;)
The Commentariat -- March 1, 2021
Afternoon Update:
Brian Slodysko of the AP: "As Congress begins debate this week on sweeping voting and ethics legislation, Democrats and Republicans can agree on one thing: If signed into law, it would usher in the biggest overhaul of U.S. elections law in at least a generation. House Resolution 1, Democrats' 791-page bill, would touch virtually every aspect of the electoral process -- striking down hurdles to voting erected in the name of election security, curbing partisan gerrymandering and curtailing the influence of big money in politics. Republicans see those very measures as threats that would both limit the power of states to conduct elections and ultimately benefit Democrats, notably wit higher turnout among minority voters.... Despite staunch GOP opposition, the bill is all but certain to pass the House when it's scheduled for a floor vote Wednesday. But challenges lie ahead in the Senate...."
Jim Tankersley of the New York Times: "Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced legislation on Monday that would tax the net worth of the wealthiest people in America, a proposal aimed at persuading President Biden and other Democrats to fund sweeping new federal spending programs by taxing the richest Americans. Ms. Warren's wealth tax would apply a 2 percent tax to individual net worth -- including the value of stocks, houses, boats and anything else a person owns, after subtracting out any debts -- above $50 million. It would add an additional 1 percent surcharge for net worth above $1 billion. It is co-sponsored in the House by two Democratic representatives, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, a moderate."
Alayna Treene of Axios: "Former President Trump and former first lady Melania Trump were both vaccinated at the White House in January, a Trump adviser tells Axios..... Trump declared at CPAC on Sunday that "everybody" should get the coronavirus vaccine -- the first time he's encouraged his supporters, who have been more skeptical of getting vaccinated, to do so."
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Jeff Stein of the Washington Post: "Senior Democrats are abandoning a backup plan to increase the minimum wage through a corporate tax penalty, after encountering numerous practical and political challenges in drafting their proposal over the weekend, according to two people familiar with the internal deliberations. On Thursday, the Senate parliamentarian said that the $15-an-hour minimum wage included in President Biden's $1.9 trillion stimulus plan was inadmissible under the rules Democrats are using to pass the bill through the Senate. After that decision, Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said they would instead seek to add tax penalties on large corporations that fail to pay $15 an hour -- an idea viewed as less likely to be struck down by the parliamentarian and still helpful to some minimum-wage workers. But now senior Democrats -- including Wyden and Sanders -- are walking away from that backup effort.... Economists and tax experts have said that the tax outlined by Sanders and Wyden could be easily avoided and difficult to implement, with large corporations able to reclassify workers as contractors to avoid potential penalties."
Alex Marquardt of CNN: "Shortly after the US intelligence community published its long-awaited report on Friday afternoon on the Saudis who were responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi, it was taken down without explanation and replaced with another version that removed the names of three men it had initially said were complicit. The quiet switch by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence went largely unnoticed as the outcry grew that the Biden administration was failing to punish the prince in any way, despite having just declared in no uncertain terms that MBS was responsible. The first link to the report that was sent out by ODNI went dead. It was then replaced with a second version that removed three of the men it had just announced 'participated in, ordered, or were otherwise complicit in or responsible for the death of Jamal Khashoggi.' The Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to clarify why the names were originally on the list and what roles, if any, they may have had in Khashoggi's killing."
Marshall Cohen of CNN: "The Justice Department has charged a Texas man who was allegedly caught on video attacking a dozen police officers with a chemical spray during the Capitol insurrection, according to court records. Federal prosecutors say Daniel Caldwell, 49, used a chemical spray against a line of officers that were blocking rioters from entering the Capitol. It happened amid a massive melee with police, who used batons and pepper spray to fend off the crowd, according to footage of the incident that was cited in court filings.... He has been charged with four crimes: assaulting federal officers, obstructing law enforcement, knowingly entering a restricted building, and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds."
Let's See if This New Story Holds Up. Edmund DeMarche of Fox "News": "Former President Trump told Fox News late Sunday that he expressed concern over the crowd size near the Capitol days before last month's deadly riots and personally requested 10,000 National Guard troops be deployed in response. Trump told 'The Next Revolution With Steve Hilton' that his team alerted the Department of Defense days before the rally that crowds might be larger than anticipated and 10,000 national guardsmen should be ready to deploy. He said that -- from what he understands -- the warning was passed along to leaders at the Capitol, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi -- and he heard that the request was rejected because these leaders did not like the optics of 10,000 troops at the Capitol.... Trump told Steve Hilton, the show's host, that he "hated" to see what unfolded on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol." ~~~
~~~ Maybe this is the inspiration for Trump's new story: ~~~
Capitol Police requested National Guard help prior to January 6th. That request was denied by Speaker Pelosi and her Sergeant at Arms. -- Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), in a tweet, Feb. 15
Without evidence, Jordan asserted that House Speaker Pelosi had denied a request for National Guard troops two days before the insurrection. Instead, public testimony shows she did not even hear about the request until two days later. Jordan also tried to pin the blame on the House sergeant-at-arms, but testimony shows the Senate sergeant-at-arms also was not keen about the idea. We will keep an eye on this issue in case new information emerges that would result in a new rating. But ... speculation is not the same as evidence. -- Glenn Kessler of the Washington Post
Elaina Plott & Shane Goldmacher of the New York Times: Donald Trump "captured the 2024 presidential straw poll of the Conservative Political Action Conference, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida finished first in a second 2024 straw poll covering a field of potential candidates that did not include Mr. Trump. But in a surprise bit of downbeat news for Mr. Trump, only 68 percent of those at the conference said they wanted the former president to run again in 2024." ~~~
~~~ Marie: CPAC is just about as Trumpy a bunch of Republicans as you'll find. CNN had some pundit on who said that 68% figure was a shocker; he would have expected Trump to get 95% on the question of whether or not he should run again. The pundit also said he watched Trump's speech & felt he was in some kind of time warp because it was just a regurgitation of earlier Trump speeches (aren't they all?). I thought I recognized the pundit's voice so I went to see who he was: well, he was John Bolton. ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Martin & Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump on Sunday used his first public appearance since leaving office and moving to Florida to lash President Biden and insist that there are no divisions within the Republican Party -- before he proceeded to name every Republican who voted in support of his second impeachment and call for their ouster from office." Politico's report, by David Siders, is here.
Whistlin' Dixie. Casey Michel in an NBC News opinion piece: "For the past few months, a long-buried idea has been creeping from the fringe into mainstream Republican discourse: secession.... In the wake of the failed pro-Trump insurrection in Washington, far-right American militias, buoyed by ... Donald Trump's empty claims that the election was 'stolen,' have increasingly agitated for the break-up of the U.S. As the head of one paramilitary group that has worked closely with conspiratorial Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., recently revealed, they'd formed alliances with other far-right groups to advocate for Georgia's secession.'... One-third of Republicans said they support secession.... Half of Republicans across the former Confederacy (plus Kentucky and Oklahoma) are now willing to break off to form a newly independent country. Perhaps not surprisingly, Texas is leading this charge.... Just like so much of Trumpian America, secession in places like Texas is rooted in a combination of nativism, xenophobia and white racial grievance.... But this month's disastrous winter storm in Texas also points to how idiotic such secessionist dreams truly are."
Oh, Lordy, Steve Inskeep of NPR, a prince of both-siderism, lets on that Joe Biden won the presidential election, claims to the contrary are "false," and Republicans are "fixing" election laws that were not broken "in ways that could make it harder to vote." Way down in Para. 17, he even gives space to a representative of the Brennan Center, who lets the cat out of the bag at least for anyone who reads that far: "'There was very little attempt to hide the racialized nature' of the attacks on mail balloting in 2020, [Myrna Pérez] said, noting that Trump allies constantly claimed corruption in big diverse cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta and Detroit." MB: Inskeep of the mellifluous, upbeat voice, is the reason I can't listen to NPR.
Adam Liptak of the New York Times: "As Republican state lawmakers around the nation are working furiously to enact laws making it harder to vote, the Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear its most important election case in almost a decade, one that will determine what sort of judicial scrutiny those restrictions will face. The case centers on a crucial remaining provision of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting practices that discriminate on the basis of race. Civil rights groups are nervous that the court, now with a six-justice conservative majority, will use the opportunity to render that provision, Section 2, toothless. The provision has taken on greater importance in election disputes since 2013, when the court effectively struck down the heart of the 1965 law, its Section 5, which required prior federal approval of changes to voting procedures in parts of the country with a history of racial and other discrimination." Section 2 allows "litigation after the fact." ~~~
~~~ Robert Barnes has the Washington Post story here.
Karen DeYoung of the Washington Post: "Iran has rejected an early meeting with the United States and the other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, according to Iranian and Western officials. Because of 'recent positions and actions of the U.S. and three European countries,' Iran 'does not deem the time suitable for holding' the proposed meeting, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a statement Sunday. Western officials, however, said that Iran's private response late last week to the invitation, extended through the European Union, was more 'nuanced' than an outright refusal and that it sought assurances that the talks would be limited to the nuclear deal called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, it signed in 2015 with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China."
Annals of Journalism, Ctd. On the occasion of Washington Post Executive Editor Marty Baron's retirement, Sarah Ellision of the Washington Post (here) and Marc Tracy of the New York Times (here) examine the evolution of the Post during the time Baron was running the Post & Jeff Bezos was publishing and financing it.
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here. The Times' Sunday updates are here.
Kellen Browning of the New York Times: "The chaotic vaccine rollout has come with a maze of confusing registration pages and clunky health care websites. And the technological savvy required to navigate the text alerts, push notifications and email reminders that are second nature to the digital generation has put older adults..., who need the vaccine the most, at a disadvantage. As a result, seniors who lack tech skills are missing out on potentially lifesaving shots.... Advocates for older Americans, 22 million of whom lack wired broadband access at home, say it is ridiculous that a program mostly aimed at vaccinating vulnerable seniors is so dependent on internet know-how, Twitter announcements and online event pages." ~~~
~~~ Marie: It doesn't help that some states messed up their vaccination registration systems. New Hampshire is one of them. Not only did I have to fill out the same very long questionnaire twice -- once for the state & once for the CDC -- the CDC also sent me misinformation about my second vaccination. The CDC never corrected the misinformation: I found out only because a friend told me about it, and I then double-checked with the state to make sure the friend was right. If I didn't surf the Web all day and do a lot of shopping & other business online, I would have found completing the application quite challenging (especially because, as Browning writes, the Websites are "clunky." And, as Browning adds, the state sends a lot of follow-up notices, some of which must be answered to maintain your appointment. I'm sure the challenges are equally frustrating & tedious in other states.
Beyond the Beltway
New York. Dana Rubinstein of the New York Times: "Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday retreated from his plan to have a former federal judge who has close ties to one of the governor's closest allies investigate sexual harassment claims against him. Mr. Cuomo said that he would ask Letitia James, New York's attorney general, and Janet DiFiore, the chief judge on New York State's highest court, to jointly pick someone to investigate sexual harassment accusations lodged by two women who worked in the Cuomo administration.... [Ms. James] rejected the governor's proposal, publicly demanding that Mr. Cuomo give her what's known as a 'referral,' so that she could vest an investigator with subpoena power and begin an inquiry.... The political fallout followed a New York Times article that detailed the accusations of Charlotte Bennett, a 25-year-old former aide to the governor." Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Karen Matthews & Marina Villeneuve of the AP: "New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo acknowledged for the first time Sunday that some of his behavior with women 'may have been insensitive or too personal,' and said he would cooperate with a sexual harassment investigation led by the state's attorney general. In a statement released amid mounting criticism from within his own party, the Democrat maintained he had never inappropriately touched or propositioned anyone. But he said he had teased people about their personal lives in an attempt to be 'playful.'" MB: Uh-huh.
Way Beyond
France. Kim Willsher of the Guardian: "A court has found Nicolas Sarkozy guilty of corruption and influence peddling and sentenced the former French president to three years in prison with two of them suspended. The former president was said to have forged a 'corruption pact' with his lawyer and a senior magistrate. Judges said there was 'serious evidence' of collaboration between the three men to break the law. The court had heard how Sarkozy instructed his lawyer, Thierry Herzog, to offer the magistrate a cushy job on the Côte d'Azur in return for information on a separate investigation centred on the rightwing politician. It is unlikely the former president will spend a day in jail. The one-year prison sentence can be served with certain conditions, including the wearing of an electronic bracelet, or limited home confinement. Sarkozy is expected to appeal against the conviction." The New York Times' story is here. Thanks to RockyGirl for the lead. "Could it happen here??," she asks. "We can only hope." MB: Except we do want WhozIt to do hard time in a cold, damp cell with no TV & only a pot to piss in.
Myanmar. AP: "Police in Myanmar's biggest city on Monday fired tear gas at defiant crowds who returned to the streets to protest the military's seizure of power a month ago, despite reports that security forces had killed at least 18 people around the country a day earlier. The protesters in Yangon were chased as they tried to gather at their usual meeting spot at the Hledan Center intersection. Demonstrators scattered and sought to rinse their faces with water in vain attempts to ease the irritating effects of the gas. In the capital, Naypyitaw, the country's ousted leader Aung San Suu Kyi made a court appearance Monday via videoconference, the independent Myanmar Now online news agency reported. It said she received a charge under Section 505(b) of the Penal Code for allegedly inciting unrest. Further details of the court appearance were not immediately available."
Russia. Irina Reznik & Henry Meyer of Bloomberg News, republished in the Day: "Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who survived a chemical poisoning last year that he called a Kremlin attempt to kill him, has begun serving his two-and-a-half-year sentence at a notorious penal camp. Navalny, who was removed from his Moscow jail cell Thursday, is being held at a detention facility in the prison in the Vladimir region, about 60 miles east of the Russian capital, Alexey Melnikov, secretary of the civil oversight commission of Moscow, told Bloomberg.... The jail, where inmates are housed in barracks and typically do manual labor, is classified as a 'red zone' where the administration controls every aspect of life. 'It's a tough penal camp with very strict rules, to put it mildly,' said Eva Merkacheva, a member of a civic-oversight group for the prison system."
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Reader Comments (18)
Whew! Must have been a month or so since Glenn Kessler had any employment.
Was beginning to worry about him and his WAPO crew and to wonder if there were some feelings of gratitude in the today's virtual newsrooms when the pretend past president returned to the public eye and opened his mouth.
The Biden administration is not immune to common political hedging, but it is certainly no fact checkers bonanza...which has made me wonder how many fact checkers had already "been assigned to other duties."
Could it happen here?? We can only hope.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/france-nicolas-sarkozy-convicted-of-corruption-sentenced-to-jail_n_603ce721c5b6ff75ac3e06fc
THE POWER OF LITERATURE:
There is a program in Germany called "Drucfrisch" which could be translated as "hot off the presses." The host, Denis Scheck–-who is delightful, reviews books and interviews authors. Here he is interviewing Obama with a discussion of Obama's new book. Please watch–-it will make your morning.
https://www.daserste.de/information/wissen-kultur/druckfrisch/videos/OV-Barack-Obama-Ein-verheissenes-Land-interview-Original-100.html
MB: https://www.npr.org/people/4080709/steve-inskeep. I, too, have grown unable to listen to NPR. The unchallenged lies and falsehoods from the Orange Swine's crew while using deleterious both siderism made NPR seem like a mouthpiece for its corporate sponsors.
The Casey Michel piece about Confederate secession reminds me of the 1982 incident where the Conch Republic - Key West and the Northern Territories - seceded from, and then declared war against the United States. They symbolically broke a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a man dressed in a naval uniform, quickly surrendered after one minute (to the man in the uniform) and applied for one billion dollars in foreign aid.
@CaptRuss: Of course the Conch Republic is a running joke; today's confederate secessionists are not kidding.
Let ‘em go. If violent, moronic Trumpbots want to secede, let ‘em. Of course, first, the federal government will remove any and all federally funded programs including military support. Buildings and installations can be sold to the secessionist states at fair market value, otherwise they’ll be blown up (can’t leave anything behind for the enemy).
Senators and representatives from those states will lose their seats, their perks, and their pensions. Immediately. No appeals. All federal aid will cease. And because they’re so hot on IDs, passports will be required if any of these losers want to enter the United States and those can be revoked for any bad behavior.
Airports remaining in those regions will not be able to make use of FAA support, including air traffic controllers. Jim Bob and his white supremacist drinking buddies can do the job.
The list is endless. Within weeks, the new “country”, Trumpland, will resemble something out of the “Walking Dead”. Power will go out, chaos and criminals will rule the day.
The winger slackers who spend their days watching Fox, after cashing their government checks, will be on their own.
When do we start?
I was never a big Andrew Cuomo fan, something about him always put me off. His dad was a different story. I liked Mario. Who could ever imagine charges of sexual impropriety against Mario Cuomo. Andrew is different. It doesn’t seem completely unbelievable.
As the Trump pandemic raged on, it seemed that Cuomo was doing the right things, I began to change my mind a bit, especially since he made a point of sticking it to Fatty for his criminal mishandling of the situation.
But news that he had been fudging the numbers came out. Bad. Very bad. Then the charges of sexual harassment. After the first, I thought, well, it might be true but it also might be that he’s been targeted by confederate apparatchiks. But then the second one appeared.
Investigators need to jump on this and find out what happened. Even if it turns out he was being “playful?”, is that what he calls it? He has to go. That behavior is right out. Maybe Rs are allowed to get away with this shit, but if Democrats want to maintain the moral high ground (admittedly, not a difficult thing when compared to a party of traitors, liars, miscreants, and misogynists), they have to lower the boom on Cuomo.
First, get to the bottom of these charges. Then do the right thing.
"Freedom" counties already abound in the vast stretches of our western lands, and they have for a long time.
I believe there are still signs for a "Jefferson" county in northern CA, which exists only in the minds of those who erected the sign I used to see as I traveled along I-5.
Rangeland and farmland it was, its productivity made possible only by the extensive infrastructure, price supports and outright subsidies brought to that land and those people by the government they thought they despised and could do well without.
The "I have a dream" line always comes to me when I see one of these signs. These are dreams, indeed, and were they to come to pass, the imaginary counties' inhabititants would be living a nightmare of their own devise.
Way back ten years ago or so when I first mentioned I thought Lincoln made a mistake insisting upon "preserving the union," many a liberal pilloried me. I said he should free all the slaves, invite them (and any free black people) to come on up to the real United States, including the West, and bid so long to the secessionists. Doesn't sound so stupid now, does it?
The South never gave up. They just created a new reality, a la Trump, and after more than 160 years, they haven't given up on their fake "history" of their white supremacist ideas. I'd be happy to get out my lace hanky & wave good-bye from the bow of the Robert E. Lee, hoping the paddle wheel hits a few of them rebels in the butt.
Marie - I would not like having Jimcrowistan on our southern border. As it is, the 15th Amendment still works between Brownsville and Arlington.
Me too, Marie. The pretend world they prefer would be mean and cruel on purpose and not one to aspire to. Mentally, they already live there, so let them go there. I keep wondering how Democrats even converse with them in Congress—. Maybe they don’t. It must be an ugly place of employment.
After the Georgia secession what happens to Atlanta? The city is 51% black and only 41% white. A lot of the southern states have large nonwhite populations. Will they all just move north, or maybe they'll grab their own guns and take over for themselves. Wouldn't that be rich if the white supremacists helped create the Minority States of America.
Stunning new allegations further connect Trump to Russian mobsters and oligarchs
"Now there are stunning new allegations in federal court documents that this Russian criminal network with worldwide reach hired Felix Sater, one of Trump's closest associates, to hide a fortune stolen in Kazakhstan.
Some of the $440 million was intended to finance a Trump tower in Moscow, court papers show.
During the 2016 campaign Trump's then fixer, lawyer Michael Cohen, told a top aide to Vladimir Putin that the modern czar would be given the tower's $50 million penthouse. The Moscow tower was never built."
Elizabeth Warren, Today, with @PramilaJayapal & @RepBrendanBoyle, I’m introducing a bill for a two-cent #WealthTax on net worths above $50 million—a few cents more for billionaires. This will raise at least $3 trillion to #BuildBackBetter and increase opportunity for all.
Warren Revives Wealth Tax, Citing Pandemic Inequalities
A tax on the net worth of America’s wealthiest individuals remains popular with voters, but has yet to be embraced by President Biden.
@Patrick & @Jeanne: Oh, there would be no Jimcrowistan. First of all, there would be few Blacks in the Confederates States of America, as the Blacks would have moved north or west.
But, more important, Southerners would have "won," so they wouldn't have the loser/grievance complex by which they all live to this day. There would be no fake "Lost Cause" because they won. Why do you think no matter how rich & privileged Southerners are, they still refer to "Coastal elites" and "elites" don't have to be "elite" in the way normal people define "elite"? It's because confederates feel like losers, that liberal "elites" look down their noses at them.
Racism is at least partially a product of other grievances (social studies have verified this), and losing the Civil War created a BIG grievance for Southerners. I'm not saying there would be no racial prejudice, but I am saying it very likely would not have been the main outlet to assuage white "Christian" resentment.
Third, slavery wouldn't have lasted long anyway. Sure, Southern plantation owners & others might have imported more slaves, but keeping slaves is more expensive than paying day-workers, and Southern landholders were already figuring that out before the Civil War. Some, as we know, were freeing their slaves (if only to bring them into a system of poor farm tenancy, like the class system in Jolly Olde England).
It's true that it would have taken the South a long time to recover from the ravages of war, and -- just as happened in some parts -- it probably would not have really thrived until the widespread use of air conditioning in the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Of course it's not possible to know what might have been, but a good guess is that waving buh-bye -- the was Britain did to us before that (and yeah, the Brits could have won the U.S. Revolution, but a lot of them didn't want to) -- would have been better for everyone.
The freedumb to choose your own government is not as dumb as the Freedumb Caucus would have it. On the whole, it's a sensible aspiration.
Y'all think about that now. Maybe over a nice platter of fried chicken & a tall glass of sweet tea.
Just heard a Republican pollster spreading the other big lie. Of course the big Big Lie is that the Fat Fascist won the election. The other one, perhaps even more insidious, is that there is a battle for the “soul/future” of the Republican Party. He cites the opposing groups as the “governing” Republicans and the “populist” Republicans.
Oh, you mean “governing” Republicans like in Texas? In Florida? In Alabama? There are no blocs of Rs who govern. Those skills have been long lost. As for populism, that is a vicious canard. The other side of the party is all about fascism, white supremacy, violence, lies, and criminality. Doesn’t sound very populist to me.
The party IS a Party of Traitors. They belong to Trump and the forces of ignorance and raw, lawless power grabs.
Suggesting anything else is yet another confederate lie.
At the risk of being impolitic for this discussion about succession: how many boys who gave everything during WWII would have done so for the Confederacy? I think some account should be given for the people who have defended the United States of America before casting the recalcitrant South (and its republicans) out. And yes, without air-conditioning and all the NASA money and brainpower, the South and places like Duke might be just perfecting another hybrid of tobacco or cotton. This recalcitrance seen in the Republicans and South is clearly demonstrated from Maine to Wisconsin to the Dakotas to Idaho. It ain't just a Southern thing. The Koch-Bezos wealth train has created a whole new class of crazy that needs remedies now.