;)
The Conversation -- February 18, 2024
Jennifer Bahney of Mediaite: "MSNBC panelists roasted House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) for condemning Vladimir Putin over the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, yet standing idly by as Russian aggression claims tens of thousands of lives in Ukraine.... Menendez [read from Johnson's statement]: '"In the coming days, as international leaders are meeting in Munich, we must be clear that Putin will be met with united opposition...." He acts as if he doesn't know there is a foreign aid package before his caucus that they could push through right now.' [Guest Julia] Ioffe responded, '... he acts like, you know, he's just a random American Joe saying, "We gotta do something." As opposed to the speaker of the House ... who has every possibility, he has all the power in his hands, he can bring this bill to a vote where it will most likely pass overwhelmingly. But he has already said many times that he wouldn't do that.'"
Ryan Lizza in Politico Magazine talks to Rep. Jim Himes (D-Ct.) about the day "all hell broke loose"; that is, the day Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the loose-lipped chair of the House Intelligence Committee sent a "Dear Colleague" letter announcing "a serious [but unspecified] national security threat." "In [a committee] meeting, I objected to communicating this," Himes said. At the same time, the committee was dealing with renewal of a foreign intelligence-gathering program, and some members of Congress wanted to make significant changes to it, changes that top national security officials believed would cripple the program. (Also linked yesterday.)
Presidential Race
Neil Vigdor of the New York Times: "... Donald J. Trump vented about his latest legal defeat to freezing supporters at a Michigan rally on Saturday night, a day after a New York judge fined him nearly $355 million plus interest in his civil fraud case.... 'This judge is a lunatic,' he said in his opening salvo at his rally, held inside an airport hangar in Oakland County about 30 miles from Detroit. Mr. Trump used a similar line of attack against Letitia James, New York's attorney general, who had accused him of exaggerating his wealth in the lengthy case.... He later continued to spread falsehoods about voter fraud in the state. 'We've got to watch Detroit. They had more ballots than they had voters.' The state Republican Party has been consumed in chaos, and this week two rival factions forged ahead with plans to hold dueling conventions on March 2, one in Western Michigan and the other in Detroit."
Jazmine Ulloa of the New York Times: "Nikki Haley on Saturday called Aleksei A. Navalny, the outspoken Russian opposition leader, 'a hero' and amped up the pressure on ... Donald J. Trump to respond to the news of his death. She said Mr. Navalny had died at the hands of President Vladimir V. Putin and that Mr. Trump needed to 'answer to that.' Speaking with reporters outside her rally at a park in Irmo, S.C., Ms. Haley praised Mr. Navalny for calling out Mr. Putin for corruption and fixing elections.... '... Putin has done to him what Putin does to all of his opponents -- he kills them,' she said.... 'And Trump needs to answer to that. Does he think Putin killed him? Does he think Putin was right to kill him? And does he think Navalny was a hero?'... Mr. Trump has not yet commented publicly on Mr. Navalny's death."
Dr. Lawrence Altman, in STAT, who has reported on the health of every president since Ronald Reagan, on what age is too old to be president: :... there is no direct correlation between a leader's health and performance in office." (Also linked yesterday.)
Maureen Dowd of the New York Times: "Just as Trump has remade the Republican Party in his own nasty and selfish image, he wants to remake America in his own nasty and selfish image. Trump doesn't seem to subscribe to any of the verities about this country. He doesn't believe America is exceptional. He only believes that Trump is exceptional -- an exception to all the rules that the rest of us live by. If American laws get in his way -- like counting votes to choose a president -- he tries to smash them. He's bigger than democracy, after all. If American values get in his way -- like our distaste for authoritarians like Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban -- he mocks those values." (Also linked yesterday.)
Trump Allies Plan a Deep State of Anti-Abortion Regulators. Lisa Lerer & Elizabeth Dias of the New York Times: "Allies of ... Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country. Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump's allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion -- including abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in America.... [Jonathan] Mitchell, who represented Mr. Trump in arguments before the Supreme Court over whether the former president could appear on the ballot in Colorado, indicated that anti-abortion strategists had purposefully been quiet about their more advanced plans, given the political liability the issue has become for Republicans.... The plans described by former Trump administration officials, allies and supporters propose circumventing Congress and leveraging the regulatory powers of federal institutions, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Justice and the National Institutes of Health."
"Candyman" Ronny Jackson & His One-Stop Shop. Dan Diamond & Michael Kranish of the Washington Post: "A long-awaited inspector general's report released last month faulted previous White House medical teams for widely dispensing sedatives and stimulants, failing to maintain records on potent drugs including fentanyl, providing care to potentially hundreds of ineligible White House staff and contractors, and flouting other federal regulations.... The inspector general's report sparked significant public alarm. But a Washington Post review found problems with the unit's conduct were even more pronounced than the Pentagon's latest findings, according to administration documents and interviews with former White House staffers and medical unit members.... Four former members of the White House Medical Unit confirmed that in both the Trump and Obama White Houses, the team passed out sedatives such as Ambien and stimulants such as Provigil without proper prescriptions, provided complimentary medical equipment and imaging to ineligible staffers, and used aliases in electronic health records to disguise the patients' identities and deliver free care in cases where the recipients wouldn't be eligible. Former staffers said those practices were shaped by Ronny Jackson, an emergency medicine physician who led the team under President Barack Obama, continued to exert control over it as ... Donald Trump's personal doctor, and ultimately spent nearly 14 years in the White House.... The Pentagon said in a statement that 'new personnel and reforms were put in place' in the medical unit under Biden's presidency...." ~~~
~~~ The inspector general's report, via the Department of Defense, is here.
Annals of "Journalism," Ha Ha Ha. Mr. Hannity Takes Umbrage. Caleb Howe of Mediaite: "Fox News host Sean Hannity went ballistic on members of the press for their 'feigned outrage' over the revelation this week that a key informant in the Republican case against President Joe Biden was busted for lying to the FBI." Hannity compared coverage of the arrest of Jim Comer's "star witness" Alexander Smirnov for feeding false tales about Joe & Hunter Biden's wrongdoing to the FBI to coverage of the Steele dossier. MB: It appears Hannity never mentioned that he touted Smirnov's fake "bombshell revelations" on his show 85 times (according to Chris Hayes of MSNBC), nor that Christopher Steele never claimed to the FBI that he had verified the allegations in the dossier. Rather, Steele gave the allegations to the FBI for them to investigate as they saw fit.
Alexander Marquez & Jason Abbruzzese of NBC News: "If anyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop in the upcoming presidential race..., Donald Trump just did, launching his own line of tennis shoes on Saturday ... at Sneaker Con in Philadelphia.... The line, called Trump Sneakers, is available for preorder online.... The high-tops, which are gold and emblazoned with a 'T' on the outside of each shoe, are called the 'Never Surrender High Top Sneaker' and are priced at $399 online. The athletic shoes, which feature a 'T' and the number 45 on the sides are priced at $199. The purchase of a pair of sneakers comes with extra laces and a Trump 'superhero charm.' The website selling the sneakers also features a 'Victory47' perfume and cologne for sale at $99 each." MB: Oh, if only I could afford a pair of $400 Trump sneakers!
Elon Musk's X Is Largely Fake. Matt Binder of Mashable: X "published [a] press release, lauding Super Bowl LVIII as one of the biggest events ever on the social media platform with more than 10 billion impressions and over 1 billion video views. However, it appears that a significant portion of that traffic on X could be fake, according to data provided to Mashable by CHEQ, a leading cybersecurity firm that tracks bots and fake users. According to CHEQ, a whopping 75.85 percent of traffic from X to its advertising clients' websites during the weekend of the Super Bowl was fake. 'I've never seen anything even remotely close to 50 percent, not to mention 76 percent,' CHEQ founder and CEO Guy Tytunovich told Mashable regarding X's fake traffic data. 'I'm amazed ... I've never, ever, ever, ever seen anything even remotely close.'... [By comparison, o]ut of more than 40 million visits from TikTok, only 2.56 percent were determined to be fake. Facebook sent 8.1 million visits and 2.01 percent of the monitored visits were classified as inauthentic. And over on Instagram, only 0.73 percent of the 68,700 visits from the platform were fake." (Also linked yesterday.)
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Texas. Fort Abbott. Ben Brasch of the Washington Post: "Flanked by armed National Guard members, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced on Friday plans to build a base housing up to 1,800 troops in Eagle Pass, close to the riverfront area where state leaders have been at loggerheads with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement. The base, planned to house an initial 300 troops by April, is the latest effort by Abbott to curb border crossings into Texas under a mission dubbed Operation Lone Star that he began less than two months after President Biden was inaugurated.... 'This will organize substantial forces also to expand the razor-wire barriers that are going up,' [Abbott said].... A contract, awarded Feb. 9 to the New Braunfels, Tex., company Team Housing Solutions, lists a completion date of Sept. 7 and a price of $131 million for the construction of the base, the military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported.... In January..., the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that Abbott let the [federal] Border Patrol remove the razor-wire barriers that prevented agents from reaching the river to help migrants in distress. Instead, Abbott installed more razor wire -- a move encouraged by 25 Republican governors who signed a letter of support."
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Israel/Palestine, et al. The Washington Post's live updates of developments Sunday in the Israel/Hamas war are here. The New York Times' live updates are here.
Ukraine, et al. David Stern, et al., of the Washington Post: "Ukrainian forces withdrew from the strategic city of Avdiivka in the eastern part of the country Saturday, paving the way for advancing Russian forces to clinch their most significant battlefield victory in nearly a year.... Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, speaking at the Munich Security Conference, acknowledged earlier on Saturday that a pullback from Avdiivka was underway. Ukrainian forces are struggling with shortages of ammunition, weapons and soldiers as a roughly $60 billion aid package proposed by President Biden remains blocked by Republicans in Congress. 'This is the cost of congressional inaction. The Ukrainians continue to fight bravely, but they are running low on supplies,' Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the [White House] National Security Council, said of the defeat Saturday." MB: I too would put this all on Mikey Johnson, Putin's puppet's puppet.
News Lede
New York Times: "Two police officers and a paramedic in a Minnesota city were fatally shot as they responded to a 'domestic-related shooting' on Sunday morning in which a man was barricaded with family members, officials said. The shooting took place just before 2 a.m. local time in the city of Burnsville, which is about 16 miles south of Minneapolis. The police received a call about a 'domestic situation,' the city said in a statement."
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Reader Comments (12)
Just imagine how the world would look today had Bible Mike style puppets to fascist dictator’s fanboys put the kibosh on FDR’s lend lease program that helped Britain stay afloat until the US entered the war.
They would have insisted that no help be given to European nations fighting their beloved hero, Adolf Hitler, unless and until Roosevelt put an immediate halt to all those depression era programs that were helping lazy, good for nothing poors with handouts and giveaways, demanding a return to the good old days of robber baron capitalism prior to any anti-trust and banking regulations.
After all, they were already actively spreading Nazi and anti-Semitic propaganda.
Good ol’ Republicans. Always looking out for dictators and the wealthy, and still at it!
Trump sneakers. What's next? Trump adult diapers (probably pre-
stained)?
Anyway, the shoes are available from Amazon.
TrumpTrendz Chunky Sneakers $84.95. Choose your logo:
"Save America Again" or "Let's Go Brandon"
House slippers $24.99 sporting trump's face and hairdo, real frizzy.
Women's running shoes "Guns, Beer, Trump" for $66.99. I guess for
running from law enforcement.
Trump Flip Flops $11.99 "I'll Be Back" (Flip slops describes him
to a T)
Men's Trump HighTopz sneakers $79.95
Also dozens of T-shirts and stuff with his famous logos.
These would make great gag gifts for that friend who has everything.
Except, that friend might never speak to you again.
P.S. We all know someone who has a safe full of cash.
Maybe that person will gift all of us with TrumpzSneakers. My
birthday is coming up soon so that might be my only gift.
Forrest,
All made in China, no doubt. By slave labor.
I don't understand how TX is getting away with its deplorable behavior-- has the federal government become absolutely impotent?? Military bases and miles and miles of razor wire?? It is way past time to cut the state off from ANY funding of ANY kind. It is sickening to watch nothing being done. And I realize that the poors and the immigrants will suffer, but it is time for the rich bankers and ranchers to suffer more. Re-route the airlines, keep everyone in so no oneelsewhere is further tainted or exploiting. Foreclose on everything. Sell and buy nothing. This makes me so angry. What else is new, right?
Eelsewhere= elsewhere
I realize all that is simply a rant, but come on!!
Bible Mike is a creep and a charleton. Of course, they all are. It's hard to choose...
Sunday Sermon (thanks to "D", who in no way shares the blame)
Most would agree there’s a great wrongness in our politics. We have no end of problems we refuse to deal with. Here at home, our immigration system is clearly unworkable, unfair to immigrants, guest workers, and angering our citizens. Internationally, we have the unimaginable tragedy of wars in Ukraine and the Near East that demand our attention. But hamstrung by intra-party fighting, the Republican-controlled House can’t seem to do anything. Now, with another government shutdown around the corner, the House has adjourned for two weeks, leaving itself only two days to pass funding resolutions upon its return.
In our post-compromise world, it’s easy to blame Congressional dysfunction on the rivalry between the Republicans and Democrats, but right now the biggest fight is within one of the parties. It makes me wonder if the difference between those who wish to fix problems and those who cause them is more fundamental than mere party labels can tell us.
Maybe our inability to solve problems stems from something as basic as sin. Whether one is a believing Christian or not, it does seem most human failings fall into the categories the Bible calls the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth.
The other day I had a long-distance conversation about sin with a commenter on my favorite political website.
As we corresponded, I sensed another Biblical phrase stirring. I remembered how St. Paul ranked sin’s opposites, the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. In his ranking, charity--greed upside down-- took first place.
In the world of sin, I wondered, which was top dog? My friend went with the Biblical list. “Pride comes first,” he said because all other sins stem from it, but I had my doubts. I opted for “greed,” which I believed deserves pride of first place. The sins of lust, gluttony, and envy are also expressions of wanting something you don’t have and most often don’t need.
Does Russia really need to own Ukraine? Does Elon Musk need to be a multi-billionaire? Do we need so much stuff we must build acres of storage units to contain it all?
Politicians often trade on the fear that someone is going to take our stuff. The government will tax us, so let’s gut the IRS. Brown immigrants will take our jobs, so let’s keep them out. Food stamps and Medicaid take money from my pocket. What’s mine should be mine.
Relations between workers and employers repeat the same who-gets-what scenario, often putting greed on full display.
Amazon has recently joined Elon Musk’s Space X and Trader Joe’s, both equally anti-union, in their claim that the National Labor Relations Board, which in the Biden administration often sides with workers, is unconstitutional (usnews.com). Since corporations aren’t mentioned in the Constitution either, it’s an interesting claim for any corporation to make.
Greed is everywhere in our politics. Which of our political failings isn’t caused by those who want more than they need? The inflation we’ve recently experienced is a good example. Our bout of inflation was not just about the diminishing value of our money. Last year, all-time high corporate profits accounted for more than half of the increased cost of goods (fortune.com). “Greedflation,” indeed.
Just this week, though, on its front page the "Skagit Valley Herald" reminded us charity is not dead. It’s still alive at Jefferson Elementary, where fourth and fifth graders are busy fundraising for Habitat for Humanity and Children of the Valley, both programs that reach out to help others in need.
Maybe the best and most honest way to judge our political parties and their politicians is by looking closely at how selfish they are. Do they act to help others or only themselves? Is charity or greed their guiding light?
Years ago, I worked in the first Skagit County high school to require a community service component for graduation. I still admire the teacher who created the program and am proud to have been associated with it.
I’d like to believe that small pride I feel when I think about those years isn’t all that much of a sin.
Ken,
Things might have been more clear if we had gotten all of the Commandments
I'll bet Trump is working right now on those 5 missing commandments, but I don't want to know how they turn out.
Speaking of historical reality, several years ago while attending the CSICON in Las Vegas, I got to have dinner with John Cleese. He assured me that Life of Brian is all true.
Now who are you going to believe? John Cleese, or some creepy old guy in Rome wearing a dress and waving smoke pots around? Besides, John speaks better Latin.
Thanks D for a great laugh. Life of Brian true. Well, why not? The other story is equally far-fetched.
D,
Ah yes, the many tripping points for students of Latin…declensions and cases…locative? Accusative? It’s even funnier if you’ve been through it, especially with a teacher who, like John Cleese’s centurion, enjoys “sarcasmus” (2nd declension noun, nominative case). Or maybe, as Cleese’s centurion points out, a simple “anus” (not ani, in which case the teacher would be a collection of assholes, which, now that I think of it, could apply in at least a few cases…).