;)
The Commentariat -- September 7, 2021
Afternoon Update:
David Leonhardt of the New York Times: "The C.D.C. reported a terrifying fact in July: Vaccinated people with the Delta variant of the Covid virus carried roughly the same viral load in their noses and throats as unvaccinated people. The news seemed to suggest that even the vaccinated were highly vulnerable to getting infected and passing the virus to others.... In recent weeks, however, more data has become available, and it suggests that the true picture is less alarming.... If you're vaccinated, a Covid infection is still uncommon, and those high viral loads are not as worrisome as they initially sounded. How small are the chances of the average vaccinated American contracting Covid? Probably about one in 5,000 per day, and even lower for people who take precautions or live in a highly vaccinated community."
Fauci States the Obvious. Madeline Holcombe of CNN: "Dr. Anthony Fauci says there's an important step adults can take to protect children who are too young to be vaccinated against Covid-19. 'The way you protect children who, because of their age, cannot get vaccinated yet is to surround the children ... the children with vaccinated people,' the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases told CNN on Sunday. More children have needed emergency room visits and hospitalizations in states with lower vaccination rates, according to a recent study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
Afghanistan. Jim Huylebroek & Matthieu Aikins of the New York Times: "The Taliban announced their choices for several acting cabinet positions on Tuesday, but held off on formally announcing a permanent government for Afghanistan.... The announcement came just hours after the Taliban used force to break up a demonstration by hundreds of women in Kabul. The protesters called for the Taliban to respect their rights and made it clear that they would not easily surrender the gains they have made over the past two decades. Running a government will most likely prove more daunting than toppling one. To succeed, the Taliban will need to secure desperately needed aid, which has been frozen by the United States and other nations. Foreign governments and lenders are waiting to see the fate of the opposition and if rights for women and ethnic and religious minorities will be respected. Without that money, the government faces worsening challenges, including humanitarian and economic crises that have forced Afghans to flee. Basic services like electricity are under threat, and the United Nations warned that food aid would run out by the end of the month for hundreds of thousands of Afghans." ~~~
~~~ AP: "An Afghan employee of an American organization in Afghanistan says the Taliban are blocking her and hundreds of other people from boarding charter evacuation flights out of Afghanistan.... The U.S. organization, Ascend, has worked for years with Afghan women and girls. The woman is among several hundred people, reportedly including American citizens and green card holders, who say they have been waiting in large residence halls and hotels for more than a week for permission to board waiting charter flights out of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.... She says the American citizens she has met in the group are vulnerable people in their 70s, parents of Afghan Americans in the United States. Taliban officials say they will let people who have the proper passports and other documentation leave. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday denied claims from Republican lawmakers that the situation in Mazar-e-Sharif amounted to a hostage-taking...." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This morning, a representative of a rescue operation, speaking on CNN, said that his organization had to move vulnerable Afghans through 20 "checkpoints," where the "checkers" demanded payoffs of up to $4,000 for each person they allowed through. I don't know if that's true, but assuming it is, demanding huge bounties is, IMO, comparable to hostage-taking.
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Hamza Shaban of the Washington Post: "The Justice Department is exploring 'all options' to challenge Texas's restrictive abortion law, Attorney General Merrick Garland said Monday, as he vowed to provide support to abortion clinics that are 'under attack' in the state and to protect those seeking and providing reproductive health services. The move by the nation's top law enforcement official comes just days after the Supreme Court refused to block a Texas abortion statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy with no exceptions for rape or incest. The court's action stands as the most serious threat to Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling establishing a woman's right to abortion, in nearly 50 years." An AP story is here. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Here's a statement from Garland.
Abigail Williams & Sahil Kapur of NBC News: "The U.S. facilitated the safe departure of four American citizens overland from Afghanistan on Monday, a senior State Department official said. The news came while Secretary of State Antony Blinken was en route to Doha, Qatar.... 'The Taliban was aware and did not impede their transit,' the official said, adding that the Americans were in good condition."
Republicans Are Winning. Michael Scherer of the Washington Post: "This year alone, 12 states have passed income tax reductions, 17 states have increased voting restrictions that are expected to hit Democratic constituencies more critically, and 18 states have enacted new or expanded school choice programs, according to the tallies kept by interest groups. Republican governors in several states have also had success in undermining President Biden's efforts to require masks for schoolchildren and others in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus.... By focusing on state and judicial power, Republicans are enjoying something of a provincial policy renaissance. Democrats, meantime, face new pressures to wield their power more aggressively by breaking long-standing precedent.... The success has rewarded a long-running Republican strategy of looking beyond the top-line national ballot trend to focus on state and local elections and judicial appointments." ~~~
~~~ Elise Viebeck of the Washington Post: "Red and blue states are increasingly moving in opposite directions on how millions of Americans can cast their ballots, exacerbating a growing divide as Republicans in states across the country -- most recently Texas -- impose new voting restrictions, while Democrats in others expand access. The conflicting trends are widening the disparities in election policy in the wake of the 2020 election, with Republicans heeding ... Donald Trump's calls to tighten rules and Democrats moving to make permanent many voting policies that helped turnout soar during the pandemic. At least 18 states this year enacted 30 laws restricting access to voting, according to an analysis as of mid-July by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice." ~~~
~~~ Zach Montellaro of Politico:"GOP legislative leaders in key battleground states are increasingly embracing 2020 election investigations that they once held at arm's length, as Arizona Republicans await a long-delayed final report from their own conspiracy-tinged 'audit.' Top Republicans in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have recently thrown their support behind new hunts for fraud or irregularities in the last election. Pennsylvania state Senate President Jake Corman sidelined a prominent Republican backbencher who had tried to lead an investigation and instead empowered a committee chair to launch one with his support. That effort is hiring vendors and scheduling hearings.... It's the next stage in GOP efforts to export the Republican election review in Arizona elsewhere, after state legislators from around the country made pilgrimages to Arizona to see the Republican state Senate's process there."
Charles Blow of the New York Times: "One hundred years ago this week, The New York World began to publish a 21-part explosive exposé on the inner workings of the Ku Klux Klan.... I was struck by just how resilient Klan ideology has been in the years since The World exposed the group's systems and rituals; its ideas have been repackaged and dressed up -- or, disrobed, as it were -- but the core tenets remain the same. I was even struck by how many of the same tactics are still being used to preserve white supremacy and subjugate racial, ethnic and religious minorities in this country.... By the early 1920s, [the Klan's] leaders had moved on from primarily anti-Black hatred. To grow the brand, they had to grow the ring of bias.... Furthermore, the Klan realized, much as Trump did, that hate was an industry and that the right -- or wrong -- man could milk it for profit.... The core ideology of the Klan lives on in a more palatable form.... One hundred years later, pointy-hat white supremacy has evolved into soft-shoe white supremacy: same goal, less gauche."
Maggie Haberman of the New York Times: "Alphonso David, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, was ousted by the group's board on Monday night over a report revealing that he had advised former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on how to handle sex harassment allegations. Mr. David, the group's first Black president, was terminated 'for cause' in separate votes by the boards of the Human Rights Campaign and its affiliated foundation after the two boards held a joint meeting. Beyond two abstentions from the foundation board, the votes were unanimous.... Mr. David, who had worked as a lawyer in Mr. Cuomo's office, was identified in the [Letitia] James report as involved in efforts to undermine Mr. Cuomo's first accuser, Lindsey Boylan."
Ali Soufan in a Washington Post op-ed: "... the terrorism era is far from over. A new, more dangerous phase has begun. Despite the Taliban's protestations to the contrary, al-Qaeda remains fused to the militants running Afghanistan, by an oath made by Osama bin Laden, and twice renewed by his successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In May, a U.N. monitoring group said of al-Qaeda that 'it would be difficult, if not impossible, to separate it from its Taliban allies.' Al-Qaeda is hardly the only terrorist group with a presence in Afghanistan. Most prominently, the local Islamic State affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, is a deadly threat, as shown by the horrific bombings at the Kabul airport last month. Afghanistan is on the verge of again becoming a hub for terrorism. Even before the Taliban fully took over, various extremist groups were running training camps there, the way they did before 9/11.... Afghanistan is now far from the only country in the region where extremist groups hold sway.... There is little the United States can do about it, because as these groups expand their power, America appears to be in retreat. Over the past decade or so, the United States has systematically dismantled its influence across most of the region's flash points."
"Always Look on the Bright Side." Miriam Jordan & Jennifer Steinhauer of the New York Times: "Throughout the United States, Americans across the political spectrum are stepping forward to welcome Afghans who aided the U.S. war effort in one of the largest mass mobilizations of volunteers since the end of the Vietnam War.... In a nation that is polarized on issues from abortion to the coronavirus pandemic, Afghan refugees have cleaved a special place for many Americans, especially those who worked for U.S. forces and NGOs, or who otherwise aided the U.S. effort to free Afghanistan from the Taliban. The moment stands in contrast to the last four years when the country, led by a president who restricted immigration and enacted a ban on travel from several majority-Muslim countries, was split over whether to welcome or shun people seeking safe haven." PD Pepe reminded us in yesterday's Comments of Monty Python's ironical admonition, but in fact there are a few bright lights dotting our shameful horizon. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Capitalism Is Awesome, Ctd. The Freedom Phone, a Smartphone for Dimwits. Jack Nicas of the New York Times: There is "a growing right-wing tech industry taking on the challenge [or providing services for so-called conservatives], relying more on their conservative customers' distaste for Silicon Valley than expertise or experience. There are cloud providers hosting right-wing websites, a so-called free-speech video site competing with YouTube and at least seven conservative social networks trying to compete with Facebook." The story profiles an obnoxious twit named Eric Finman, who introduced -- with little preparation & a crap Chinese android phone -- the "Freedom Phone." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here: "More than 40 million cases of the coronavirus have been recorded in the United States, according to a New York Times database.... Vaccines are effective in preventing severe disease and death, but 47 percent of Americans are not fully vaccinated.... No U.S. state has more than 70 percent of its population fully vaccinated, according to federal data.... After reading a list of people who died in his state from causes related to the disease since Friday, [Gov. Jim] Justice [R-W.Va.] pleaded with the unvaccinated people of West Virginia to get inoculated.... Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that unvaccinated Americans should avoid travel. But ... T.S.A. checkpoints recorded 2.13 million travelers through U.S. airports on Friday, close to the number on the Friday before Labor Day two years ago." ~~~
~~~ The Washington Post's live Covid-19 updates for Tuesday are here.
Never realized asterisks were Chinese characters. Thanks to Forrest M. for the link. Forrest is rightly concerned that MAGAs won't be able to figure out that the billboard advertises the $7.50 buffet.
Ohio. Jake Zuckerman of the Ohio Capital Journal: "A Butler County judge sided with a local hospital and reversed a previous court order forcing it to honor a prescription of ivermectin, which infectious disease experts have warned against as a COVID-19 treatment, for a patient who has spent weeks in the ICU with the disease. After two days of testimony and arguments, Common Pleas Judge Michael Oster issued an order Monday siding with West Chester Hospital. He said the hospital bears no duty to honor a prescription written for Jeffrey Smith, 51, for ivermectin, a drug used as a dewormer in horses and an anti-parasitic in humans.... Julie Smith [-- who brought the original suit on behalf of her husband Jeffrey --] testified that neither she nor her husband were vaccinated against COVID-19. She said it was 'experimental,' so she didn't trust it." Read on. The doctor who prescribed ivermectin for Jeffrey is not board-certified, hasn't worked in a hospital for ten years, and has neither seen Jeffrey nor reviewed his medical records. But hey.
Beyond the Beltway
Minnesota. Oh, Could It Be Obstruction of Justice? Jacey Fortin of the New York Times: "Minnesota State Patrol troopers deleted text messages and emails shortly after responding to protests that erupted over the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis last year, according to a major who testified in federal court in July. The testimony was included in court documents that were released on Friday as part of a lawsuit that the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota filed last year on behalf of journalists who said they had been assaulted by law enforcement officers while covering the protests. 'The purge was neither accidental, automated nor routine,' lawyers with the A.C.L.U. said in a court memo on Friday, adding that no one had been able to review the deleted communications to see if they might have been relevant to the case."
Virginia. Denise Lavoie of the AP: "A towering statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, is set to come down on Wednesday, more than 130 years after it was built as a tribute to a Civil War hero who is now widely seen as a symbol of racial injustice, state officials said Monday. 'Virginia's largest monument to the Confederate insurrection will come down this week,' Gov. Ralph Northam said in news release on Monday. 'This is an important step in showing who we are and what we value as a commonwealth.' The imposing, 21-foot (6.4-meter) tall bronze likeness of Lee on a horse sits atop a granite pedestal nearly twice that high in the grassy center of a traffic circle on Richmond's famed Monument Avenue.... The Northam administration has said it would seek public input on the statue's future."
Way Beyond
Afghanistan. Frud Bezhan of Radio Azadi in Informed Comment: "The Taliban has imposed a new dress code and gender segregation for women at private universities and colleges in Afghanistan, in line with a decree issued to educational institutions and obtained by RFE/RL. All female students, teachers, and staff must wear an Islamic abaya robe and niqab that covers the hair, body, and most of the face, according to the extensive document issued by the Taliban-run Education Ministry on September 5. The garments must be black, the text added, and women must also wear gloves to ensure their hands are covered. Classes must also be segregated by gender -- or at least divided by a curtain -- according to the order, which added that female students must be taught only by other women. But it added, though, that 'elderly men' of good character could fill in if there were no female teachers. Since seizing power after the collapse of the internationally recognized government in Kabul last month, the Taliban has said 'women and girls will have all their rights within Islam.'"
Australia. Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Damien Cave of the New York Times: "After years of casting doubt on climate change and attacking politicians who favored corrective action, Rupert Murdoch's media outlets in his native Australia are planning an editorial campaign next month advocating a carbon-neutral future. Depending on its content, the project, described by executives at Mr. Murdoch's News Corp on Monday, could be a breakthrough that provides political cover for Australia's conservative government to end its refusal to set ambitious emission targets. If sustained, it could also put pressure on Fox News and other Murdoch-owned outlets in the United States and Britain that have been hostile to climate science."
Belarus. Andrew Roth of the Guardian: "A Belarusian court has sentenced the senior opposition leader Maria Kalesnikava to 11 years in prison, punishing one of the most prominent opponents of the country's authoritarian leader, Alexander Lukashenko. Kalesnikava, a leader of the opposition's coordination council, was one of three women last year who united to lead an uprising in which tens of thousands of Belarusians took to the streets in the largest protests in the country's modern history."
Mexico. Goodbye, Columbus. Adela Suliman & Sofia Mateus of the Washington Post: "A statue of divisive European explorer Christopher Columbus that was on prominent display in Mexico City will be replaced with a figure of an Indigenous woman, the city's mayor said this weekend, as the country becomes the latest to reckon with the public commemoration of its past. The looming Columbus figure had stood tall on the Paseo de la Reforma boulevard for over 100 years, but on Sunday the mayor of the capital city, Claudia Sheinbaum, said it was time for a change of landscape and to make way for a monument that delivers 'social justice.'"
News Lede
New York Times: "Adlai E. Stevenson 3d, a scion of generations of Illinois Democrats, who shared the names and presidential ambitions of his father and great-grandfather but not their political successes, serving a decade in the Senate and losing two races for governor, died on Monday at his home in Chicago. He was 90."
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Reader Comments (10)
A fairly long article about NC GOP MAGA candidate Budd, airing charges that he and his dad stiffed farmers 20 years ago in a bankruptcy process.
What got to me, reading near the end, was a set of facts:
-- all the people quoted are Rs -- defendants, plaintiffs
-- all are in the ag biz
-- AFTER is was clear that the defendants (dad and son Budd and family wrapped up in LLCs and trusts) weren't going to pay all their debts to the farmers who sold them product, the US Congress passed a bill to provide "loans" to the farmers (plaintiffs) for 65% of the debt not covered in any eventual settlement, repayable if the settlement covered their losses (i.e. taxpayers take the loss when the settlement doesn't cover)
-- AND the state of Wyoming created a similar program for Wyoming farmers
Again, all of these folks are free-enterprise LLC owning independent ranchers, growers, and buyers, stiffing one another but in the end getting a bailout from feds and the state. Clearly, the very avatars of oligarchic socialism.
I don't really have a problem with subsidizing farmers, within reason. But I do have a problem with folks who take the cash and vote against the gov that saves them. Moral hazard.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ted-budd-trump-endorsement-farmers-bankruptcy/2021/08/30/816991a6-003f-11ec-825d-01701f9ded64_story.html
Now there's an idea...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58405216
Meant to send this yesterday as a Labor Day lagniappe, but the day got away from me. It’s from a few years ago but still relevant for two big reasons. The story relates a labor dispute in Maine where workers at a dairy company sued their employer for overtime wages they never received and it hinges on the wording of a state law which was punctuated incorrectly.
Over and above that miscue (education IS important), the law must have been written by some Neil Gorsuch clone because it pretty much outlaws overtime pay (but not overtime work) for pretty much everyone doing pretty much anything.
Nice, that, eh?
Anyway, the punctuation problem ended up costing the employer a bundle. So, class, learn how to use commas properly or you too could be out $5 million semoleons.
And you needn’t have gone to Oxford to learn that lesson.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/02/08/584391391/maine-dairy-drivers-settle-overtime-case-that-hinged-on-an-absent-comma
@Akhilleus: In the U.S., the Oxford comma is optional. What with Maine being in the U.S., if just barely, I'd have ruled for the dairy company, absent the final comma. I think the intent of the law, however abhorrent, is clear as to distribution.
However, I do wonder if it really applies to milk. The law applies to those involved in the distribution of "(1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods." I'm not sure milk is any of these things, though butter and other solid milk products would be "perishable foods."
On the other hand, the law likely includes definitions, and in the definitions section, (1) or (3) might include liquid "produce" (I think of produce as lettuce & onions) or "food."
Akhilleus,
That comma does cause problems, but...
I read the section of the law quoted three times, and I did not see how the presence or absence of the comma would make any difference. Like Marie, I thought the law--regardless of intent--was clear as it stood and would have denied overtime pay.
But then I'm not an Obama judge.
Wow!
Sanity, just across the river.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/09/07/mexico-abortion-supreme-court/?
Think business will boom?
Ken and Marie,
As someone who probably comma-tizes too frequently, I admit I’m more than a bit on the side of the judgment in this case.
Let’s say I put forward a codicil that said something like people in the following categories don’t get a birthday party on the anniversary of the happy occasion: those who rodeo ride, typewrite at night, drink more than 64 oz. of water a day, and those who play piano or guitar.
One could interpret this in two ways. Those who play piano get no cake, and neither do those who play guitar. But one could also decide that “those who play piano or guitar” is a singular, or collective group, and as such, cannot be separated (absent the comma, which would make the separation crystal clear). Therefore, if one was a guitar player who never indulged in the tinkling of the ivories (because “those who play piano or guitar” would seem to inextricably link the two activities, despite what one might think it means), that person would be blowing out the candles and chomping down the cake. Or in the case of the dairy laborers, getting an overtime check.
Without that clarity, any decision would have to be completely subjective. And since the connection (sans any incontrovertible separation to the contrary) of those who play piano or guitar offers a clearly supportable interpretation, well, there ya go.
In any event, the fact that it COULD HAVE gone the other way (ie, for ownership vs. labor) but didn’t, based on an entirety reasonable (and supportable) interpretation, gives me no end of pleasure.
We received some troubling news this morning:
Our grandson, Diego, who entered Tulane U. in late July, has Covid. The university had, prepared their students for the hurricane with food and water for three days but when the electricity was kaput they bussed students to Houston, Texas, put them up in a hotel where they would continue online classes OR they had the option of going back home and resume their classes. Diego opted for home. Within a few days back he lost his sense of taste but felt ok. He tested positive and is now in quarantine until Saturday. He WAS vaccinated but by the J&J which obviously wasn't strong enough. His sister, who is in the local high school, who also had the J&J tested positive on one test but tested negative on another; she has no symptoms at this time. So here we have a family–-both parents teaching in Greenwich private schools whose faculty and students ( all vaccinated) get tested every day have children who have been compromised. We hold our breath.
And I am still holding on to something--maybe my sanity–- for something legal that we can do to dismantle that nifty bounty hunter crap that Texas cowboys came up with. They devised it in such a way to make it extremely difficult to get the law involved. I am not a vengeful, hate filled human being; I, sadly am becoming a vengeful, hateful, human being.
I get it Akhilleus, but it took a lot of work, and I'm not satisfied it was worth it.....
...though I have been accused of taking too much pleasure in counting commas on heads of pins.
However, if I were to interpret a law, no matter how clumsily expressed, I'd go with intent, and in these cases the intent is to deny the benefits (overtime pay or cake), not denote an exception, so I'd go with that.
But if I wanted an excuse to go against what I thought the intent to be, I might follow my heart and blame the absent comma.
PD,
So sorry to hear the bad news of your grandson. Since he was vaccinated his prospects are very good. All here are holding your hand and wishing him and you well.
Of course you will never know where he picked up the bug, but my money is on NOLO. Just heard from a friend who flew down there following Ida to help his daughter whose home was damaged by the hurricane.
Fortunately, my friend and his wife (who has severe health problems) were vaccinated, took all precautions on the airplane, had Covid tests before departure but nonetheless returned to CA with Covid, in his case mild but uncomfortable, in hers more severe but so far nothing requiring hospitalization.
That damn bug is everywhere, but more prevalent in some where's than in others, and Louisiana would be one of the former.