;)
The Commentariat -- May 24, 2021
Late Morning/Afternoon Update:
Juliet Eilperin & Brady Dennis of the Washington Post: "President Biden will announce Monday afternoon that he's doubling the amount of money the U.S. government will spend helping communities prepare for extreme weather events, while launching a new effort at NASA to collect more sophisticated climate data. While the $1 billion in funding is a fraction of what taxpayers spend each year on disasters, it underscores a broader effort to account for the damage wrought by climate change and curb it. Last week the president signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to identify and disclose the perils a warming world poses to federal programs, assets and liabilities, while also requiring federal suppliers to reveal their own climate-related risks."
Uh, Bon Chance, Tony. Matthew Lee of the AP: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to the Middle East on Monday to press the Israelis, Palestinians and regional players to build on and strengthen last week's Gaza cease-fire, start an immediate flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and lay the groundwork for an eventual resumption in long-stalled peace talks. President Joe Biden announced that he was dispatching Blinken to the region for what will be his administration's highest-level, in-person talks on the crisis that erupted earlier this month. The State Department said Blinken will visit Israel, the West Bank, Jordan and Egypt on a trip that comes as the administration has faced broad criticism for its initial response to the deadly violence."
John Hudson of the Washington Post: "... Donald Trump's former ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, is suing former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and the U.S. government for $1.8 million to compensate for legal fees incurred during the 2019 House impeachment probe. The suit, filed Monday in federal court in the District of Columbia, alleges that Pompeo reneged on his promise that the State Department would cover the fees after Sondland delivered bombshell testimony accusing Trump and his aides of pressuring the government of Ukraine to investigate then presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter in exchange for military aid. Sondland, a Portland hotel magnate appointed by Trump to serve as ambassador, became a key witness of the impeachment probe because of his firsthand knowledge of conversations with Trump, his attorney Rudy Giuliani and senior Ukrainian officials -- as well as his punchy answers, affable demeanor and colorful language." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. Update: Politico's story is here. ~~~
~~~ Marie: The suit accuses Pompeo of corruption: Pompeo's promise, Sondland argues, "was self-serving, made entirely for personal reasons for his own political survival in the hopes that Ambassador Sondland would not implicate him or others by his testimony": that is, the "deal" was that if Sondland testified the way Pompeo wanted him to, he would get his attorneys' fees paid as a sort of "bonus." Pompeo, of course, would require Sondland to perjure himself, which in fact he did, before he drastically modified his testimony upon learning of evidence against his fake version of events. Sondland's decision to dump the fake Trump narrative & tell a tale approximating the truth cost him the promised bonus. The offer of attorneys' fees, then, whether or not the State Department ever would pay them under any circumstances, constituted a bribe to testify falsely. This suit may be a loser, but with any luck, it will provide us with some laughs. So far, the funniest bit is that Sondland thought that -- after casting his lot with a den of corrupt politicians -- there was honor among corrupt politicians.
Michigan. David Eggert of the AP: "Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration on Monday rescinded a rule that limits restaurant tables to no more than six people, a day after she apologized for violating the COVID-19 regulation while gathering with friends at an East Lansing bar. The Democratic governor has said tables at the Landshark Bar & Grill were pushed together as more people arrived in her party of roughly a dozen fully vaccinated people." MB: Still, "governor" is a pretty good gig: break your own rule, then rescind it.
Michael Birnbaum & Isabelle Khurshudyan of the Washington Post: "Belarus on Monday was facing international isolation, with European leaders discussing measures to deal a crushing blow to the economy and the White House calling for an investigation, a day after Belarusian authorities forced down a civilian jet and pulled off a dissident journalist. Outrage mounted about the brazen move by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who on Sunday sent a MiG-29 fighter jet to snatch a Ryanair plane out of the sky as it was flying from Athens to Vilnius and arrest one of its passengers, Roman Protasevich, the founder of an opposition media outlet. Protasevich faces at least 12 years in prison. The power play set a fearsome precedent for journalists and political opponents, who must now worry about flying through the airspace of repressive regimes, even if they are moving from one free capital to another." CNN's story is here.
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Devan Cole of CNN: "White House senior adviser Cedric Richmond said Sunday that President Joe Biden will 'change course' on his massive infrastructure bill if inaction on the costly proposal seems inevitable. 'He wants a deal. He wants it soon, but if there's meaningful negotiations taking place in a bipartisan manner, he's willing to let that play out. But again, he will not let inaction be the answer. And when he gets to the point where it looks like that is inevitable, you'll see him change course," Richmond told CNN's Dana Bash...." ~~~
~~~ Hannah Maio of CNBC: "A group of Republican and Democratic senators unveiled a transportation package over the weekend that would increase funding for highways, roads and bridges as Congress searches for bipartisan paths to repair the nation's infrastructure. The legislation, released by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, would increase funding by 34% to a baseline of about $300 billion over five years. The previous authorization expired in 2020 and Congress passed a one-year extension which is up in September.... The bipartisan proposal is backed by committee chair Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., [and ranking member Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va.,] as well as the chair and ranking members of the transportation subcommittee, Sens. Ben Cardin, D-Md., and Kevin Cramer, R-.N.D." MB: This is just a portion of President Biden's much broader infrastructure bill.
Anita Kumar of Politico: "Conservative groups have launched a campaign of TV ads, social media messages and emails to supporters criticizing [President Biden's] proposal to hire nearly 87,000 new IRS workers over the next decade to collect money from tax cheats. They accuse the Biden administration of pushing for the IRS expansion as a way to raise taxes, increase dues paid to left-leaning unions, and increase oversight on political organizations.... Biden and fellow Democrats have held out hope that the $80 billion proposal to crack down on tax evasion by high-earners and large corporations could be an area of agreement between the two parties, even if the GOP is skeptical about the amount it could raise." MB: This latest lie designed to help the rich is being organized by "Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and founder of the new group Coalition to Protect American Workers."
Michelle Cottle of the New York Times: "... Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, is frequently derided as a weak, hollow, craven, opportunistic, transactional, nakedly ambitious political animal with no core principles.... Mr. McCarthy has long done whatever it takes to get what he wants. And what he really, really wants now is the speaker's gavel.... If Mitch McConnell, the ruthless, calculating Senate Republican leader, is a shark, Mr. McCarthy is a jellyfish, carried spinelessly along by the political currents. But these days, such inchoate non-leadership is the best that House Republicans can hope for. In fact, that's what they demand.... If anyone can manage the necessary mix of political nihilism and constant self-abasement, it will be Kevin McCarthy."
Jason Wilson of the Guardian: "Washington's Metropolitan police department recorded threats to lawmakers and public facilities in the wake of the 6 January attack on the Capitol, according to documents made public in a ransomware hack on their systems this month. The documents also show how, in the month following the Capitol attack, police stepped up surveillance efforts ... for signs of another attack by far-right groups on targets in the capital, including events surrounding the inauguration of Joe Biden as president. The revelation of the seriousness of the threats comes amid Republican opposition to forming a 9/11-style commission to investigate the January attack, which saw the Capitol roamed by looting mobs hunting for politicians and involved the deaths of five people. The police documents were stolen and published by the ransomware attack group Babuk, and some were redistributed by the transparency organization Distributed Denial of Secrets...."
Travis Gettys of the Raw Story: Right-wing WashPo columnist George Will "appeared on ABC News' 'This Week,' where he told the roundtable participants that the bipartisan commission to investigate the causes of the deadly riot was controversial among Republicans for one reason. 'We have something new in American history,' Will said. 'We have a political party defined by the terror it feels for its own voters. That's the Republican Party right now.'... Every elected official is ... afraid that a vote for this would be seen as an insult to the 45th president.... I would like to see January 6th burned into the American mind as firmly as 9/11 because it was that scale of a shock to the system.'...'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
John Harwood of CNN: In 2012, Tom Mann & Norm Ornstein wrote a Washington Post op-ed which concluded "that the GOP had become 'ideologically extreme, scornful of compromise, unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science, dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.... "Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem.'... [The essay] did not gain wide acceptance then. Many journalists joined leading Republicans in dismissing them.... [But] piece demonstrates more than the foresight of its political scientist authors.... It shows the disease within the Republican Party had spread long before Trump metastasized it." MB: Of course the Constant Weader linked the op-ed here. I don't think it surprised any Reality Chex readers. The only thing about it that surprised me is that Mann & Ornstein had the guts to write it, especially in the heyday of both-sider "journalism." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Zach Montellaro of Politico: "Republicans who sought to undercut or overturn President Joe Biden's election win are launching campaigns to become their states' top election officials next year, alarming local officeholders and opponents who are warning about pro-Trump, 'ends justify the means' candidates taking big roles in running the vote. The candidates include Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, a leader of the congressional Republicans who voted against certifying the 2020 Electoral College results; Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, one of the top proponents of the conspiracy-tinged vote audit in Arizona's largest county; Nevada's Jim Marchant, who sued to have his 5-point congressional loss last year overturned; and Michigan's Kristina Karamo, who made dozens of appearances in conservative media to claim fraud in the election. Now, they are running for secretary of state in key battlegrounds that could decide control of Congress in 2022 -- and who wins the White House in 2024.... The campaigns set up the possibility that politicians who have taken steps to undermine faith in the American democratic system could soon be the ones running it."
Goodbye to All That. After decades of being at the center of Washington, D.C., society, Sally Quinn writes in the Washington Post's magazine: "I don't think Washington's social scene after Trump and covid will ever be the same. We almost lost our democracy, and many even lost their lives. If nothing else, what we've been through surely focused the mind on what is important." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Monday are here.
Harry Enten of CNN: "... the vaccination rates by state show us that even the race to protect people from the coronavirus has fallen along familiar political lines. Take a look at the states that are leading the way for adults (18 years or older) with at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccines, as of Thursday's CDC report. Of the top 25 states in terms of percentage vaccinated, President Joe Biden won 21 of them in the 2020 election. Just four of the top 25 states for vaccination were won by ... Donald Trump last election. Trump won 21 of the bottom 25 for vaccinations. This includes 16 of the bottom 17 states.... The correlation between vaccination rates and the 2020 election outcome by state has only strengthened over time, as supplies have overtaken demand.... Aall of the top 20 [states went for Biden]." MB: That's because a lot of Republicans are like this self-certified ophthalmologist & obnoxious know-it-all from Kentucky: ~~~
~~~ Allan Smith of NBC News: "Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Sunday that he is not getting vaccinated because he has already had Covid-19. Speaking with a conservative host on WABC radio in New York, Paul, an ophthalmologist, said he won't change his mind unless 'they show me evidence that people who have already had the infection are dying in large numbers or being hospitalized or getting very sick.'... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that people who have been infected still get vaccinated because experts are not certain how long natural immunity lasts." MB: IOW, too bad for anybody I might infect. Chuck Schumer should not allow Li'l Randy onto the Senate floor. ~~~
~~~ Marie: I can't say I learned nothing from Li'l Randy. I can almost spell "ophthalmologist" without looking it up now.
China. Natasha Bertrand, et al., of CNN: "A US intelligence report found that several researchers at China's Wuhan Institute of Virology fell ill in November 2019 and had to be hospitalized, a new detail about the severity of their symptoms that could fuel further debate about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, according to two people briefed on the intelligence. A State Department fact sheet released by the Trump administration in January said that the researchers had gotten sick in autumn 2019 but did not go as far as to say they had been hospitalized. China reported to the World Health Organization that the first patient with Covid-like symptoms was recorded in Wuhan on December 8, 2019.... Importantly, the intelligence community still does not know what the researchers were actually sick with, said the people briefed, and continues to have low confidence in its assessments of the virus' precise origins beyond the fact that it came from China."
Beyond the Beltway
Minnesota. Mohamed Ibrahim of the AP: "Members of George Floyd's family, and others who lost loved ones to police encounters, joined activists and citizens in Minneapolis on Sunday for a march that was one of several events planned nationwide to mark the one-year anniversary of Floyd's death. Hundreds of people gathered for the rally in front of the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis where the Chauvin trial concluded a month ago, many carrying signs with pictures of Floyd, Philando Castile and other Black men killed by police."
Texas. Alexa Ura, et al., of the Texas Tribune: "The number of Election Day polling places in largely Democratic parts of major Texas counties would fall dramatically under a Republican proposal to change how Texas polling sites are distributed, a Texas Tribune analysis shows. Voting options would be curtailed most in areas with higher shares of voters of color. Relocating polling sites is part of the GOP's priority voting bill -- Senate Bill 7 -- as it was passed in the Texas Senate. It would create a new formula for setting polling places in the handful of mostly Democratic counties with a population of 1 million or more. Although the provision was removed from the bill when passed in the House, it remains on the table as a conference committee of lawmakers begins hammering out a final version of the bill behind closed doors."
Way Beyond
Belarus. Anton Troianovski & Ivan Nechepurenko of the New York Times: "The strongman president of Belarus sent a fighter jet to intercept a European airliner traveling through the country's airspace on Sunday and ordered the plane to land in the capital, Minsk, where [Roman Protasevicha,] a prominent opposition journalist aboard was then seized, provoking international outrage. The stunning gambit by Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, a brutal and erratic leader who has clung to power despite huge protests against his government last year, was condemned by European officials, who compared it to hijacking. But it underscored that with the support of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Mr. Lukashenko is prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to repress dissent." The AP's story is here. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ David Cohen of Politico: "Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday condemned Belarus for forcing down a civilian airliner over its airspace in order to arrest a dissident on the flight. Faking a bomb threat, Belarus used fighter aircraft to force down a Ryanair flight and arrest journalist Raman Pratasevich."
Samoa. Michael Miller of the Washington Post: "The first woman elected prime minister of Samoa showed up for her swearing-in ceremony on Monday to find her opponents had locked the doors to prevent her from taking office. Fiame Naomi Mata'afa and her followers pitched a tent on the statehouse lawn, where she took the oath of office instead. The bizarre scenes capped six weeks of election turmoil that escalated into a constitutional crisis over the weekend as Mata'afa's fierce rival refused to cede power. 'This is an illegal takeover of government,' Mata'afa said Sunday of the efforts to keep her from office. 'Because it's a bloodless coup, people aren't so concerned or disturbed by it.'&" MB: I'm surprised Trump didn't just lock the White House doors (and I'm only half-kidding).
U.K. Edna Mohamed of the Guardian: "The Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is in a critical condition after sustaining a gunshot wound to her head in an incident in south London, her affiliated group, Taking the Initiative party, has announced on social media. In a statement on the group's Facebook page, the party said the incident happened in the early hours of Sunday and followed 'numerous death threats'. A Met police statement said there was nothing to suggest that it had been a targeted attack."
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Reader Comments (9)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/554958-of-inmates-and-asylums-todays-house-republicans-make-the-john-birchers-look
The way I read this is that in the good old days of the kookie Republican Party I grew up with, their extremists hated Communists, a largely external threat that they feared would or had already begun to infiltrate their country and take it over.
Today's crazies are not longer the party's fringe, and they hate and fear the majority of their fellow Americans.
In a word, me.
NO MORE MOLLYCUDDLING:
Certainly Michelle Cottle, (see above NYT's story) ain't gonna do any more GOP cuddling. What a juicy jolt to read this morning! And then we learn our own MB has finally learned how to spell "Ophthalmologist" ––-thanks to man who can't SEE truth when it's right in front of him.
Fintan O'Toole has written a piece about Boris Johnson but he starts out quoting Nietzsche on the nature of revenge. People with power, he suggests, can take a literal revenge on their enemies: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But people with little or no power, he says, when denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge, a far-sighted subterranean revenge.
This is, O'Toole says, a useful way of looking at Brexit and its American cousin "Trumpism". Those who perceive themselves to be outsiders––whether they are or not –-found in 2016 a vehicle for their resentment, a way to kick out the so called elites. But their triumph could not produce much by way of concrete action to change their lives. So it has turned into the grand politics of imaginary revenge.
And––imaginary revenge can never be satisfied, therefore becomes long lasting. For Fatty, this works just dandy cuz this ceaseless turmoil is a good thing. It keeps his project alive, even after his own defeat.
Amen
To follow up:
If depression is indeed, as many have said, anger turned inward, is it possible that an entire country, where nearly half of its inhabitants is turning on itself, can be said to be depressed?
Certainly forty or so percent of us are quite angry and even (see the CNN story on vax rates above) suicidal.
On our recent trip, tho' I didn't see as many signs and bumper stickers as I did following the 2016 election, the ones I did see still supporting the Pretender were angry.
"Make those libs cry again. Trump 2020." "Fuck Biden." Both signs seen in northern CA.
Angry, mean, nasty seemed the commonality.
To me, that meant something, and made me wonder if someone has done a study comparing the expressed emotions of D and R political signage.
It seems Sondland's spoon wasn't near long enough.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/pompeo-lawsuit-gordon-sondland/2021/05/24/c93f1862-bc23-11eb-9bae-5a86187646fe_story.html?
Wonder if he's figured that out yet.
@Ken Winkes: Thanks for the link. I posted it above. I recall reading several times about relatively low-level officials who had to testify before Congress or whatever & incurred humungous legal fees in the process -- fees they had to pay themselves. Sometimes, I think, politicians in the administration eventually would pay the fees, not out of the government's pocket, but out of their PACs or campaign funds. Pompeo's supposed promise to pay Sondland's legal fees smells a little fishy to me.
Did the State Department pay the fees of all the other State Department officials who were called to testify in L'Affaire Ukraine?
If Sondland actually wants to get his legal fees paid and isn't just filing suit to make a splash, he might take a look at his homeowner's insurance policy.
Tell it like it is! But Bernie seems to want to side-swipe it for fear of more anti-semitism that's sweeping not only this country but others. This piece spells out the controversy clearly and fairly:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/bernie-sanders-progressives-tone-down-israel-apartheid_n_60aaeedee4b031354798b3aa
Did a quick search for studies contrasting the emotional components of Republican and Democrat bumper stickers and yard signs and came up with nada.
If anyone can find something along those lines, I would appreciate it.
Am thinking some numbers supporting my impressions might form the skeleton of a Sunday sermon.
MB: I'm surprised Trump didn't just lock the White House doors (and I'm only half-kidding).
Trump did try, he fired the chief usher on Biden's inauguration day so he wouldn't be there to open the doors when they made it to the White House. The Biden's stood in front of the door for an awkward moment before someone figured out they needed to open the doors for First Family.
@RAS: You're right.