if Republican Senators are going to stay with him, they will not win again,' Trump said in the statement. 'He will never do what needs to be done, or what is right for our Country....'" The New York Times story, by
~~~ Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "One person close to the former president said his initial version of the statement was more incendiary than what was released publicly. A second person said the statement was issued instead of a news conference that Mr. Trump had initially planned to give on Tuesday, out of fear he would go off track and say even harsher things extemporaneously. In the statement, Mr. Trump resorted to insults about Mr. McConnell's acumen and political abilities, and faulted him for Republicans' loss of their Senate majority.... The statement was the longest one Mr. Trump has issued since leaving office on Jan. 20." ~~~
~~~ Dan Mangan of CNBC: "... Donald Trump might have easily avoided conviction at his second impeachment trial -- but he could find it a lot tougher to beat the several serious criminal and civil probes that he now faces. And at least one of those investigations carries the potential for Trump to be sent to jail if convicted. That would be an unprecedented event in American history.... Trump ... has claimed that the probes are politically motivated witch hunts by Democratic prosecutors. But judges in two of those investigations have repeatedly ruled against Trump's lawyers in disputes related to evidence."
Maggie Haberman & Michael Schmidt of the New York Times: "... Mr. Trump's hastily assembled [impeachment 2.0] legal team -- a mash-up of political hands, a personal-injury lawyer, a former prosecutor and a longtime defense lawyer, most of whom did not particularly like or trust one another -- clashed, stumbled and regrouped throughout the impeachment proceeding under the watchful and sometimes wrathful eye of its client."
Asawin Suebsaeng, et al., of the Daily Beast: "MAGA diehard and pillow magnate Mike Lindell [the MyPillow guy --] is the next target of a Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit over his wild claims about nonexistent election-fraud conspiracy, with the lead attorney representing Dominion telling The Daily Beast he expects to file the suit 'imminently.'" MB: But not to worry; Mike will lose no sleep over this on accounta laying his head so comfortably on MyPillow.
Sky Palma of the Raw Story: "Speaking on the Skullduggery podcast, veteran '60 Minutes producer' Ira Rosen told the show's hosts that during his time at the White House, Steve Bannon concluded that then-President Trump was suffering from 'early stage dementia' and later launched a behind the scenes campaign to have him removed by invoking the 25th Amendment."
"Conservatism" Today. Ryan Reilly & Paul Blumenthal of the Huffington Post: “Leo Brent Bozell IV, the son of conservative activist L. Brent Bozell III, was captured on video inside the Senate chamber during the attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been charged with three federal offenses, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed on Tuesday.... L. Brent Bozell III, a major conservative political figure who founded a number of organizations aimed at countering 'liberal media bias,' including the Media Research Center and NewsBusters. He is himself the son of L. Brent Bozell Jr., who worked as a speechwriter for Sen. Joseph McCarthy (R-Wis.) and as the ghostwriter for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's book 'The Conscience of a Conservative.' Bozell Jr. was a key player in the creation of the mid-20th-century conservative movement, alongside National Review founder William F. Buckley, that ultimately took over the Republican Party. He later abandoned the United States, conservatism and democracy for Francisco Franco's ... dictatorship in Spain." MB: I wonder if Bill Buckley, with his patrician affectations, would be happy about the way his "movement" turned out: a bloody, mob rebellion against an American presidential election result. ~~~
~~~ Reed Richardson of Mediaite: "... Brent Bozell III condemned [the insurrection] on live TV as 'very, very disturbing' and 'absolutely wrong' as it was happening on January 6th.... [BUT] In an appearance on Fox Business' The Evening Edit, the Media Research Center president sympathized with the protestors and joined in the chorus pushing ... Donald Trump's 'big lie' about election fraud.... 'I hope there is a thorough investigation,' Bozell added, moments later, before baselessly implying Antifa or left-wing activists played a role in the violence at the Capitol."
Michael Miller of the New York Times: The Pizzagate gunman has been out of jail since last March, but the insane conspiracy theory that drove him from North Carolina to the Comet Ping Pong pizza parlor in Northwest D.C. helped fuel the January 6 siege of the Capitol. "Above all, [the siege] would reveal how baseless claims had spread under a president who often promoted them, growing from [Edgar Maddison] Welch's trip to Washington shortly after the 2016 election to the hundreds who stormed the Capitol to keep Trump in office, some proudly wearing T-shirts with the QAnon motto: 'Where we go one, we go all.'... On Oct. 28, 2017, someone calling himself 'Q' and claiming to be a high-ranking intelligence officer began posting on 4chan. The messages expanded on Pizzagate by claiming satanic pedophiles controlled not only Comet but the world, drinking children's blood to stay young. Q promised that Trump and other government insiders would bring them to justice."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments are here.
Pam Belluck of the New York Times: "Doctors across the country have been seeing a striking increase in the number of young people with the condition ... called Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children or MIS-C..., [which] strikes some young people, usually several weeks after infection by the coronavirus.... Even more worrisome, they say, is that more patients are now very sick than during the first wave of cases, which alarmed doctors and parents around the world last spring.... So far, there's no evidence that recent coronavirus variants are responsible, and experts say it is too early to speculate about any impact of variants on the syndrome. The condition remains rare."
Daniel Payne of Politico: "The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it would extend the foreclosure moratorium and mortgage forbearance through the end of June. The actions would block home foreclosures and offer delayed mortgage payments until July, as well as offer six months of additional mortgage forbearance for those who enroll on or before June 30. The actions are an extension of an order that was originally enacted under the Trump administration in March of last year. President Joe Biden -- as one of 17 orders he signed on his first day in office -- initially extended the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums through the end of March. The eviction moratorium remains in effect through March but was not included in the actions announced Tuesday. The departments of Housing and Urban Development, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture will work together to enact the actions, according to the announcement from the White House. Resources for homeowners will be consolidated on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's website."
Emily Cochrane & Luke Broadwater of the New York Times: "House Democrats are finalizing the details of President Biden's $1.9 trillion economic relief package, and barreling toward a vote on the final legislation at the end of next week. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, told House Democrats during a conference call on Tuesday that he hoped to have the legislation reach the House floor by next Friday, according to two people familiar with the remarks." ~~~
~~~ Erica Werner of the Washington Post: "Congressional Democrats will renew their focus this week on passing President Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill, as they face a mid-March deadline when enhanced unemployment benefits expire, if Congress don't act in time. With ... Donald Trump's impeachment trial out of the way in the Senate, Democrats are preparing to push the legislation through a few final procedural hoops before an expected floor vote next week in the House. From there, the legislation would go to the Senate. Biden is participating in a CNN town hall Tuesday night to discuss the coronavirus, the economy and other issues. He is likely to use the opportunity to promote his relief plan...." (Also linked yesterday.)
Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "Anthony Fauci said in an interview with 'Axios on HBO' that he worried about contracting the coronavirus during the Trump administration because of its lax approach to the virus. Fauci, who is 80 years old and has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) for over three decades, said that his age category was always in the back of his mind particularly when he visited the White House under then-President Trump." (Also linked yesterday.)
AP: "A rare winter storm that dumped a foot of snow on Seattle couldn't keep a 90-year-old woman from her first appointment for the coronavirus vaccine. Fran Goldman walked six miles round trip to get her shot, The Seattle Times reports." A photo of Goldman accompanies the story. She looks far younger than 90. Good for her. AND nobody would give her a ride back home???
Beyond the Beltway
New York. Birdwatching-While-Black Case Dismissed. Jonah Bromwich of the New York Times: "The criminal case against Amy Cooper, a white woman who called the police on a Black bird-watcher in Central Park and falsely reported that he had threatened her, was dismissed on Tuesday after Ms. Cooper completed a therapeutic program that included instruction about racial biases. At a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court, a senior prosecutor asked a judge to dismiss the single misdemeanor charge against Ms. Cooper -- falsely reporting an incident -- and the judge agreed. Ms. Cooper had faced up to a year in jail if convicted." A WPVI (Philadelphia) story is here.
Texas, etc. Erin Douglas of the Texas Tribune: "Failures across Texas' natural gas operations and supply chains due to extreme temperatures are the most significant cause of the power crisis that has left millions of Texans without heat and electricity during the winter storm sweeping the U.S. From frozen natural gas wells to frozen wind turbines, all sources of power generation have faced difficulties during the winter storm. But Texans largely rely on natural gas for power and heat generation, especially during peak usage, experts said. Officials for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which manages most of Texas' grid, said that the primarily cause of the outages on Tuesday appeared to be the state's natural gas providers. Many are not designed to withstand such low temperatures on equipment or during production. By some estimates, nearly half of the state's natural gas production has screeched to a halt due to the extremely low temperatures, while freezing components at natural gas-fired power plants have forced some operators to shut down." ~~~
~~~ Marie: According to Chris Hayes of MSNBC, the Fox "News" folks are gleefully telling viewers that the crisis in Texas is proof that "liberal" wind energy projects are colossal failures. ~~~
~~~ Will Englund of the Washington Post: "What has sent Texas reeling is not an engineering problem, nor is it the frozen wind turbines blamed by prominent Republicans. It is a financial structure for power generation that offers no incentives to power plant operators to prepare for winter. In the name of deregulation and free markets, critics say, Texas has created an electric grid that puts an emphasis on cheap prices over reliable service. It's a 'Wild West market design based only on short-run prices,' said Matt Breidert, a portfolio manager at a firm called TortoiseEcofin. And yet the temporary train wreck of that market Monday and Tuesday has seen the wholesale price of electricity in Houston go from $22 a megawatt-hour to about $9,000. Meanwhile, 4 million Texas households have been without power.... The widespread failure in Texas and, to a lesser extent, Oklahoma and Louisiana in the face of a winter cold snap shines a light on what some see as the derelict state of America's power infrastructure, a mirror reflection of the chaos that struck California last summer." ~~~
~~~ Justin Rohrlich of the Daily Beast: "Contrary to some media reports, experts say frozen wind turbines are only a 'tiny' piece of what's gone wrong, which includes foul-ups in everything from natural gas and nuclear energy in addition to structural issues affecting the uniquely independent system Texas uses to deliver energy to its population.... There are various issues at play right now, including a shortage of natural gas and the loss of generating capacity of one of Texas' four nuclear power plants after its water intakes froze.... Texas is the only state in the union with its own independent electric grid. By not crossing state lines, Texas' grid -- which is overseen by the state and run by a consortium of private operators called the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) -- remains as free as possible from federal regulations." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It's also a problem of stupid. When my mother renovated a house north of Houston -- where freezing temps do occur every winter -- she made the HVAC guy weather-proof the new system, and she told him how to do it. He thought she was nuts. "That might be the way y'all do it up north," he told her dismissively, "but that's not the way we do it here." "And that's why people here have their water pipes burst every year, & their heating systems fail," my mother said. Of course, as unwashed mentioned yesterday, "the way we do it here" does increase profits for plumbers & HVAC companies. So maybe as much greedy as stupid. ~~~
~~~ Krista Torralva & Holly Hacker of the Dallas Morning News: "Texas' power grid operators can't predict when outages might end, Electric Reliability Council of Texas officials said Tuesday.... ERCOT, the agency that oversees the state's power grid, is trying to avoid a total blackout by instructing utility companies ... to cut power to customers.... Throughout the day, ERCOT and Gov. Greg Abbott announced power was being restored to hundreds of thousands of customers, but the gains aren't always maintained." ~~~
~~~ Julia Manchester & Maggie Miller of the Hill: "Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is coming under intense scrutiny over his handling of mass power outages in the state caused by harsh winter weather conditions, as he prepares to run for reelection next year on the heels of two major disasters.... The emergency comes as Abbott prepares to run for his third term as governor.... The governor is taking a series of steps to address the crisis, including deploying the state's National Guard in an effort to help relocate vulnerable people, including elderly individuals, to warm shelters. And he focused the blame on the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) on Tuesday, calling for state lawmakers to launch an investigation into the council.... 'The state has had a couple of times to review this, and decided each time it didn't want to pay for each utility to have the capacity to serve,' [Robert Cullick, a former Austin Energy executive,] noted." ~~~/p>
~~~ James Dobbins & Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: "While the rolling blackouts in Texas have left some 4 million residents without power in brutally cold weather, experts and community groups say that many marginalized communities were the first to be hit with power outages, and if history serves as a guide, could be among the last to be reconnected. This is particularly perilous, they say, given that low-income households can lack the financial resources to flee to safety or to rebound after the disruption. Experts worry, in particular, that rising energy prices amid surging demand will leave many families in the lurch.... In Texas' deregulated electricity market, prices can fluctuate with demand, leading to a potential jump in electric bills for poorer households that already spend a disproportionate amount of income on utilities." ~~~
~~~ Marie: I had no idea racists were so talented. We all know politicians hire somebody to gerrymander minorities into a finite number of districts, but I had no idea a power company would go to the trouble to figure out what minorities lived so they could shut down their services first & turn them back on last.
The Big Picture. Brad Plumer of the New York Times: "The crisis [in Texas] sounded an alarm for power systems throughout the country. Electric grids can be engineered to handle a wide range of severe conditions -- as long as grid operators can reliably predict the dangers ahead. But as climate change accelerates, many electric grids will face extreme weather events that go far beyond the historical conditions those systems were designed for, putting them at risk of catastrophic failure.... It is clear that global warming poses a barrage of additional threats to power systems nationwide, including fiercer heat waves and water shortages.... And, experts said, unless grid planners start planning for increasingly wild and unpredictable climate conditions, grid failures will happen again and again."
News Ledes
New York Times: "Rush Limbaugh, the relentlessly provocative voice of conservative America who dominated talk radio for more than three decades with shooting-gallery attacks on liberals, Democrats, feminists, environmentalists and other moving targets, died on Wednesday. He was 70."
AP: "A winter storm that left millions without power in record-breaking cold weather claimed more lives, including three people found dead after a tornado hit a seaside town in North Carolina and four family members who perished in a Houston-area house fire while using a fireplace to stay warm. The storm that overwhelmed power grids and immobilized the Southern Plains on Tuesday carried heavy snow and freezing rain into New England and the Deep South and left behind painfully low temperatures. Wind-chill warnings extended from Canada into Mexico. In all, at least 20 deaths were reported. Other causes included car crashes and carbon monoxide poisoning. The weather also threatened to affect the nation's COVID-19 vaccination effort. President Joe Biden's administration said delays in vaccine shipments and deliveries were likely." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Woe is me! Today is the day I'm scheduled to get my first shot. We'll see if the supply is there when I am.
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Reader Comments (18)
Have any of my fellow RCers watched any of the Krystal Ball podcasts on The Hill (“The Rising” or “Krystal Kyle & Friends”)? My husband thinks she’s just great. I, on the other hand, find her unrelentingly negative sneering snarkiness about EVERYTHING to be completely insufferable, negating any substantively good things she might have to say. Would be curious to hear you guys’ thoughts.
Ditto with Glenn Greenwood and Matt Taibbi (whose motto seems to be “everyone is lying to you except I, Matt Taibbi, so you should not believe anyone except for me, Matt Taibbi”). Both might have some good points to make about the press getting things wrong and blowing things way out of proportion, but their message seems to be that the mistakes of the mainstream press proves that the press is lying so that they (Greenwood & Taibbi) are the only reliable source of information.
My husband has gone way down the rabbit hole with all of this nonsense, which has caused a not-insignificant rift in my small, COVID-confined household.
Sigh.
Greenwald not Greenwood. Stoopid spell cherk.
Morning musings:
Two of the morning’s stories taken together say a lot about the difference between the political parties in charge of the current and former administrations.
While both are given to confusing sound bites with governance, when pressed by reality one does know the difference. Sound bites are easy. Governance takes real work.
We all remember the running infrastructure week joke of the former administration. Time will tell, but I’m guessing today's foray into the same territory will turn out to have some substance, as long as the Democrats can find a way to fund it. Don’t imagine the R’s will be much help.
https://www.marketscreener.com/news/latest/Biden-to-Meet-With-Unions-Pushing-for-Infrastructure-Spending-2nd-Update--32457562/
And this one on the varying and competing claims about vaccine distribution problems, which I thought the WAPO did a fine job of tracking down.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/17/harriss-claim-biden-vaccine-plan-was-starting-scratch/
Here Kessler determines Harris overstepped reasonable rhetorical bounds, but in the process suggests there is now more nitty gritty work getting done, that talk is taking a second place to effort. In the context of the last two years two Pinocchios ain't bad.
Taken together these two glimples into today's news could suggest the Democrats intend to reclaim their reputation as the party of the lunch bucket blue collar workers who get things done—the party that they once were.
Or that's my morning hope.
A problem with musing in the morning:
Make that "the last FOUR years..."
I hope that you were able to get the vax, MB. I'm too young, too healthy, and, because I went back to school to study further about my former (and let's hope future) essential work, not qualified as an essential worker. The hoovering up of essential social goods and services facinates me. As a person at the very tail end of the Baby Boomers, I've seen lots of hoovering by my older peers of the 'heads I win, tails you lose' baby boomers. Not surprisingly is this quote from an American Journal of Public Health article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4638261/) "Lack of comprehensive data is the primary reason detailed analyses of this high-cost group have not been conducted and why misperceptions about this group are common."
If we don't measure it, we can't manage it. Moscow Mitch's minions don't want to measure many things, including health care. Anyone who thinks the Orange Turd and his crowd don't measure and count their nickels constantly is off his rocker. Measuring Covid, and vaccinations, or things like measuring police on black shootings implies a managerial accounting at the end of the day. I can't even get a callback from my public health department when I have tried to volunteer to help administer the vax to other community members. Moscow Mitch's minions have broken more than just data collection. They are systematic anarchists to the vast majority of citizens; January 6 briefly showed what that looks like and it scared even them.
@citizen625
Precisely. The R's don't measure it because they don't want to know.
And when they don't know, they can't, as you say, manage it. And when they can't manage it, they're not responsible for it.
A neat summary of their non-governing philosophy.
What climate change?
What gun violence?
What domestic terrorism?
What racism?
What economic inequality?
What voter suppression?
Who knows?
I just wrote a long post and it has not shown up.
On the weather channel this morning, the comment about the failure of the wind turbines was that the governor had decided not to buy the slightly more expensive cold tolerant blades, which are used all over the northern US and in Canada. So it was his poor choice which led to the turbine failure in the cold. So, again, penny-wise leads to deaths. Thanks, republicans.
@PD Pepe: I checked the spam folder, where perfectly good posts sometimes go, and your post isn't there. If you kept a copy, please resubmit it. Thank you.
As I mentioned yesterday, the Comments section didn't seem to be working right after the site (and apparently many others) went down for an hour+ yesterday morning; I got a "Whoops!" message the first time I tried to post a comment. As always, it's a good idea to keep a copy of your comment till you see it published. I do not monitor comments before they're published.
Rush-hole Limbaugh is dead. RIP (reap immediate perdition).
He’s being welcomed into the fiery pits as a hero of hatred, lies, greed, and as a sower of fear and ignorance.
@Victoria
Thanks. Another item for my list of what the I don't want to know party doesn't want to know.
On the racist Limbaugh's passing:
Iit's been hard, but I have not yet chortled in my joy at news of his death.
Not summoning up any sympathy today for TX, especially as they have been (Cruz, et al) so nasty about the CA fires-- not giving them the money they deserve, etc. And of course, DumpsterMan didn't give them enough rakes, either...s/ Ignorance remains supreme below the Mason-Dixon...who knew one should insulate? I heard that this has happened numerous times in the last 10 years, so they are just pathetically stupid with bad politicians.
Also not sad at all to see the last of Limbaugh. I have sincerely detested Mr. Fatso (before the elected Fatty--) since the "femiNazi" days. Like Fatty, he cannot be forgiven.
Last night I wrote a request on Instagram under Bodega Cats concerning a man in a store (with a cat, of course--) and he was wearing his mask as a (direct quote from another commenter--)"chin diaper." A commenter said proudly that that was her dad pictured, so I asked her to tell her dad to fix his mask as he served customers in the bodega. Well, you would have thought I had called him names. She accused me of being "racist" (?) (I had not noticed his skin color in the least--) and also "elitist" (?) and that I was telling her father what to do and also her and that lots of people go on vacation that we should worry about, so my priorities are askew... I have never been called a racist OR an elitist... If it hadn't been after midnight, I might have asked her for her definition, but by that time I was super tired of a bratty young woman (very pretty on Instagram page) whose page was nothing but selfies.
I am not too tolerant of people these days.
There is NO WAY that Dumpsterpants wrote "dour" or "sullen" when describing Monster Mitch, so I guess he must have a stable of writers down there in Swampland, like he did in the WH. He sounds like a Victorian describing a suitor. Certainly not Demented Don. Do you suppose he (Jason or Steven) ever heard of Jane or Emily?
I wrote Ron Johnson yesterday, also the little cretin in York, PA, who, with her R committee in York, censured Toomey-- and I bitterly resent having to defend Toomey, Mr. Club-for-Growth (like Santorum) Financial Genius. I think I am done with that, also.
The BBC has an interesting documentary about the Dumpsterfire. This is first of three hour long episodes. They got a number of foreign officials to tell their experiences of last few years. Though Don's people come off as you would expect.
@RAS: You had be for a second. When I first rear your post I thought, "Jeez, only the Brits would be able to sit through three-hour long episodes of a documentary about Orange Turdblossom." I couldn't last three seconds.
Then I woke up to there being three hour-long episodes. Even if they're cut up into smaller chucks, it's still waaay too much for me to gag down.
I fucking hate autocorrect.
me, not be.
read, not rear.
Rockygirl,
I have never listened to the pod(cast) person you mentioned. My podcasting adventures are pretty select and, like you, I am wary of too much shouting (even though I have done plenty of it out here in RC world, leavened somewhat, I hope, with other thoughts and concerns outside the land of high dudgeon). I have found Matt Taibbi to offer interesting reads at times although I confess I haven’t read much of his stuff in a while, but I can see what you mean.
As for Greenwald, I gave up completely on that guy years ago. If you’re not extreme enough for his tastes, he casts you down with the unclean. Fuck that. That sort of mindset is exactly the same as wingnut Trump brownshirts who deem those not sufficiently Trumpy and psychotic to be ready for a firing squad. Those able to see only black and white miss a whole lot of colors in between. Sorry. Not for me.
Marie,
Get your shot?
Because I’m not 70, I’ve been dumped into the “Come back later. Much later” bin. Although the Rs in the red state legislature, the ones who screamed “COVID is a hoax!!!” along with the Orange Monster, were some of the first to cut the line.
Guess I’ll get it at some point.