;)
The Commentariat -- July 22, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Did You Have Trouble with Internet Access Today? It Wasn't You. Timothy Bella of the Washington Post: "Another massive Internet outage along the East Coast struck significant online platforms Thursday, causing many high-traffic websites like Amazon Airbnb, FedEx and Delta Air Lines to go dark. According to the tracking website Downdetector, sites such as UPS, USAA, Home Depot, HBO Max and Costco were among those affected by the outage. Other sites like British Airways, Go Daddy, Fidelity, Vanguard and AT&T were among those loading slowly. The cause of the outage, the latest in a series of major global Internet outages this summer, is not immediately clear."
Paul Waldman of the Washington Post: President "Biden's answer [in yesterday's town hall about why the Senate should preserve the filibuster] was weak and unrealistic.... The arguments in favor of eliminating the filibuster are almost absurdly overwhelming, but they haven't managed to change many minds in the Senate.... You get change not by convincing politicians to do the right thing for its own sake, but by altering the political landscape in such a way that the path you want them to take winds up being the only logical choice for them.... The reality is that the only way Democrats will get filibuster reform -- and thereby get action on the rest of their agenda -- is to elect enough Democrats to the Senate so that they don't need Manchin and Sinema's votes on the question.... That's what would produce change. And Biden? He'd go right along with it, no matter what he says now." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Unfortunately, what Waldman suggests -- democracy from the bottom up -- is nearly as pie-in-the-sky as Biden's filibuster dreams. There's a circular problem here: if the Senate doesn't pass voting rights legislation, then many Democratic-leaning Americans will be deprived of the right to vote, and, obviously, if Democrats can't vote, Republicans will win elections & will continue to put tighter & tighter squeezes on Democratic voters. AND Republicans will choose the judges & justices who are inclined to go along with the plan. When you insist on minority rule, even when you're in the majority, there's an awfully good chance you'll get minority rule. Nice work, Joe!
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "The Biden administration will announce new sanctions Thursday against a number of Cuban officials deemed directly involved in human rights abuses during a government crackdown on widespread protests earlier this month, a senior administration official said. Imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, the sanctions will initially affect what officials said were a small number of individuals from Cuba's Interior Ministry and military forces. The measures come as President Biden faces increasing pressure from Congress, activist groups and Cuban Americans to take decisive action in support of the protesters."
Richard Pildes, in a New York Times op-ed, argues that the two-year Congressional term is a major reason Congress doesn't get anything done. MB: Frankly, I find his thesis about as useful as "We must keep the filibuster so everything will be great." In both arguments, there is no acknowledgment of Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy & their ilk.
Oliver Darcy of CNN: "A reporter at The Washington Post filed a lawsuit Thursday against the newspaper, its former top editor, and other senior leaders, alleging she was subject to unlawful discrimination after publicly saying that she had been the victim of sexual assault. The reporter, Felicia Sonmez, had previously said that she had been prohibited from covering stories about sexual misconduct because she had been outspoken about being a sexual assault survivor herself. As a national politics reporter, the ban had kept her from writing stories about how the #MeToo movement had upended politics, such as the allegations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation process. The ban was eventually lifted earlier this year, the lawsuit said, after Sonmez criticized the newspaper both privately and in public over the policy. It was instituted during the tenure of former Executive Editor Marty Baron, who retired from the paper in February." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Assuming Sonmez's allegations are true, the Post's position is nonsensical. It's likely every one of the paper's Black reporters has been subjected to racial discrimination. Has the paper refused to allow Black staff to write about racism? Men in positions of power, who wouldn't dream of, say, preventing Jewish men from writing about anti-Semitic behavior, have put women in a special place because our delicate (hysterical) sensibilities don't allow us to think rationally about matters that affect us personally.
So Let Us Now Revisit the "Investigation" of Bart O'Kavanaugh. Kate Kelly of the New York Times: "Nearly three years after Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh's tumultuous confirmation to the Supreme Court, the F.B.I. has disclosed more details about its efforts to review the justice's background, leading a group of Senate Democrats to question the thoroughness of the vetting and conclude that it was shaped largely by the Trump White House. In a letter dated June 30 to two Democratic senators, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Chris Coons of Delaware, an F.B.I. assistant director, Jill C. Tyson, said that the most 'relevant' of the 4,500 tips the agency received during an investigation into Mr. Kavanaugh's past were referred to White House lawyers in the Trump administration, whose handling of them remains unclear. The letter left uncertain whether the F.B.I. itself followed up on the most compelling leads.... Ms. Tyson's letter was a response to a 2019 letter from Mr. Whitehouse and Mr. Coons to the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray.... Ms. Tyson's letter, Mr. Whitehouse said [in an interview], suggested that the F.B.I. ran a 'fake tip line that never got properly reviewed, that was presumably not even conducted in good faith.' Mr. Whitehouse and six of his Democratic colleagues on the Senate Judiciary Committee replied to the F.B.I.'s letter on Wednesday with demands for additional details...." Emphasis added. ~~~
~~~ Marie: Maybe if Feliciz Sonmez had been on the beat, the public would have got some better answers timely.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Thursday are here: "Chinese officials said on Thursday that they were shocked and offended by a World Health Organization proposal to further investigate whether the coronavirus emerged from a lab in Wuhan, exposing a widening rift over the inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. Senior Chinese health and science officials pushed back vigorously against the idea of opening the Wuhan Institute of Virology to renewed investigation after the W.H.O. director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, laid out plans to examine laboratories in the central city of Wuhan, where the first cases of Covid-19 appeared in late 2019."
Alabamy Is Still Alabamy. CBS/AP: "Tarrant City Council member Tommy Bryant, [who is white, was] captured on video using a racial slur toward Black people during a council meeting said he won't apologize, and might run for mayor. Others are calling for his resignation.... During a public session, Bryant used the slur to refer to a Black female council member, Veronica Freeman. Before the outburst, neighbors asked Bryant about controversial social media posts allegedly made by his wife about race, CBS affiliate WIAT-TV reports. After being questioned, Bryant stood up and can be heard saying: 'The n-word. The n-word. Let's get to the n-word. Hey. Do we have a house n***** in here? Do we? Hey. Would she please stand up?' Bryant said. Some in the audience gasped at his use of the slur, which was broadcast on Facebook Live, and Freeman left crying, but Bryant was unapologetic." Bryant claimed he was just repeating what Mayor Wayman Newman, who is Black, said in a private meeting. Newman denied Bryant's claim.
California. Jesus Jiménez of the New York Times: "A Southern California couple are facing manslaughter charges in connection with a deadly wildfire last September that prosecutors say was sparked by a smoke bomb during a gender reveal. The El Dorado Fire, which began at a park in Yucaipa, Calif., killed a firefighter and injured two other firefighters while burning more than 22,000 acres across San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. A grand jury indicted the couple, Refugio Manuel Jimenez Jr. and Angela Renee Jimenez, on one count each of involuntary manslaughter, San Bernardino County's district attorney, Jason Anderson, said at a news conference on Tuesday. They also face three felony counts of recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, four felony counts of recklessly causing a fire to inhabited structures and 22 misdemeanor counts. About half of wildfires in the Western United States are caused by people -- from downed power lines, discarded cigarettes, untended campfires -- while the other half are started by lightning."
Pennsylvania. Eugene Scott of the Washington Post: "Pennsylvania's acting secretary of state has decertified a county's voting system for future elections after it was subjected to a review by a private company in an effort promoted by a group of state senators supporting ... Donald Trump's baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Acting secretary of state Veronica W. Degraffenreid said in a statement Wednesday that Wake TSI's examination of the Fulton County ballots earlier this year violated the state's election code.... According to a statement from Degraffenreid's office, Fulton County officials allowed Wake TSI, of West Chester, Pa., 'to access certain key components of its certified system, including the county's election database, results files, and Windows systems logs. The county officials also allowed the company to use a system imaging tool to take complete hard drive images of these computers and other digital equipment.' The statement called Wake TSI 'a company with no knowledge or expertise in election technology.'" ~~~
~~~ Marie: Here's hoping the local elections officials who allowed those wingnuts to paw over the voting equipment get "decertified," too.
The New York Times is liveblogging the Olympics. Here are the entries for Thursday: "Just a day before the opening ceremony of the delayed Tokyo Olympics, organizers of the Games dismissed Kentaro Kobayashi, the creative director of the ceremony, after video footage emerged of him making fun of the Holocaust in a comedic act in the 1990s. At a press briefing on Thursday, Japan's Olympics minister, Seiko Hashimoto, sounding beleaguered after a run of scandals that have plagued the Games and the creative staff of the opening ceremony in particular, said she had learned about the routine on Wednesday. In the skit, Kobayashi joked about 'massacring Jews' while miming the act of cutting up human figures made of paper. The organizing committee, she said, decided to dismiss him 'immediately.'"
Drew Harwell of the Washington Post: When "Princess Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum, the 32-year-old daughter of Dubai's fearsome ruler ... -- Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, the United Arab Emirates' prime minister, vice president and minister of defense — [failed to escape her father's realm despite making elaborate plans to do so, people wondered how] ... the princess [had] been found. An investigation by The Washington Post and an international consortium of news organizations may offer critical new insight: Latifa's number and those of her friends appear on a list that includes phones targeted for surveillance with Pegasus, the hacking tool from the Israeli spyware giant NSO Group, amid the sprint to track her down.... In the year after Latifa's chase, operatives appear to have entered numbers onto the list for another Dubai princess."
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Marianna Sotomayor & Jacqueline Alemany of the Washington Post: "House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has rejected two of Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) picks to serve on the Jan. 6 select committee, saying the outspoken Republicans may jeopardize 'the integrity of the investigation.' McCarthy announced Monday that he would recommend Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Banks (R-Ind.), noting that the two Republicans and three others represent an array of viewpoints and opinions. Both Jordan and Banks voted against certifying the election of President Biden.... Pelosi, who as speaker has final say on who can serve on a committee that is set to hold its first hearing Tuesday, said that she was 'prepared to appoint Representatives Rodney Davis, Kelly Armstrong and Troy E. Nehls.'... In response, McCarthy issued his own statement Wednesday afternoon in which he slammed Pelosi for 'an egregious abuse of power' he believes 'will irreparably damage this institution.&" (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Here's Speaker Pelosi's statement. ~~~
~~~ SO THEN. Scott Wong & Mike Lillis of the Hill: "House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has decided not to participate in the select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot on the Capitol, yanking all of his GOP picks in protest of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) decision to reject two top Republicans." (Also linked yesterday.)~~~
~~~ Luke Broadwater & Nicholas Fandos of the New York Times: "Representative Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday pulled five Republicans from a select committee investigating the Jan. 6 mob attack on the Capitol after Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the unusual step of barring two of ... Donald J. Trump's closest allies in Congress from the panel, citing concerns that they would disrupt its work. A visibly agitated Mr. McCarthy called a rushed news conference to condemn Ms. Pelosi's decision and accused her of excessive partisanship. He pledged to carry out a Republican-only investigation into the events of Jan. 6 -- and focus on whether Ms. Pelosi could have done more to protect the Capitol from violent supporters of Mr. Trump." ~~~
~~~ Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) explains to Kevin why Speaker Pelosi had to dump Jordan & Banks: ~~~
~~~ Marie: I was going to mention that Chris Cillizza is among the most useless, superficial pundits on the teevee, but I'll let Yastreblyansky, writing on Steve M.'s No More Mister Nice Blog, do it for me. Also see Tom Hilton's post, same site, same topic.
All They Do Is Obstruct. Tony Romm, et al., of the Washington Post: "Senate Republicans on Wednesday threatened to vote against an increase to the debt ceiling unless Congress first agrees to new spending cuts or other measures, raising the potential for a major political showdown that could carry vast implications for both the global economy as well as President Biden's agenda. The new ultimatum marked a reversal for Republicans, who agreed to address the debt ceiling -- the statutory amount the government can borrow to pay its bills -- multiple times to advance policies under ... Donald Trump that helped add $7 trillion to the federal debt during his term."
That Went Well: Republicans Filibuster "Bipartisan" Infrastructure Bill. Emily Cochrane of the New York Times: "Republicans blocked the Senate on Wednesday from taking up an emerging bipartisan infrastructure plan, raising doubts about the fate of a major piece of President Biden's agenda even as negotiators continued to seek a compromise. The failed vote underscored the intense mistrust between the two parties, which has complicated the effort to complete a deal. Both Republicans and Democrats in the group seeking a deal say they are still making progress toward agreement on a package with nearly $600 billion in new funds for roads, bridges, rail, transit and other infrastructure, which could be the first major infusion of federal public works spending since the 2009 stimulus law." The report goes on to describe some of the inter-party bickering. ~~~
~~~ Greg Sargent of the Washington Post: "Economist Mark Zandi [of Moody's] is set to release a new report arguing that the country needs passage of the full package of Democratic proposals, to ensure that the recovery reaches its full potential.... Zandi's report concludes that concerns about inflation are 'likely misplaced' and 'overdone.'... The report concludes that both infrastructure and jobs bills being debated in Congress are essential.... [Zandi makes] a striking endorsement of a major argument for the package: that we have spent decades underinvesting in public programs of all kinds. Expenditures on both 'hard' and 'human' infrastructure will rectify this.... This Zandi report probably won't move most Senate Republicans, since many will see these benefits as arguments against supporting the package. And their warnings of inflation are not good-faith macroeconomic arguments; they're intended to trigger vague fears of Big Government and suggest liberal governance is running the country off the rails." (Also linked yesterday.)
Biden Gets Everything Ass-backwards Here. Annie Karni of the New York Times: "President Biden on Wednesday night defended the filibuster, a procedural tactic that stands to hold up much of his agenda in the Senate, even as he reiterated that he viewed it as a relic of Jim Crow. 'There's no reason to protect it other than you're going to throw the entire Congress into chaos and nothing will get done,' he said at a CNN Town Hall in Cincinnati.... Mr. Biden said there was too much at stake to risk that level of 'chaos' that a fight over the filibuster would ignite, including voting rights legislation he still wants to see passed. He also said waging a war against the filibuster would play into the hands of Republicans seeking to hold up his agenda. 'Wouldn't my friends on the other side love to have a debate about the filibuster instead of passing the Recovery Act?' he said." ~~~
~~~ Marie: Sorry, Joe, nothing is getting done because of the filibuster. If you've presented you best argument here, then you've demonstrated there is no argument for preserving the filibuster.
Tyler Pager of the Washington Post: "President Biden will nominate Comcast executive David Cohen to serve as ambassador to Canada and Victoria Kennedy, the widow of former senator Edward M. 'Ted' Kennedy (D-Mass.), to serve as ambassador to Austria, the White House announced Wednesday. Biden will also nominate Jamie Harpootlian, the wife of Dick Harpootlian, a longtime Biden donor and friend, to serve as ambassador to Slovenia.... The president has continued the tradition of rewarding longtime friends and donors with foreign postings, even as the White House has vowed to nominate a more diverse group of people and have a higher percentage of career Foreign Service officers serve as ambassadors than in previous administrations."
Josh Gerstein of Politico: "Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a long-awaited directive Wednesday seeking to limit political influence on law enforcement matters by strictly limiting contacts between Justice Department personnel and the White House. The memo follows through on campaign pledges by then-candidate Joe Biden to reestablish the department's independence after a series of episodes where ... Donald Trump publicly and privately complained about prosecutors' decisions, urging them to lay off his friends and target his political enemies. Garland did not mention those instances in his five-page memo, but did speak of the importance of preserving the Justice Department's public reputation."
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: Tom "Barrack allegedly used his close relationship with Trump to push UAE-sought actions on both the campaign and during the first two years of the administration. The Fortune op-ed was the product of direct input from Emirati officials, the indictment alleges.... What is clear from the indictment is that Barrack and the other indictees claim credit for virtually every interchange between Trump and the UAE, whose government quickly became a Trump favorite.... Most prominent among the policy impacts of Barrack's alleged lobbying are events preceding and following the decision of Saudi Arabia and the UAE to break relations with Qatar ... in 2017." ~~~
~~~ Marie: DeYoung describes Barrack's alleged crime as "failing to register as a foreign agent." However, Rachel Maddow said Wednesday night that the characterization is a mistake, that Barrack instead was charged under a more serious law against acting as a foreign agent, the same law that got Maria Butina jailed, then deported. As Maddow said, Evan Perez, et al., makes the same mistake in the linked story that follows. The DOJ's public statement seems to back up Maddow. If so, the WashPo & CNN should correct their reporting. ~~~
~~~ Evan Perez, et al., of CNN: "Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn investigating Tom Barrack, a prominent ally to ... Donald Trump, for allegedly violating foreign lobbying laws had enough evidence to bring charges last year, but held off doing so until the arrival of the new presidential administration, according to people briefed on the matter. Prosecutors wanted to move forward on the case and believed they could obtain an indictment, one source familiar with the matter said. The source said the investigation was mostly done well before the time period when prosecutors are discouraged from advancing politically sensitive matters ahead of an election. But two sources tell CNN the US attorney in Brooklyn at the time, Richard Donoghue, expressed misgivings about the case. It's unclear if he delayed the case outright or if prosecutors chose not to move forward at the time knowing the US attorney would not support it." ~~~
~~~ Marie: The upside of the delay, whatever its cause, is that Trump did not pardon Barrack on his last full day in office, as he did Elliott Broidy, who also had dodgy ties to the UAE among his other shady foreign entanglements. ~~~
~~~ According to Chris Hayes of MSNBC, the FBI opened its investigation of Barrack a week or ten days after the Intercept published this report by Alex Emmons & Matthew Cole. Journalism matters.
Jan Hoffman of the New York Times: "After nearly two years of wrangling, the country's three major drug distributors and a pharmaceutical giant have reached a $26 billion deal with states that would release some of the biggest companies in the industry from all legal liability in the opioid epidemic, a decades-long public health crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. The agreement, announced Wednesday afternoon by a bipartisan group of state attorneys general, lays the framework for billions of dollars to begin flowing into communities across the country for addiction treatment, prevention services and other steep expenses from the epidemic.... The four companies that would be bound by the settlement -- Johnson & Johnson and the drug distributors Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and McKesson -- are widely seen as having some of the deepest pockets among the corporate opioid defendants...."
He Who Casts the First Stone.... Marie: Yesterday, we linked to a story about this guy's resigning his swell job. Now, there's this headline: "Catholic Monsignor Who Wanted to Deny Biden Communion Resigns After Cellphone Links Him to Gay Dating App" ~~~
~~~ There's another lesson in this story: ~~~
~~~ Smartphones Are Outsmarting Us. Joseph Cox of Vice: "After years of warning from researchers, journalists, and even governments, someone used highly sensitive location data from a smartphone app to track and publicly harass a specific person. In this case, Catholic Substack publication The Pillar said it used location data ultimately tied to Grindr to trace the movements of a priest, and then outed him publicly as potentially gay without his consent. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the outing led to his resignation. The news starkly demonstrates not only the inherent power of location data, but how the chance to wield that power has trickled down from corporations and intelligence agencies to essentially any sort of disgruntled, unscrupulous, or dangerous individual. A growing market of data brokers that collect and sell data from countless apps has made it so that anyone with a bit of cash and effort can figure out which phone in a so-called anonymized dataset belongs to a target, and abuse that information."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Wednesday are here.
Daniel Victor of the New York Times: "The coronavirus pandemic was largely responsible for shaving a year and a half from the life expectancy of Americans in 2020, the steepest drop in the United States since World War II, according to federal statistics released on Wednesday. An American child born today, if they hypothetically lived their entire life under the conditions of 2020, would be expected to live 77.3 years, down from 78.8 in 2019. It's the lowest life expectancy since 2003, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, the agency that released the figures and a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The difficult year also deepened racial and ethnic disparities in life expectancy, with Black and Hispanic Americans losing nearly two more years than white Americans. Life expectancy for Hispanic Americans dropped to 78.8 from 81.8, while the numbers for Black Americans dropped to 71.8 from 74.7. Non-Hispanic white Americans saw their life expectancy drop to 77.6 from 78.8." The AP's report is here. MB: And Donald Trump is responsible for some significant part of our lowered life expectancy.(Also linked yesterday.)
Here's a nice headline from NBC News: &"As GOP supporters die of Covid, the party remains split in its vaccination message."
Missouri, etc. Jeremy Kohler of ProPublica: "Around Independence Day, [Missouri] State Rep. Bill Kidd, from the Kansas City suburbs, revealed that he has been infected by the coronavirus. 'And no, we didn't get the vaccine,' he wrote in a post that has since been deleted. 'We're Republicans đ' State Rep. Brian Seitz, a Republican from Taney County, home to the tourist destination of Branson, commented on the post by falsely claiming that the virus had been developed by ... Anthony Fauci and ... Bill Gates. They 'knew what was coming,' Seitz wrote. 'The jury is still out on the "vaccine" (who knows what's in that),' he wrote. As the number of coronavirus infections rises around the country, lawmakers like Kidd and Seitz have adopted responses that trouble many health officials." Kohler cites many examples that should solidify your suspicion that our "representatives" are idiots.
Michigan. Marisa Iati of the Washington Post: "Officials at a Catholic school in Michigan are [arguing in court that]... forcing students to wear masks ... is a violation of religious freedom.... Attorneys for Resurrection School in Lansing and two parents will tell the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that Catholic doctrine holds that every person is made in God's image. 'Unfortunately, a mask shields our humanity,' the school argued in its lawsuit. 'And because God created us in His image, we are masking that image.'... In December, Judge Paul Maloney [MB: could be Roman Catholic!] of the Western District of Michigan denied the school's motion for a preliminary injunction that would have banned enforcement of the state's mask ordinance for kindergarten through fifth-grade students at religious schools... because he found the rule was neutrally applied and did not target religious schools.'" Thanks to PD Pepe for the lead. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I'm confused. First, I checked and it appears the school is a standard diocesan Roman Catholic school & not run by some lesser-known sect. In all of my experience, I have never been aware of even one such school run as a nudist camp. Yet the school's officials would certainly claim that our entire bodies -- not just our faces -- are made in God's image. So it's pretty clear -- according to the logic of this lawsuit -- that we should go naked whenever possible (maybe not on a cold day in Michigan). Also, I wonder how the theologians at this school deal with One Corinthians (as opposed to Two Corinthians) 11, where Paul advised the Jesus followers of Corinth that it's disgraceful for women to pray with their heads uncovered. OR, as RAS more simply asks, "Aren't pants also covering up God's creation?"
Beyond the Beltway
Alaska. Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "The Guardian has identified an Alaska assistant attorney general as a supporter of the Mormon-derived extremist group the Deseret nationalists who has posted a series of racist, antisemitic and homophobic messages on social media.... Online, [Matthias] Cicotte, under the moniker J Reuben Clark and the Twitter handle @JReubenCIark, has expressed extreme positions on race, criminal justice and religion.... After the department was presented with the information last week, Alaska's deputy attorney general, Cori Mills, wrote in a statement shared with the Guardian: 'The department of law takes the allegations raised here seriously, and we uphold the dignity and respect of all individuals and ask that all of our employees do the same.'"
California. Ivan Penn of the New York Times: "Pacific Gas & Electric, aiming to show its determination to overcome a history of safety problems, announced Wednesday that it planned to put 10,000 miles of its power lines underground to prevent the kind of wildfires that led the utility to bankruptcy court. The project, which would involve about 10 percent of the lines currently above ground, could cost tens of billions of dollars to carry out. The announcement prompted questions from longtime critics of the utility about how much of the cost would be borne by ratepayers rather than shareholders. The company, California's largest electricity provider, said the work would aim first at areas most vulnerable to wildfires and expand throughout its service territory, which includes 5.5 million electric customers in Northern and Central California."
Missouri. Summer Ballentine of the AP: "A Missouri legislative committee on Monday held a hearing on how educators teach K-12 students about race and racism without hearing from any Black Missourians.... Aside from an official from Missouri';s education department, the only people who testified Monday were critics of critical race theory.... Heather Fleming, a former Missouri teacher who now offers diversity and inclusion training, said she wanted to testify Monday but was not allowed."
Ohio. Michael Levenson of the New York Times: "An Ohio man who was part of an online community of 'incels,' or misogynists who blame women for denying them what they believe is their right to sexual intercourse, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with plotting to shoot students in sororities, federal prosecutors said. The man, Tres Genco, 21, of Hillsboro, Ohio, was charged with one count of attempting to commit a hate crime, which, because it involved an attempt to kill, is punishable by up to life in prison, and one count of illegally possessing a machine gun, which is punishable by up to 10 years, according to the Justice Department." The Raw Story's report is here.
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Reader Comments (16)
The Psychotic Break Party
Now that Nancy Pelosi has told famous obsequious liar Kevin McCarthy that two of his picks are ridiculously compromised (in addition to being batshit crazy, oh, and too stoopid to cross the street without help), GOP traitors will hold their own investigation, sez McCarthy. Nyah-nyah.
But thereâs a problem. âOnly one?â would be a reasonable question at this point, but this problem is a big one: they donât know which way is up. Or down. First, the January 6th Trump inspired insurrection was, um, a bad thing. Maybe.
Well, yeah, the Capitol was attacked, people were killed, Members of Congress were afraid for their lives. Thugs were screaming about hanging little mikey pence and shooting Nancy Pelosi. So, kinda bad, maybe?
But very quickly, the whole thing became just a lovely bunch of wicked good âmericans visiting the Capitol. Whatâs the problem? But then dozens of those lovely people were arrested after videos were posted showing them bludgeoning police officers, defecating on the floor, smashing windows, waving weapons around. So now what? The usual âfew bad applesâ excuse? Nah. It was liberals who attacked the Capitol! Yeah, thatâs it. SooooâŚreally there was violence? When you just said there was no violence? Which is it? Really good people, or violent mob? So whoâs to blame now? Fatty? Proud Boys? Spitting mad believers of the Big Lie? Of COURSE NOT!
Itâs all Nancy Pelosiâs fault. She was responsible for protecting the nationâs capital from marauding thugs, er, lovely people, er, Antifa, er, good âmericans, oh shit! We donât know what the fuck weâre talking about.
The traitors want it both ways. All ways. No ways.
Theyâre psychotic. This is the usual result of the mind trying to accommodate multiple conflicting ideas, including out and out fabrications in the face of incontrovertible evidence.
And leave us not forget that the Speaker of the House is NOT responsible for security, not in charge of protection, or Capitol Police deployment and planning. Another lie. But no matter. If Jim Jordan and Kevin McCarthy say so, why thenâŚ
But at this point, itâs time to get to the bottom of things. Right? Whoâs to blame? The attackers? Trump?
NooooâŚthe fault lies with those charged with security. Because they should have known that those lovely people, er, dangerous, violent thugs, er, whatever, could, um, doâŚsomething? Bank robbers arenât to blame for stealing all that money. Itâs the security guardsâ fault!
So now the barking mad Râs are gonna hold their own investigation. Hmmph! And who will lead this investigation?
Why, John Barron. Natch.
Canât wait for the twenty word report. In crayon. Because sharp pencils are not allowed in the loony bin.
Life expectancy goes down by a year and a half in 2020.
I'm willing to bet average IQ went up as anti-vax sentiment went
up among trumpbots and low IQ-anoners who were dragging the
IQ average lower, but a lot of them are no longer with us.
Thoughts and prayers.
The mister said this morning how grateful he was that he could go barefoot in the house without fear of stepping on all those nails that I said I would spit out if Nancy didn't reject J.J. And of course Kevin took all his marbles and backed outââthat's exactly what bully boys do when they get caught in their own brackish baloney.
"President Biden defended the filibuster, saying ditching it would throw Congress âinto chaos.â
But isn't that what we have now WITH the filibuster?????
Akhilleus,
Back in my high school write a 3-part essays days I remember confronting the proposition:
If someone steals your car because you left the keys in the ignition, it's your fault.
Had trouble with it then and still do. But then those were simpler times when right was right and wrong was wrong.
Making the crime easier to commit is hardly the same thing as committing the crime, is it?
Granted, not surrounding the Capitol with machine guns manned(!) by neatly coiffed eighty year old ladies firing live ammunition may have contributed to the successful invasion, but...
Where to go with all this? The breach of the Capitol is symbolic of so much of the head-shaking nonsense that we've seen elevated to serious consideration in the last five to ten years.
One irony of the wall-builder-in-chief shambolic reign is that he, his administration and his party worked 24-7 to undermine and destroy so many walls.
The walls between truth and lies, fact and fiction, between sense and nonsense, logic and illogic, sanity and insanity, to name just a few.
Let alone the solid barriers between right and wrong that spoke in stentorian tones in the naive days of my youth.
.
Excellent essay here from the NYT: Lets change our ways:
"The ability of the American political system to deliver major policies on urgent issues is hampered by features of our institutions that we take for granted"ââââfor instance something I have wanted changed: the constitutional requirement that House members serve for only two-year terms.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/opinion/house-elections-constitution.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
Joe Bidenâs indefensible and frankly astonishing stance on the filibuster gives Joe (Pal to Traitors) Manchin all the cover he needs, and Mitch McConnell the green light to subvert everything Biden hoped to accomplish as president. Just mind boggling. While Republicans continue to use Democrats for target practice, Democrats say âNever mind, guys. Weâll happily shoot ourselvesâ.
@Ken Winkes: You pose an interesting problem. I think the theory behind the keys in the car situation must be similar to this: you leave a ladder unattended & positioned against the apple tree in your front yard, a kid comes along, climbs the ladder, and falls off & breaks his arm -- well, it's your fault: you created an "attractive nuisance." His parents will sue you and win.
You may remember a decade or more ago, there was a spate of burglars who were injured by homeowners who had boobytrapped their homes against, well, burglars. The burglars (or their heirs!) sued and won, sometimes with huge payouts. In at least one case, the homeowner was charged with murder -- and convicted.
The underlying theory in these cases is that human life is more valuable than property.
Still, we do seem to have an obligation to show reasonable care. Should I be incensed if I carelessly drop a $20 bill at the checkout stand and the guy standing in line behind me pockets it instead of handing it back to me? Probably not. But I wouldn't invite him to tea, either. Throwing cash around, leaving your keys in your car or leaving your front door unlocked while you're on vacation is not showing reasonable care.
The "rules" of a society may shift subtly over time, or in a jarring way, as the result of, say, a Supreme Court decision, but property rights have for some time seemed to be a dual responsibility, one that lies at least partially with the property owner.
How to own the libs: kill your supportersâŚ
Itâs tough being a Republican. Youâve got to divest yourself of morals, ethics, decency, and as my mother used to say, the brains that god have you.
You also might need to die so that the likes of TuKKKer KKKarlson and that bothering idiot MTG can crow about the horrors of being vaccinated.
Down in deepest Trump country, Alabama, where child molesters and doofus football coaches are considered material for high elected office, unvaccinated believers in confederate lies are dropping right and left.
A doctor at a medical center in Birmingham reports that she is constantly besieged by COVID patients to please, please give them the vaccine as theyâre being intubated on the way to the Trump approved dirt nap.
Her response? âIâm sorry. Itâs too late.â Then she prepares for the imminent time of death.
âThey cry. And they tell me they didnât know. They thought it was a hoax. They thought it was political. They thought because they had a certain blood type or a certain skin color they wouldnât get as sick. They thought it was âjust the fluâ. But they were wrong. And they wish they could go back. But they canât.â
Libs, do you feel âownedâ by the idiots who are to blame for these outcomes?
I sure as hell donât. Iâm just glad Iâm not a moronic soon-to-be-interred Republican.
https://www.al.com/news/2021/07/im-sorry-but-its-too-late-alabama-doctor-on-treating-unvaccinated-dying-covid-patients.html
Sorry, I meant âblitheringâ idiot. Otto Correct couldnât be bothered transmitting my thought. MTG certainly is a bother, but describing her as such is like referring to death by Bubonic plague as âa botherâ.
@Akhilleus: Yes, I remember the early days of Obama's presidency. When he would say something dumb, I would hope, "Well, maybe he's just saying that as some kind of tactic or trick & he doesn't really mean it, and pretty soon he'll turn it all around and crush the bad guys." Then, later, I'd find out he really meant whatever it was & it wasn't a ploy to vanquish McConnell, et. al.
So there's not much use pretending Joe is just kidding about the filibuster and his remarks yesterday were part of some clever maneuver to rope in Manchin, Sinema, et al. Nope, operating from a place beyond reason, Biden actually believes the filibuster must be saved. To avoid chaos. Right.
After watching Liz Cheney above, I'd say the Dems should look out for that one. She is making her 'a broken clock is correct twice a day' moment look like dignified and considered politics. Liz is running to become President of the United States of America everyday. Do you think Liz studies Nancy Pelosi or Kevin from Bakersfield?
Marie,
Much more to be said on the subject but right now I'm thinking McCarthy, et al., must view the Capitol, with Democrats in charge and undefended by rockets, mortars and machine gun emplacements, as an "attractive nuisance."
I haven't seen this article linked here at RC. It's well worth reading:
https://harpers.org/archive/2021/07/history-as-end-politics-of-the-past-matthew-karp/
All good arguments that: Rs are nuts, Dumpie needs diapers and a nurse, Biden is still in abject delusion that the filly-buster is useful,
Nancy is to be congratulated-- she did what needed to be done, Chris Cillizza is a puffed-up numbnut, and the idiots/stupids in this country are not salvageable. I think Nancy must have heard my phone call the other night...:)
625, you're right, Liz is of course positioning for a run, but on the steps yesterday she didn't look very presidential .... she's starting to look a bit Merkel-ly though.
I told my wife early this morning that one of the things I really HATE about this January 6 inquiry is that I have to agree with Liz Cheney. It's like having zero vis vertigo with a broken Attitude Indicator. Freaky.
Don't forget, she herself is a tool.
How many counties with large democratic populations will be unable to certify their votes after all their election equipment keeps getting decertified after the crazies keep "investigating" their election results.