;)
The Commentariat -- July 1, 2021
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "The Trump Organization, the real estate business that catapulted Donald J. Trump to tabloid fame, television riches and ultimately the White House, was charged Thursday with fraud and tax crimes in connection with what prosecutors said was a 15-year-long scheme to compensate a top executive off the books. The Manhattan district attorney's office, which has been conducting the investigation, also accused the executive, Allen H. Weisselberg, Mr. Trump's long-serving and trusted chief financial officer, of avoiding taxes on $1.7 million in income. He faced grand larceny, tax fraud and other charges. The charges were revealed at an arraignment in State Supreme Court in Manhattan for the Trump Organization and Mr. Weisselberg. More details about the allegations were set to be laid out in an indictment to be unsealed after the court proceeding." This is an update of a story linked below.
Mike Lillis of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has named Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) to serve on the select committee investigating the attack on the Capitol by a mob of pro-Trump supporters.... House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) will serve as the select panel's leader. Pelosi's other Democratic picks include Administration Committee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (Calif.), Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (Calif.), Pete Aguilar (Calif.), Stephanie Murphy (Fla.), Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Elaine Luria (Va.)." Update: The Washington Post's story, by Felicia Sonmez & Marianna Sotomayor is here. ~~~
~~~ MEANWHILE. Jamie Gangel of CNN: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday issued a blanket threat during a meeting with freshmen members of his caucus that he would strip any Republican member of their committee assignments if they accept an offer from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve on the select committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection, according to two GOP sources with knowledge of the matter." MB: We'll see if Kevin strips Cheney of her committee assignments, while he leaves reprobates like alleged sex offender Matt Gaetz & confirmed white supremacist Paul Gosar on House committees.
A Bad Day for Democracy ~~~
Harper Neidig of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a California regulation requiring nonprofits to disclose their donors to state officials is unconstitutional. The court sided with a pair of conservative groups challenging the disclosure requirement in a 6-3 split along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion, ruling that the disclosure regulations have a chilling effect on donors' First Amendment rights." Update: The New York Times report, by Adam Liptak, is here.
John Kruzel of the Hill: "The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that a pair of Republican-backed Arizona voting restrictions do not run afoul of federal law, rejecting a Democratic challenge and dealing a blow to voting rights advocates.... One Arizona policy at issue in Thursday's case requires provisional ballots cast in the wrong precinct to be discarded. The second measure makes it illegal for most third parties to deliver ballots for others, a practice critics refer to as 'ballot harvesting.'... Developing." MB: According to CNN, the decision was 6-3, with the more liberal justices dissenting. Update: The New York Times report, by Adam Liptak, is here.
~~~~~~~~~~
Trump Org & CFO indicted. Weisselberg surrenders; stories linked below.
Another Whopper from Joe's Big Book of Tall Tales. Daniel Dale of CNN: "On Tuesday, President Joe Biden repeated a vivid story he has been telling since at least his 2020 presidential campaign. Biden's story serves to illustrate both his connection with average workers and his fondness for Amtrak.... The story details a conversation he claims to have had with a particular Amtrak conductor as he was boarding a train as vice president. But the story could not possibly be true -- as some conservative media outlets pointed out.... [The conductor] had been dead for more than a year -- and had been retired for more than two decades -- before the earliest moment [in 2015] they could conceivably have had the supposed conversation Biden keeps describing."
Christopher Cadelago, et al., of Politico: "The handling of [Vice President Harris's] border visit was the latest chaotic moment for a staff that's quickly become mired in them. Harris' team is experiencing low morale, porous lines of communication and diminished trust among aides and senior officials. Much of the frustration internally is directed at Tina Flournoy, Harris' chief of staff, a veteran of Democratic politics who began working for her earlier this year. In interviews, 22 current and former vice presidential aides, administration officials and associates of Harris and Biden described a tense and at times dour office atmosphere. Aides and allies said Flournoy, in an apparent effort to protect Harris, has instead created an insular environment where ideas are ignored or met with harsh dismissals and decisions are dragged out. Often, they said, she refuses to take responsibility for delicate issues and blames staffers for the negative results that ensue."
If You're Still Waiting for That Tax Refund.... Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "The Internal Revenue Service closed the most recent filing season with more than 35 million in unprocessed tax returns, as the agency's backlog grew markedly amid a crush of challenges related to the pandemic and economic relief efforts, a government watchdog said Wednesday. Erin Collins, the National Taxpayer Advocate, said in her report that about 17 million paper tax returns are still waiting to be processed and approximately 16 million additional returns have been placed on hold because they require further review manually. Another 2.7 million amended tax returns have not been processed. This backlog represents a four-fold increase from 2019 -- the most recent year before coronavirus -- when the IRS closed its filing season with only 7.4 million unprocessed returns, according to the report. These numbers reflect the IRS backlog as of May, and the agency may have made progress reducing it since then." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Rachel Siegel of the Washington Post: "The inspector general overseeing the Federal Housing Finance Agency resigned Tuesday, two months after a scathing watchdog report alleged that she abused her authority, retaliated against employees and blocked an investigation into her conduct. In April, an investigation by a special panel -- known as the Integrity Committee -- sent a report to the White House about Laura Wertheimer, the inspector general overseeing FHFA, who was nominated by President Barack Obama in 2014. The report noted years of complaints against Wertheimer and other staff members, and it ultimately concluded that 'misconduct of this nature warrants consideration of substantial disciplinary action, up to and including removal.'" (Also linked yesterday.)
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. Hiroko Tabuchi of the New York Times: A "veteran oil-industry lobbyist was told he was meeting with a recruiter. But the video call, which was secretly recorded, was part of an elaborate sting operation by an individual working for the environmental group Greenpeace UK. During the call, Keith McCoy, a senior director of federal relations for Exxon Mobil, described how the oil and gas giant targeted a number of influential United States senators in an effort to weaken climate action in President Biden's flagship infrastructure plan. That plan now contains few of the ambitious ideas initially proposed by Mr. Biden to cut the burning of fossil fuels, the main driver of climate change. Mr. McCoy also said on the recording that Exxon's support for a tax on carbon dioxide was 'a great talking point' for the oil company, but that he believes the tax will never happen. He also said that the company has in the past aggressively fought climate science through 'shadow groups.'... On the video call recorded by Greenpeace, Mr. McCoy defended the company&'s efforts to mislead the public on climate change...." ~~~
~~~ "Climate Crimes." Chris McGreal of the Guardian: "To investigate the lengths of the oil and gas industry's deceptions -- and the disastrous consequences for communities across the country -- the Guardian is launching a year-long series tracking the unprecedented efforts to hold the fossil fuel industry to account. The legal process is expected to take years. Cities in California filed the first lawsuits back in 2017, and they have been tied down by disputes over jurisdiction, with the oil companies fighting with limited success to get them moved from state to federal courts where they think the law is more favorable. But climate activists see opportunities long before verdicts are rendered in the US. The legal process is expected to add to already damning revelations of the energy giants' closely held secrets. If history is a guide, those developments could in turn alter public opinion in favor of regulations that the oil and gas companies spent years fighting off. A string of other recent victories for climate activists already points to a shift in the industry's power."
Karoun Demirjian of the Washington Post: "The House voted Wednesday to form a select committee tasked with investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol with nearly all Republicans opposing the legislation -- a sign of the political challenges that face Democrats as they attempt to probe why thousands of ... Donald Trump's supporters laid siege to the U.S. Capitol complex. The 220 to 190 party-line vote stands in contrast to a vote in May, when 35 House Republicans joined Democrats to back creation of an independent commission to examine the attack. But while many House Republicans were willing to embrace an outside panel of experts evenly weighted between GOP and Democratic appointees, most were wary of a select committee that would be firmly in the control of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's handpicked participants.... Only two of the 211 House Republicans voted in favor of creating the panel -- Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), both of whom were among the 10 Republicans who voted to impeach ... Donald Trump in January.... Pelosi (D-Calif.) designed the select committee to have 13 members, only five of whom would be appointed 'after consultation with the minority leader,' Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Three Stooges Plan Investigation of NSA; Hilarity to Ensue. Caroline Vakil of the Hill: "
Paul Kane of the Washington Post: "Early in his tenure, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) took decisive action against a Republican who embraced racist views. 'I've watched on the other side that they do not take action when their members say something like this. Action will be taken,' McCarthy said in a January 2019 interview on CBS, outlining his plan to strip Steve King, an Iowa Republican, of his committee assignments. Two-and-a-half years later, McCarthy has ceded that moral high ground in policing his own caucus. Instead, he has adopted something best called whataboutism: Anytime a Republican does something wrong, he points to a Democrat who's gone unpunished by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)."
Zachary Cohen & Geneva Sands of CNN: "Department of Homeland Security officials are warning that the same sort of rhetoric and false narratives that fueled the January 6 attack on the US Capitol could lead to more violence this summer by right-wing extremists. A growing belief among some Donald Trump supporters that the former President will be reinstated in August, coupled with relaxed Covid-19 restrictions, has DHS officials concerned that online rhetoric and threats could translate into actual violence in the coming months as more people are out and in public places. The August theory is essentially a recycled version of other false narratives pushed by Trump and his allies leading up to and after January 6, prompting familiar rhetoric from those who remain in denial about his 2020 election loss. But the concern is significant enough that DHS issued two warnings in the past week about the potential for violence this summer."
** New York Times: "In the six months since an angry pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, immense efforts have been made not only to find the rioters and hold them accountable, but also ... to dig into the details of Jan. 6 and slowly piece together what actually happened that day.... And while Republicans in Congress blocked the formation of a blue-ribbon bipartisan committee, House Democrats are poised to appoint a smaller select committee. Even now, however, Republican politicians and their allies in the media are still playing down the most brazen attack on a seat of power in modern American history. Some ... have accused the F.B.I. of planning the attack in what they have described -- wildly -- as a false-flag operation.... The Times's Visual Investigations team spent several months reviewing thousands of videos.... What we have come up with is a 40-minute panoramic take on Jan. 6, the most complete visual depiction of the Capitol riot to date." The article then outlines what it calls "some of the major revelations." Well-worth carving out 40 minutes to watch it. Supersize it. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Spencer Hsu & Rachel Weiner of the Washington Post: "More than a dozen arrests in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were announced or unsealed Wednesday, revealing charges against alleged supporters of extremist right-wing groups including the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and Boogaloo Bois, and individuals accused of attacking the property of news media. The arrests ranked among the most made public in a single day and came as an alleged Oath Keepers member [Mark Grods] reached an unexpected plea deal with prosecutors in the largest conspiracy case brought against those accused of obstructing Congress as it met to confirm the 2020 election results." ~~~
~~~ Zoe Tillman of BuzzFeed News: "A member of the alleged Oath Keepers conspiracy who cut a deal with prosecutors will admit he stashed guns at a Virginia hotel as part of preparations for demonstrations at the Capitol on Jan. 6. Mark Grods is set to plead guilty on Wednesday afternoon to two felony counts for conspiracy and obstructing Congress. Grods will confirm the government's long-standing allegation that members of the Oath Keepers who came to Washington, DC, to oppose Congress's certification of the election were prepared for violence and arranged to store firearms outside of the city that could be brought in on short notice." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ryan Reilly of the Huffington Post: "As the unprecedented probe [to track down January 6 insurrectionists] reshapes the federal government's approach to domestic terrorism, Justice Department officials announced last week they had cleared the benchmark of 500 arrests.... [Attorney General Merrick] Garland ... said DOJ's efforts were 'not possible without the continued assistance of the American public.' Much of that assistance has come from people who personally knew Capitol suspects.... But there's a whole other batch of Capitol defendants who ended up on the FBI's radar thanks to the work of someone they&'d never met: anonymous online sleuths who tracked down the digital breadcrumbs that Capitol suspects had often unknowingly sprinkled across the internet. They call themselves sedition hunters, and they have receipts. They're members of a loosely affiliated network of motivated individuals and pop-up volunteer organizations with names like Deep State Dogs and Capitol Terrorists Exposers that developed after the Jan. 6 attack to identify the Trump supporters who organized the Capitol riot and brutalized the law enforcement officers protecting the building." Reilly goes on to describe some of the sedition hunters & their methods.
How Biden Won. Ruth Igielnik, et al., of the Pew Research Center: "A number of factors determined the composition of the 2020 electorate and explain how it delivered Biden a victory.... Overall, there were shifts in presidential candidate support among some key groups between 2016 and 2020, notably suburban voters and independents. On balance, these shifts helped Biden a little more than Trump.... Biden made gains with suburban voters.... Trump made gains among Hispanic voters.... Apart from the small shift among Hispanic voters, Joe Biden's electoral coalition looked much like Hillary Clinton's, with Black, Hispanic and Asian voters and those of other races casting about four-in-ten of his votes.... Biden made gains with men, while Trump improved among women, narrowing the gender gap.... Biden improved over Clinton among White non-college voters.... Biden grew his support with some religious groups while Trump held his ground.... After decades of constituting the majority of voters, Baby Boomers and members of the Silent Generation made up less than half of the electorate in 2020 (44%), falling below the 52% they constituted in both 2016 and 2018."
** Weisselberg Surrenders. Ben Protess, et al., of the New York Times: "Donald J. Trump's long-serving chief financial officer, Allen H. Weisselberg, surrendered on Thursday to the Manhattan district attorney's office as he and the Trump Organization prepared to face charges in connection with a tax investigation, people with knowledge of the matter said. The exact charges were not yet known.... Mr. Weisselberg, accompanied by his lawyer, Mary E. Mulligan, walked into the Lower Manhattan building that houses the criminal courts and the district attorney's office about 6:20 a.m. He is expected to appear in court in the afternoon along with representatives of the Trump Organization." ~~~
~~~ ** Shayna Jacobs, et al., of the Washington Post: "A grand jury in Manhattan filed criminal indictments Wednesday against former president Donald Trump's company and its longtime chief financial officer, according to two people familiar with the indictments. The indictments against the Trump Organization and its CFO, Allen Weisselberg, will remain sealed until Thursday afternoon, leaving the specific charges against them unclear. Earlier Wednesday, people familiar with the case said the charges were related to allegations of unpaid taxes on benefits for Trump Organization executives. Weisselberg is expected to surrender Thursday morning at the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), two people familiar with the plan said. He is expected to be arraigned later in the day in front of a state court judge. The Trump Organization will also be arraigned, represented in court by one of its attorneys." ~~~
~~~ Adam Reiss, et al., of NBC News have confirmed the Washington Post story in this update of an NBC News story linked here yesterday. ~~~
~~~ Michael Rothfeld, et al., of the New York Times profile Allen Weisselberg. "Interviews with 18 current and former associates of Mr. Weisselberg, as well as a review of legal filings, financial records and other documents, paint a portrait of a man whose unflinching devotion to Mr. Trump will now be put to the test." The story has been updated . ~~~
~~~ So many thanks to Ken W. for reminding us, in today's Comments, of this gem (albeit Hillary was speaking of Trump's personal federal income tax, but as we would say in the South, "same difference"):
More Bad News for the Trumpster. Cat Zakrzewski of the Washington Post: "A federal judge on Wednesday blocked a Florida law that would penalize social media companies for blocking a politician's posts, a blow to conservatives' efforts to respond to Facebook and other websites' suspension of ... Donald Trump. The law was due to go into effect Thursday, but in issuing a preliminary injunction, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle of the Northern District of Florida suggested that the law would be found unconstitutional. 'The plaintiffs are likely to prevail on the merits of their claim that these statutes violate the First Amendment,' Hinkle wrote. 'There is nothing that could be severed and survive.'" An NBC News report is here.
Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border ... Wednesday for a trip billed as an opportunity to assail President Biden on immigration -- an issue core to Trump's political identity and one Republicans view as a weakness for Democrats. But Trump often got sidetracked from the day's message, instead launching into grievance-filled rants.... Trump did not fully ignore the issue of immigration -- he just mainly focused on himself."
Graham Bowley of the New York Times: "Bill Cosby had his conviction for sexual assault overturned by a Pennsylvania appeals court on Wednesday, a decision that will set free a man whose case had represented the first high-profile sexual assault trial to unfold in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement. Three years into the prison sentence of three to 10 years he has served at a maximum-security facility outside Philadelphia, the 7-member Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Mr. Cosby, 83, had been denied a fair trial in 2018. The ruling upended the legal case against Mr. Cosby brought by prosecutors in Pennsylvania that began with his arrest in 2015 on charges of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman at his home in the Philadelphia suburbs eleven years earlier." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Robert McFadden of the New York Times: "Donald H. Rumsfeld , the secretary of defense for Presidents Gerald R. Ford and George W. Bush, who presided over America's Cold War strategies in the 1970s and, in the new world of terrorism decades later, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, died on Tuesday at his home in Taos, N.M. He was 88." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Spencer Ackerman of the Daily Beast: "he only thing tragic about the death of Donald Rumsfeld is that it didn't occur in an Iraqi prison.... Rumsfeld escaped the consequences of decisions he made that ensured a violent, frightening end for hundreds of thousands of people. An actuarial table of the deaths for which Donald Rumsfeld is responsible is difficult to assemble. In part, that's a consequence of his policy, as defense secretary from 2001 to 2006, not to compile or release body counts, a PR strategy learned after disclosing the tolls eroded support for the Vietnam War. As a final obliteration, we cannot know, let alone name, all the dead." Firewalled.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here: "The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday stood by advice that people fully vaccinated against the coronavirus do not need to wear masks in most situations, but added that there are instances where local authorities might impose more stringent measures to protect the unvaccinated. The comments came after the World Health Organization recently reiterated longstanding guidance that everyone, vaccinated or not, wear masks and take other precautions, following a global surge in infections of the highly contagious Delta variant." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Marie: I did attend events over the weekend where I did not wear a mask and where I was in close contact with people from around the country, so I'm wearing a mask for the next few weeks when I go out in order to protect other people in case I'm a carrier.
David Lim of Politico: "The Biden administration is rethinking its approach to Covid-19 testing as the pandemic enters an uncertain phase -- one in which new infections have dropped to the lowest level since the spring of 2020, but the highly contagious Delta variant is driving fresh outbreaks. Federal health officials, along with testing labs and test makers, are weighing how to implement the lessons they have learned from this pandemic to prepare for the next one. That includes what types of government incentives could help keep companies prepared to quickly develop tests in the face of a new emergency, and whether to stockpile key testing supplies. The administration also recently retooled the leadership of its Covid-19 testing and diagnostic workgroup."
Fenit Nirappil of the Washington Post: "Los Angeles County public health authorities are urging unvaccinated and vaccinated people alike to don masks again inside restaurants, stores and other public indoor spaces because of the growing threat posed by the more contagious delta variant of the novel coronavirus. The high-profile move by the county of 10 million marks an abrupt shift in tone after states and localities have dropped most mask mandates and social distancing requirements in recent weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in mid-May rescinded almost all masking recommendations for fully vaccinated people." The article is free to nonsubscribers. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Wisconsin. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Editors: "COVID-19 is still killing people in Wisconsin -- nearly all of them people who have not been fully vaccinated, state health officials say. And that's why Ron Johnson's news conference Monday was so disheartening.... Instead of encouraging more people to get vaccinated so we can be rid of this plague once and for all, Johnson has chosen to use his taxpayer-financed megaphone to draw attention to a vanishingly small number of people who believe they suffered a serious side effect. And he has continued to cast doubts aboutscience, research, masks and other public health measures while promoting 'cures' with no evidence behind them. He is the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s."
Beyond the Beltway
Charles Pierce of Esquire on South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem's plan to send the state's National Guard on a privately-funded excursion to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border. Pierce cites a Military Times article that reports that the governors of Arkansas, Florida & Nebraska have all pledged to send law enforcement officers to beef up border security. "... using that money essentially to rent out another state's National Guard as a private army for a political stunt to benefit the Republican Party and the future political plans of the governor of South Dakota is one very long step down a road that other republics have traveled, never to be seen again.... Here we have a cabal of Republican governors using their law-enforcement apparatus -- and now, their National Guard troops -- in a coordinated exercise in political gamesmanship, if not outright sabotage.... What's to prevent this band of ghouls from putting this kind of thing together to take more, ah, 'active' measures against the administration in the future? The last time governors decided to use their states' military as an argument in national politics, people wound up ducking behind things in Fort Sumter.... Biden should federalize the South Dakota National Guard immediately and then order it to stay where it is." Firewalled. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Pierce is right. The WashPo may think "democracy dies in darkness," but when democracy ultimately fails, it's usually right out in the sunlight. Donald Trump used the military for his personal political gain, but "his generals" prevented some of his worst-laid plans. By contrast, nobody is stopping Kristi or the other Republican governors from executing their plans to employ troops & other law enforcement officers to promote their political agendas. It doesn't matter much that they're starting down this road by planning to aim their guns at foreign nationals yearning to be free. What matters is that people in positions of power have switched from criticizing federal policies to taking matters into their own hands. And those hands are holding grenades.
Florida. Beth Reinhard, et al., of the Washington Post: "The president of the board of the Florida condominium that collapsed last week resigned in 2019, partly in frustration over what she saw as the sluggish response to an engineer's report that identified major structural damage the previous year. Anette Goldstein was among five members of the seven-member board to resign in two weeks that fall, according to minutes from an Oct. 3 meeting, at a time when the condo association in Surfside was consumed by contentious debate about the multimillion-dollar repairs.... Debate over the cost and scope of the work, along with turnover on the volunteer board, dragged out preparations for the repairs for three years, according to previously unpublished correspondence, condo board minutes and other records kept by the homeowners association." ~~~
~~~ Mike Baker & Kimiko de Freytas-Tamura of the New York Times: "The deferred maintenance and inadequate savings at the Champlain Towers building are common dilemmas at condo associations across the country, where volunteer board members, sometimes with little expertise in financing or maintenance, find themselves dealing with vicious infighting with their neighbors and pressure to keep dues low.... A vast majority of states do not require condo boards to maintain robust reserves to help pay for those items when they come due.... Industry leaders and some states have long pressed condos and other homeowners' associations to have robust reserve funds in order to avoid consternation and procrastination when a big bill is coming due. But with little voluntary progress, a move to reshape state laws has gained momentum in recent months."
New York. Katie Glueck of the New York Times: "A day after New York City's Board of Elections sowed confusion in the Democratic mayoral primary by releasing new tallies and then retracting them, it issued a new preliminary tally of votes suggesting that the race between Eric Adams, the primary night leader, and his two closest rivals had tightened significantly. According to Wednesday's nonbinding tally, Mr. Adams led Kathryn Garcia by just 14,755 votes, a margin of around 2 percentage points, in the final round. Maya Wiley, who came in second place in the initial vote count, barely trailed Ms. Garcia after the preliminary elimination rounds were completed: Fewer than 350 votes separated the two. But in reality, all of those candidates remain in contention, and those numbers could be scrambled again as the city's Board of Elections tabulates ranked-choice outcomes that will include roughly 125,000 Democratic absentee ballots, with a fuller result not expected until mid-July."
North Carolina. Katie Robertson of the New York Times: "The University of North Carolina's board of trustees voted on Wednesday to grant tenure to the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, ending a dispute that had stretched on for more than a month. Nine board members voted in favor of tenure for Ms. Hannah-Jones and four against during a special meeting on the campus in Chapel Hill, which some trustees attended via Zoom.... Ms. Hannah-Jones, a correspondent for The New York Times Magazine who earned a master's degree from U.N.C. in 2003, had accepted a position as the Knight Chair in Race and Investigative Journalism at the university's Hussman School of Journalism and was expected to start July 1." NPR's story is here.
Way Beyond
Canada. Leyland Cecco of the Guardian: "A First Nations community in western Canada has discovered the remains of nearly 200 people on the grounds of a former residential school, adding to the growing tally of unmarked graves across the country. The Lower Kootenay Band said on Wednesday that ground-penetrating radar had revealed 182 human remains at St Eugene's Mission residential school, near the city of Cranbrook, British Columbia. Some of the remains were buried in shallow graves only three and four feet deep.... From the 19th century until the 1990s, more than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend state-funded schools in [a] campaign to forcibly assimilate them into Canadian society. Abuse was rife at the schools where thousands of children died of disease, neglect and other causes." ~~~
~~~ Ian Austen & Vjosa Isai of the New York Times: "Pope Francis will meet with Indigenous leaders later this year to discuss coming to Canada to apologize for the church's role in operating schools that abused and forcibly assimilated generations of Indigenous children, a step toward resolving the grievances of survivors and Indigenous communities, the head of Canada's largest Indigenous organization said on Wednesday. In a statement, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said that the pope will meet separately at the Vatican with the representatives of Canada's three biggest Indigenous groups -- the First Nations, the Métis and the Inuit -- during a four-day series of meetings in December that will culminate in a joint session with all three."
News Ledes
CNBC: "Initial filings for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week, indicating continued improvement in the U.S. jobs market, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time jobless claims totaled 364,000 for the week ended June 26, compared to the 390,000 Dow Jones estimate. That marked a new pandemic-era low and a decline of 51,000 from the previous week. The last time there were fewer claims was the week of March 14, 2020, just before the worst of the economic damage hit."
The Washington Post's live updates of developments in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse are here. ~~~
~~~ Hill: "Video footage taken from the scene of the condominium building that collapsed last week in Surfside, Fla. shows water pouring into the garage and debris on the floor just minutes before the building gave way, ABC affiliate WLS reports. Adriana Sarmiento told WLS she and her husband were swimming in the pool at a nearby resort while on vacation when they heard a loud noise coming from the Champlain Tower South building. They went to investigate what they heard and saw concrete debris littering the garage and water rushing in from the ceiling." Includes brief video clip. ~~~
~~~ The New York Times is liveblogging developments in the Surfside, Florida condominium collapse: “President Biden will resume his role as consoler in chief on Thursday by traveling to Florida, where workers continue to comb through the rubble of the Champlain Towers South condo complex one week after the building partially collapsed, killing at least 18 people and leaving 145 unaccounted for." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Say, you know who else is planning an event not too far away? Zac Anderson of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune: "... Donald Trump's Sarasota rally scheduled for Saturday is moving ahead despite a report that Gov. Ron DeSantis' office asked for the event to be postponed while the governor responds to the mass casualty event in Surfside." Sarasota is on Florida's west coast.
Washington Post: "A bomb truck with the Los Angeles Police Department exploded Wednesday night after officers removed explosives from a home where, earlier in the day, they had seized thousands of pounds of illegal fireworks. The blast left nearby cars flipped onto their sides and sent more than a dozen people to the hospital. At least 17 people -- 10 law enforcement personnel and seven community members -- were hurt when a truck transporting the materials exploded about 6:40 p.m. The bomb squad was called to remove about 40 'Coca-Cola can-sized' improvised explosive devices, LAPD Chief Michel R. Moore said in a news conference late Wednesday night. None of the injuries are life-threatening, Moore said.... Something went wrong ... in what Moore called a 'total catastrophic failure of that containment vehicle.'"
Share Article
Reader Comments (10)
While we wait for those "big news" items let me entertain you with one of the bestest ever editorials re: the worstest ever dipwad in Congress.
"Wisconsin Republican Ron Johnson is “not fit to be your senator,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel declared in a stinging editorial published Wednesday.
The newspaper’s editorial board listed Johnson’s “long history of misleading claims” — including his “anti-science crusade” of sowing doubt on the COVID-19 vaccine and health measures aimed at mitigating the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, his downplaying of climate change, and his amplification of ex-President Donald Trump’s 2020 election lies."
"Johnson is “the most irresponsible representative of Wisconsin citizens since the infamous Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy in the 1950s,” the editorial declared.
He “continues to put his own interests ahead of yours. He continues to put himself first and democracy second,” it concluded. “And he continues to show why he is not fit to be your senator.”
Now I call that a splendid piece of work and a good way to start the day even though the Cosby freedom walk is enough to choke a horse.
I'm off to get my annual physical that has been delayed for some years due to Covid. Last time when the Doc asked how I was I said, "depressed, angry and forlorn"; he, bent over his records, lifted his head, looked at me and said, "Yeah, Trump, godawful!" So today when he greets me with the same question will I give him the same answer?
PD,
At the very least, these days we no longer have to read about the latest rape-sexual assault charge directed at a narcissistic, predatory president*, we’re not disgusted by dalliances with hookers and strippers, no longer wait for the outrage of the day, the cons, the lies, the criminal acts, the attacks on the Constitution, the self-serving ranting, the bellowing bigotry, the self-satisfied smirks, the nasty brickbats tossed at allies or the wet smooches to the hind quarters of murderous tyrants.
I will admit that six months on, I still feel my stomach clench when I hear a report that begins “The president, today…”, awaiting the inevitable indignity, disgrace, or affront to decency, but only momentarily. Then I remember that democracy has booted the Orange Loser out of office. Another reason confederates hate it.
So tell your doctor “Not bad. Could have been a lot worse.”
So money is speech. That's dumb enough, extending Bill of Rights protections per Citizens United to anyone and to any corporate entity that itself has no basis in the Constitution.
How original!
And now SCOTUS confirms that anonymous money is also protected.
Which because the source of that loud voice remains hidden, also protects anyone or anything that uses that disembodied voice to shout fire in the crowded theater of our politics.
Making everyone (with enough money) free to say anything they want with no legal way to make them accountable for what they say.
That must be what the Founders had in mind.
What it comes down to is this: Fully aware that money has no moral component, SCOTUS has nonetheless managed to elevate money to the supreme position of arbiter-in-chief of our politics, severing moral considerations entirely from the way we might govern ourselves.
Yesterday I suggested that denizens of the fiery nether regions were throwing a big welcome party for one of their own, the architect of not one, but two disastrous wars that are still going on almost two decades later. But just in case you think I’m being a tad harsh in my condemnation of the obscene nature of this…person’s…character, check out this piece presented last night by Rachel Maddow.
Back in 2003, Rumsfeld bought a property in which to relax from the daily joys of overseeing the deaths of thousands, all the torturing, the stupidity of having no real plan except the evisceration of brown people with a different religion. This property was—and still is—known as Mount Misery. It was the home of an infamous “slave breaker” back before the Civil War. It was a place where slaves were brought to be broken, tortured, and beaten. It’s most famous “resident” was Frederick Douglass, who recounted in excruciating detail his time at Mount Misery.
Maddow, after reviewing the inhuman and evil history of this house asked “Who? Who would want to live in a place like that?” Who could feel comfortable sitting down, reading the paper, padding around in slippers and jammies across floors spattered with the blood of beaten and tortured human beings?
Donald Rumsfeld. That’s who.
There are times when I’m sure I go a little overboard in excoriating confederate misanthropes. But not here. No wonder he and Cheney were such good friends.
Welcome to hell, you disgusting asshole.
https://youtu.be/J7F08km8GZs
Thanks to all of you for great remarks today. Am feeling swept away by the amount of news today, most emerging between 10 and 11 EDT...
The happiest is what looks like a great committee of truth-seekers for studying the impact of 1/6. Also, I can imagine the Orange Monster/Menace/Mobster gritting his teeth at the number of active impeachment committee members put on the committee-- Don't know if he ever gave Jamie Raskin a nickname, but he hates "Pencil Neck" Adam Schiff.
Well, off to return library books and finish a batch of cookies for the return of the prodigal children of the household...Visitors aplenty arriving, which will be a huge change after this past year. Happy Fourth! Our country, despite a close call, actively begun in 2016 and happily ended 2021, seems to still be hanging on for now. Here's hoping for better times ahead, and strength and justice for the good guys. You know who you are...
Sens. Richard Burr, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Chris Coons, Lindsey Graham, Maggie Hassan, John Hickenlooper, Mark Kelly, Angus King, Joe Manchin, Lisa Murkowski, Rob Portman, Mitt Romney, Mike Rounds, Jeanne Shaheen, Kyrsten Sinema, Jon Tester, Thom Tillis, Mark Warner, and Todd Young are the members that wrote the bipartisan infrastructure deal. Now who do you think sold out their country, constituents, planet and future of human civilization on Earth to the fossil fuels industury? Joe Manchin is a very likely contestant to come on down and play The Oil Price is Right game. Though alot of the those people look like they've play this game before.
They all look alike…
Never one to rest his fat ass for more than a couple of months (he really never walked up the stairs at the White House?), the Orange Loser has come up with another Stable Genius Idea. Those ungrateful blahs in Georgia didn’t vote for him or R bigots for the Georgia senate seats? Well, he’ll fix those uppity darkies!
He’ll run his very own nee-groe for the senate. His pick? Former football player and supporter of Fatty’s Big Lie, Herschel Walker. Walker played college ball at Georgia but hasn’t lived in that state for decades, has zero experience in governance, and never run for office. But never no mind. He’s black. They all look alike to confederates, who are sure that black voters in Georgia are too stupid to pay attention to things like experience and policy choices. Hey, the guy is black. He played FOOTBALL fer crissakes, he’s famous. Of COURSE all those dumb darkies will vote for him.
Also, Fatty has a history with Walker. Back when he destroyed the up and coming USFL football league, Trump signed Walker to his team. The league folded the next year (solely because of Trump—another business disaster). Years later, Walker appeared on the Orange Monster’s fake TV show. Trump “fired” him over his inability to make a baloney sandwich, or some crazy bullshit. But now he thinks he’d make a great senator. (Hold the mustard.) Fatty believes he’ll win because black.
Aside from the standard R racism implicit in such a move, there is also the fact that Walker has had mental health problems most of his life, which once caused him to point a loaded gun at his wife’s head in a fit of rage. But c’mon. What Republican hasn’t done that a couple of times? No biggie. And mental health problems? They’re ALL mentally handicapped. He’s perfect.
Plus, leave it to Donald Trump to put a potentially unstable guy in the senate.
He’d fit right in.
Yesterday I heard some R flack whine about the select committee getting ready to look into his party’s role in the recent insurrection. “Waaahhh! They need to look into how Pelosi caused the whole thing!” He went on to “clarify” his complaint. Pelosi, he declared, was responsible for the events on January 6 because she didn’t take enough precautions to ensure that security was up to snuff.
So, let me get this straight. Trump had no role in the attack, neither did his supporters. It’s all the fault of Pelosi and the Democrats, and that should be the sole focus of this investigation, otherwise it’ll be a circus/farce/witch-hunt.
So, if some gun wielding thug car jacks you, hits you over the head and crashes your car into a brick wall while swigging straight vodka from his 7-11 Big Gulp cup, it’s your fault. You need to be investigated for allowing it to happen by not having armor plating, bulletproof glass, triple locks on the doors, and heavily armed bodyguards in armored Humvees accompanying you to the grocery store.
Then the guy went on a rant about personal responsibility!
What they really want is traitors like MTG to run this investigation so that everyone will know that it was all the fault of Hunter Biden who staged this false flag attack so that Hillary and the Obamas could escape town in the confusion with truckloads of child sex slaves.
The splash zone warning really needs to be in effect whenever a Republican is talking
Ed Rollins, quoted in today's NYTimes newsletter says, "Still....the threat of criminal prosecution “certainly makes it more difficult” for Trump to claim the party’s mantle."
I'm not sure that's right. After all, who would you want to head a criminal enterprise...but a criminal?
For the last five years (and before, vide Nixon and Watergate, Reagan and Iran-Contra, Rumsfeld and the entire gang who brought us Iraq, black sites, extraordinary rendition and torture) Republicans have been just fine with that.
In fact, it's their specialty.