The Commentariat -- March 20, 2021

Late Morning Update:

Congressional Primary Race. Jonathan Martin of the New York Times: "The first competitive special congressional election of the Biden era is most likely heading to a runoff next month, but the battle lines are already drawn ahead of the initial balloting on Saturday in the race to succeed former Representative Cedric L. Richmond of Louisiana. At the center of the debate: which of two New Orleans Democrats positioned to face off in April can better leverage their connections to lift a South Louisiana district hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

May Jeong of Vanity Fair writes an op-ed piece in the New York Times on the nexus of race, gender and class in the Atlanta murders.

~~~~~~~~~~

Michael Shear of the New York Times: "President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled on Friday to Atlanta to express grief for the victims of a mass shooting that left eight people dead, six of them women of Asian descent, describing the tragedy as part of an increase in racially motivated violence and pledging to take action against hate and discrimination. The gruesome shootings on Tuesday in Atlanta thrust Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris into the middle of a national struggle to confront the harassment and violence against Asian-Americans from people angry about the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than a half-million people." The AP's story is here. ~~~

~~~ Marie: BTW, we can forever forget the notion that the mass murderer was just a quiet country sex addict who had a bad day. The four women he murdered in Atlanta were between the ages of 51 and 74. I don't mean to suggest I'm not still a femme fatale, but I don't believe this 21-year-old man was addicted to women d'un certain âge.

Christian Davenport of the Washington Post: "On Friday, the Biden administration officially announced its intent to nominate former Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida to lead the agency as its next administrator.... If confirmed, Nelson will face a host of serious challenges that could change the course of the agency for years."

Maria Sacchetti & Nick Miroff of the Washington Post: "Migrant children and families are dangerously packed into holding facilities on the southwest border, lawmakers and child-welfare monitors warned Friday, as Customs and Border Protection weighed taking the emergency step of putting migrant families on airplanes to states near the Canadian border for processing. The strain of a sudden, sharp spike in apprehensions became clear as Department of Homeland Security officials and Democratic and Republican lawmakers toured the El Paso sector of the border and saw hundreds of children packed into large, open rooms and families streaming across the border at night. Conditions were even worse hundreds of miles to the southeast in the Rio Grande Valley, a court-appointed monitor told a federal judge Friday, saying the crowding in Border Patrol facilities was 'profound,' 'not sustainable' and at risk of unraveling."

We Don't Smoke Marijuana in the White House. Katie Rogers & Zolan Kanno-Youngs of the New York Times: "On Friday, responding to a news report in The Daily Beast that said dozens of young [White House] staff members had been pushed to resign or had been reassigned to remote work based on their past marijuana use, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, confirmed that some employees had been sidelined but said that it applied to fewer people. 'The bottom line is this,' Ms. Psaki wrote on Twitter, 'of the hundreds of people hired, only five people who had started working at the White House are no longer employed as a result of this policy.'"

Mary Jalonick of the AP: "The House has dismissed a Republican attempt to remove California Rep. Eric Swalwell from the House intelligence panel over his contact more than six years ago with a suspected Chinese spy who targeted politicians in the United States. Democrats scuttled the effort from House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, 218-200, after he forced a vote. His resolution against Swalwell cited information, first reported by Axios, that the suspected spy, Christine Fang, came into contact with Swalwell's campaign as he was first running for Congress in 2012. She also participated in fundraising for his 2014 campaign and helped place an intern in his office, the report said." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Erik Maulbetsch of the Colorado Times Recorder: "Congresswoman Lauren Boebert put a Q-flavored cherry atop an already controversial town hall last Monday night, when she claimed to have insider knowledge of a QAnon-linked conspiracy theory promoted by The Epoch Times that secret documents declassified in the final days of the Trump administration will expose wrongdoing by Trump's enemies and lead to resignations and arrests, allowing Republicans to gain a majority in the U.S. House and Senate prior to the 2022 election. Boebert, a Republican, claims her sources for this are close to Trump." ~~~

     ~~~ Steve M.: "They love the QAnon mass-arrest fantasy in part because it allows them to imagine a world where they simply don't have to worry about the existence of an opposition party -- the Democratic Party, if their dreams come true, won't be reduced in numbers, it will be all but eliminated as a political force in America. (They've done this already at the legislative level in many states, but they can't seem to do it in Congress yet.) They don't want to live in a world where the parties share power. They want one-party rule and nothing less."

Kristin Wilson & Caroline Kelly of CNN: "The outer fencing erected around the Capitol shortly after rioters stormed the building on January 6 will be removed this weekend, earlier than expected, according to the acting House sergeant-at-arms. In a memo to members of Congress and congressional staff Friday obtained by CNN, acting Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy Blodgett said the US Capitol Police in conjunction with the architect of the Capitol 'will remove the outer perimeter fencing around the Capitol complex sooner than initially anticipated.'"

Alex Horton of the Washington Post: "A former Army Special Forces soldier charged with a half-dozen crimes stemming from the Capitol riot threw a flagpole at a police officer like a spear and assaulted three other officers, according to the FBI and court documents. Jeffrey McKellop, 55, who was arrested Wednesday, is among more than 30 veterans charged in the Jan. 6 incident but appears to be the first so far who served in Special Operations, according to service records analyzed by The Washington Post. McKellop, of Augusta County, Va., faces six charges, among them assaulting a police officer with a deadly or dangerous weapon. He did not enter a plea on Thursday." ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: If some of these veterans are found guilty, as I assume they will be, maybe they should be stripped of their veterans' pensions. I don't like the idea of paying a guy who has used the experience he gained in the military to wage war against the country that taught him how to do it.

Morgan Gstalter of the Hill: "The wife of a detective attached to an FBI task force in Pittsburgh was charged for allegedly taking part in the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Jennifer Marie Heinl, 55, was charged in an FBI criminal complaint filed in the District of Columbia on Wednesday. She is facing several federal charges, including violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds and parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building. Heinl reportedly told investigators that she had gone to Washington alone on Jan. 5 and returned the next day, and she claimed she did not go inside the Capitol. The FBI said in a criminal complaint that she entered the Capitol with another man, Kenneth Grayson. The two had been in communications through Facebook for several weeks discussing travel plans. Surveillance video shows Heinl, wearing a red 'Trump 20' jersey, walking through the Capitol Rotunda, Capitol Crypt and other restricted areas."

Laura Beckerman of CREW: "When Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin blocked the release of then-President Trump's tax returns, it was the first time the IRS failed to turn over tax returns following a congressional request, the IRS informed CREW. It is clear that then-Secretary Mnuchin's actions to block Trump's tax returns from scrutiny were unprecedented and against the law, and they have set the stage for the Janet Yellen-led Treasury Department to reverse course and release Trump's taxes to Congress. The Internal Revenue Code says that, upon a written request of the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Treasury Secretary shall [emphasis added] provide the committee with any return that it requests. House Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal did exactly that in 2019, requesting the IRS provide six years of Trump's tax returns then issuing a subpoena when the IRS did not comply. Mnuchin famously defied the subpoena...."

Cruella DeVos Made a Mockery of the Law. Stacey Cowley of the New York Times: "Former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made no secret of her disdain for a program intended to forgive the federal student loans of borrowers who were ripped off by schools that defrauded their students. She called it a 'free money' giveaway, let hundreds of thousands of claims languish for years and slashed the amount of relief granted to some successful applicants to $0. Then, after a class-action lawsuit made it impossible to stall any longer, her agency built what amounted to an assembly line of rejection. In Ms. DeVos's final year in office, her agency denied nearly 130,000 claims -- far surpassing the 9,000 rejections in the prior five years -- with a system that pressured workers to speed through applications in a matter of minutes, according to internal Education Department documents filed in federal court.... [The department] required agency employees to adjudicate claims that could stretch to hundreds of pages in less than 12 minutes. Those who did it faster were eligible for bonuses; those who took longer risked being fired."

The Pandemic, Ctd.

The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Friday are here: "In a major policy revision intended to encourage more schools to welcome children back to in-person instruction, federal health officials on Friday relaxed the six-foot distancing rule for elementary school students, saying they need only remain three feet apart in classrooms as long as everyone is wearing a mask. The three-foot rule also now applies to students in middle schools and high schools, as long as community transmission is not high, officials said. When transmission is high, however, these students must be at least six feet apart, unless they are taught in cohorts, or small groups that are kept separate from others." (Also linked yesterday.)

William Wan, et al., of the Washington Post: "Health-care workers were the first group in the United States to be offered coronavirus vaccinations. But three months into the effort, many remain unconvinced, unreached and unprotected. The lingering obstacles to vaccinating health-care workers foreshadows the challenge the United States will face as it expands the pool of people eligible and attempts to get the vast majority of the U.S. population vaccinated. According to a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll, barely half of front-line health-care workers (52 percent) said they had received at least their first vaccine dose at the time they were surveyed. More than 1 in 3 said they were not confident vaccines were sufficiently tested for safety and effectiveness." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

How Could This Have Happened? Jill Colvin & Terry Spencer of the AP: "... Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, has been partially closed after staff members tested positive for the coronavirus.... An email sent to members said that service had been temporarily suspended in the club's dining room and at its beach club because some staff members had recently tested positive. It said the club had undertaken 'all appropriate response measures,' including sanitizing affected areas, and that banquet and event services remain open."

Beyond the Beltway

Florida. Looking for Real Election Fraud? Think GOP. Katie Shepherd of the Washington Post: "When incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez lost his Florida state senate seat to Republican challenger Ileana Garcia by just 32 votes in November, the losing party and investigators began asking questions about a suspicious third candidate. A man named Alexis 'Alex' Rodriguez -- who shared the incumbent's last name -- appeared on the ballot but never campaigned, never spoke publicly, and could not be reached by reporters after he took thousands of votes on Election Day. Now, the mysterious candidate and a former Republican state senator are facing felony charges for crimes stemming from a plot to 'confuse voters and siphon votes from the incumbent,' police said in an affidavit filed this week.... The case is a rare instance when a criminal scheme may have changed an election outcome, helping the GOP flip a state senate seat." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

Minnesota. Steve Karnowski & Amy Forliti of the AP: "A judge said Friday he won't delay or move the trial of a former Minneapolis police officer charged in George Floyd's death over concerns that a $27 million settlement for Floyd's family could taint the jury pool, but he'll allow limited evidence from a 2019 arrest. Meanwhile, a 13th juror was seated Friday -- a woman who said she has only seen clips of the video of Floyd's arrest and needs to learn more about what happened beforehand. The jury will include 12 jurors and two alternates." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)

New York. Jesse McKinley of the New York Times: "In the latest allegation against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Alyssa McGrath, an employee of the governor's office, described a series of unsettling interactions with the governor, telling The New York Times that Mr. Cuomo would ogle her body, remark on her looks, and make suggestive comments to her and another executive aide. Ms. McGrath, 33, is the first current aide in Mr. Cuomo's office to speak publicly about allegations of harassment inside the Capitol. Her account of casual sexual innuendo echoes other stories that have emerged in recent weeks about a demeaning office culture, particularly for young women who worked closely with the governor. The most serious accusation against the governor was made by another current aide who has accused Mr. Cuomo of groping her breast in the Executive Mansion. Ms. McGrath said that the aide described the encounter in detail to her after it was made public in a report in The Times Union of Albany last week." The AP has a summary report here. ~~~

~~~ David Goodman, et al., of the New York Times: "A federal investigation into Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's handling of nursing homes during the pandemic has focused in recent weeks on whether the governor and his senior aides provided false data on resident deaths to the Justice Department, according to four people.... Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation have contacted lawyers for Mr. Cuomo's aides, interviewed senior officials from the state Health Department and subpoenaed Mr. Cuomo's office for documents related to the disclosure of data last year, the people said. The interviews have included questions about information New York State submitted last year to the Justice Department, which had asked the state for data on Covid-19 cases and deaths in nursing homes, according to the people. False statements in such a submission could constitute a crime."

Comments

[Akhilleus]

Free for me, but not for thee...

You can always count on Trump-style plutocrats to step on those who weren’t lucky enough to have been born into wealthy families and who, while pretending that their riches are the result of their own superiority and hard work, insist that those less fortunate suck it up and succeed the “hard way”, “like they did”.

And if those less fortunate individuals have been bilked by other fellow Richie Riches, tough paper. Helping those who were unlucky enough to have fallen prey to predatory practices is just giving these suckers “free money”. Because the Betsy DeVoses of the world never enjoy free money giveaways in the form of ridiculous tax breaks, insider information, and the plethora of unearned, exceptional breaks handed to the already well off that they accept as the mark of their superior nature.

These nasty pieces of work are the direct descendants of the wealthy nobles in various 18th and 19th century European countries who banned works like Beaumarchais’ “Le Mariage de Figaro” for daring to show up their kind as privileged amoral assholes who have their superiority shoved up their asses by dirty commoners. No wonder the French and the Russians revolted.

Raise your hand if you’d give a packet to see Fatty and snooty Betsy hauled away on a tumbril. Hey, we won’t even charge them for the ride to the guillotine. They wouldn’t pay anyway.

[PD Pepe]

It was something Marie said yesterday about racist views one has as a teenager and if changed as an adult should not be held against one. I thought about my own experience during WWII watching films and cartoons depicting Asians as evil yellow peril. I've mentioned before the war games our neighborhood kids played on the banks of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin where we'd divide up into "Japs", Germans and Americans. Johnny Brinkman, ace organizer of everything, was always an American General–-funny, but I don't recall my role at all. It wasn't until I reached adulthood that my prejudice against Asians was acknowledged as racist and wrong and ignorant and I could understand how my culture was the catalyst against their culture.

So today because of the Spa killings we acknowledge –––as though this is something new–--the prejudice against our Asian brethren that goes back centuries.

Asian women in particular have been exploited sexually as "Comfort" women during the China /Japan wars, WWII, and exploited by those who make a buck by bringing young girls to the U.S. under false promises of good jobs but find themselves working as sex workers in massage parlors.

Georgia has a regulatory board that is supposed to oversee the massage industry but they appear to be asleep at the wheel; 26 sexual complaints lodged with the state over the last three years have resulted in zero action.

"Violent crime is far more likely when commercial sex is involved, including brothels fronted as Spas and massage businesses and women of color are disproportionally the targets and victims of that violence."

I will the post article I read on this as soon as I dig it up again.

[PD Pepe]

The article: https://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-news/before-killing-spree-georgia-let-an-industry-that-fetishizes-asian-women-flourish/O2KAW7XBYFB2FBXIUF3ML33JXU/

[Marie Burns]

@PD Pepe: You reminded me of my playing "war games," too, with the neighborhood kids, with the "Americans" against the "Japs" & the "Germans." I don't think the games in my neighborhood were especially racist. The "Japs" and the Germans were always the bad guys (and would ultimately lose each "game"), and I don't think the "Americans" every fought on two fronts: it was "Japs" OR Germans vs Americans. Some of the kids were certainly of German stock, and we treated "Japs" and Germans the same way; they were the bad guys. (BTW, we played cowboys & Indians, too, and the "Indians" were always the bad guys.) Being as egalitarian as we were, we traded off playing the bad guys and the good guys. Nobody got stuck being a bad guy every time. I don't think those games caused me to have any racist sentiments.

What did make me wonder about Japanese culture were the Saturday kiddie movies where we saw films in which the Japanese were always portrayed as torturers. We kids all cheered when they got their comeuppance, as they always did in those movies. It was more than a decade before I figured out our own soldiers were capable of torture, too, including organized, sanctioned torture & murder.

[Ken Winkes]

PD,

Ah, those wonderful days of our youths! It's a wonder we did learn a few of the right lessons, isn't it?

My own youth, a few years later, was nourished by the exploits of Sgt. Rock who fearlessly battled the Chinese Commies over there in that Korea place, likely himself earlier inspired by the same stories of the Yellow Peril I quaffed in the tales of the creepy Fu Manchu, who somehow always managed to escape the clutches of the upright Nayland Smith (British, of course) to reappear in the next book's adventure. There were about twenty of them, and I think I read them all.

And also those Buck Rogers stories, written as early as the 1920's and '30's, where Buck began his long career by bearding the Airlords of Han, Mongolian invaders who had pretty much taken over everything sacred to civilization, Western of course.

Can't help but believe these embedded tropes also have a lot to do with our reluctance to, make that our pathetic inability to face and deal with immigration whenever skin color is an obvious issue.

[Marie Burns]

@Ken Winkes: Speaking of Chinese communists, I noticed that the odious Chip Roy (R-Texas) repeatedly referred to "Chy-Coms." During the decades over which I have heard the term "Chinese communists" hundreds of times at least, I have never before heard the party referred to as "Chy-Coms" (not sure how to spell it).

This seems to be a new way the right has come up with to racialize a political party or political ideology, to turn a foreign type of government into a racial slur, one Chip Roy & friends find comfortable using during official proceedings. If I'm right, that's mighty disgusting.

[Ken Winkes]

Marie,

According to my dim memory of Sgt. Rock, et. al, it was (and apparently is again) "Chi-Coms."

And, yes, you are right about both the odious and the disgusting.

But besides voter suppression and general ignorance, that's all they have.

[Ken Winkes]

Just...maybe?

https://www.vox.com/2021/3/20/22341271/feinstein-filibuster-reform-talking-joe-manchin-kyrsten-sinema-joe-biden-senate-60-votes

[citizen625]

“As a walk-on, I pay full tuition each year and yet even I can not profit off of my OWN name, image and likeness,” https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2021/03/20/bad-news-ncaa-its-march-madness-scam-amateurs-are-onto-them/. Young people without mortgages and often no children make revolutions happen. I am pleased to read this article.